After
Carrie Soto Is Back
Taylor Jenkins Reid2022
- pace
- prose
- structure
- bleakness
5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from
More like it
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Beartown
Fredrik Backman2017
A small Swedish town pins its hopes on a junior hockey team until a violent act involving the star player divides the community.
Same earnest register, still sports fiction
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
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Wish You Were Here
Jodi Picoult2022
A woman travels to the Galápagos alone during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She experiences isolation while her boyfriend works in a hospital.
Same earnest register, still contemporary
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
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That Summer
Jennifer Weiner2021
Two women with similar names connect after a misdirected email. Their meeting unearths a shared history involving a sexual assault decades prior.
Same earnest register, still contemporary
pace0·prose0·bleak+1
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All We Ever Wanted
Emily Giffin2018
A scandal involving a leaked photograph forces a wealthy Nashville mother and a working-class single father to confront their values.
Same earnest register, still contemporary
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1 more ↓ ↑
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Good Material
Dolly Alderton2024
A struggling stand-up comedian tries to understand why his long-term girlfriend broke up with him. He stalks her social media and moves into a van.
earnest → wry, still contemporary
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Denser prose
earnest → sardonic
- pace-1prose+2bleak+2
As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner1915
The Bundren family travels by wagon to bury their matriarch. Fifteen different narrators describe the journey as the corpse decomposes.
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
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Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon1973
During the end of WWII, an American lieutenant's sexual encounters seem to predict where German V-2 rockets will fall. The narrative is fragmented.
pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2
3 more ↓ ↑
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A Brief History of Seven Killings
Marlon James2014
A large cast of characters recounts the 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life. The narrative spans decades and moves from Jamaica to New York.
earnest → propulsive
pace0·prose+2·bleak+3
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Ulysses
James Joyce1914
Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.
earnest → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
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Briefing for a Descent into Hell
Doris Lessing1971
A man is found wandering London and placed in a psychiatric ward. The narrative shifts between the hospital and his internal cosmic hallucinations.
earnest → dreamlike
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Faster
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Dial A for Aunties
Jesse Q. Sutanto2021
A photographer accidentally kills her blind date. Her mother and aunties help hide the body during a massive luxury wedding.
earnest → playful
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- pace+1prose0bleak+2
Child 44
Tom Rob Smith2008
A Soviet security officer investigates a serial killer in a state that officially claims murder does not exist.
earnest → tense
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3 more ↓ ↑
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Candide
Voltaire
A naive young man travels the world while his tutor insists that everything is for the best. He encounters a series of global catastrophes.
earnest → sardonic
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The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown2003
A symbologist and a cryptologist flee the police while solving puzzles hidden in art. They search for a secret regarding the Holy Grail.
earnest → propulsive
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
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The Martian
Andy Weir2011
A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.
earnest → wry
pace+1·prose-1·bleak0
Slower
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Ulysses
James Joyce1914
Three characters wander through Dublin on a single day in 1904. Each chapter uses a different literary style to mimic thoughts and sensations.
earnest → playful
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1
- pace-2prose+2bleak+3
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner1936
The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.
earnest → elegiac
pace-2·prose+2·bleak+3
3 more ↓ ↑
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Umbrella
Will Self2013
A psychiatrist in 1971 treats a woman who has been catatonic for decades. The prose shifts between eras and consciousnesses without paragraph breaks.
earnest → clinical
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Translated Accounts
James Kelman2001
Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.
earnest → bleak
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The English Patient
Michael Ondaatje1992
Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.
earnest → elegiac
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Heavier
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A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara2015
Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.
earnest → bleak, still contemporary
pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3
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The Road
Cormac McCarthy2006
A father and son walk through a landscape of ash and scavengers toward the coast. They carry only what fits in a shopping cart.
earnest → bleak
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3 more ↓ ↑
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The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead2016
Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.
earnest → bleak
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3
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Oryx and Crake
Margaret Atwood2003
A man survives a genetic apocalypse in a world of engineered creatures. He remembers his past with a scientist and the woman they both loved.
earnest → sardonic
pace0·prose+1·bleak+3
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Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut1969
Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.
earnest → sardonic
pace0·prose0·bleak+3
