LitQueuelitqueue

After

Gypsy

Carolyn Brown2004

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Empire of Silence

    Christopher Ruocchio2018

    Hadrian Marlowe recounts his life from noble fugitive to the man who destroyed an alien race. It is a memoir of a long, galactic war.

    Same elegiac register, still coming of age

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

2 more ↓

  • Paradise Logic

    Sophie Kemp2025

    A young woman follows advice from a magazine to become a perfect partner. Her quest involves surreal jobs and messages from the beyond.

    elegiac → epic, still historical

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Madame Bovary

    Gustave Flaubert1856

    A doctor's wife in provincial France seeks escape from her mundane life through expensive tastes and extramarital affairs.

    elegiac → tense

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Fifty Shades of Grey

    E.L. James2000

    A college student enters a sexual contract with a wealthy businessman. The story focuses on their power dynamics and BDSM encounters.

    elegiac → earnest

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

    A man does arithmetic to stay alive on Mars. Problem, attempt, result, repeat.

    elegiac → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Ready Player One

    Ernest Cline2008

    A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

    elegiac → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Paper Princess

    Erin Watt2016

    An orphaned girl is taken in by a wealthy family with five hostile sons. She must navigate high school bullying and mansion politics.

    elegiac → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

  • Savage Prince

    Meghan March2018

    A powerful man in the New Orleans underworld becomes obsessed with a woman and pursues her despite the danger of his lifestyle.

    elegiac → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak0

  • The Professional: Part 2 (The Game Maker, #1b)

    Kresley Cole

    A Russian enforcer continues his pursuit of a graduate student across Europe. The focus is on their sexual power dynamic and his mafia duties.

    elegiac → tense

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Blackouts

    Justin Torres2023

    A young man cares for a dying elder in a medical facility. They use a 1930s study on homosexuality to reconstruct their personal histories.

    Same elegiac register, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same elegiac register, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • Dhalgren

    Samuel R. Delany1975

    An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

    elegiac → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

Same elegiac register, still literary fiction

3 more ↓

  • Wuthering Heights

    Emily Brontë1846

    Two families on the Yorkshire moors deal with the arrival and subsequent revenge of an adopted orphan. The story is told through nested narrators.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • Brokeback Mountain

    Annie Proulx1997

    Two ranch hands begin a secret sexual and emotional relationship in 1963 Wyoming. The story follows their occasional meetings over twenty years.

    Same elegiac register

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • Bright Side

    Kim Holden2014

    An optimistic college student moves to Minnesota for a fresh start while hiding a terminal diagnosis from her best friend.

    elegiac → tender

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+2