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After

Heart the Lover

Lily King2025

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • The Lover's Dictionary

    David Levithan2011

    A novel told through dictionary entries that define the history of a single relationship. It jumps through time to show moments of intimacy.

    Same tender register, still romance

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → playful

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • The Sound and the Fury

    William Faulkner1929

    The decline of a Southern family told through four perspectives, including a non-linear stream of consciousness from a man with a disability.

    tender → elegiac

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

To recover

tender → playful, still romance

3 more ↓

  • The Hotel Nantucket

    Elin Hilderbrand2022

    A renovated hotel on Nantucket opens for the summer season. The story follows the staff and guests, including the ghost of a former chambermaid.

    tender → warm, still romance

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • 74 Seaside Avenue (Cedar Cove, Book7)

    Debbie Macomber2007

    A woman living in a small Washington town balances her job at a salon with concerns about her husband's secretive behavior.

    tender → warm, still romance

    pace0·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Rich People Problems

    Kevin Kwan2017

    An extended family gathers in Singapore as their matriarch lies dying. They scheme against one another to inherit a massive estate.

    tender → playful, still contemporary

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Child 44

    Tom Rob Smith2008

    A Soviet security officer investigates a serial killer in a state that officially claims murder does not exist.

    tender → tense

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

  • 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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → clinical

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    tender → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → elegiac

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

    Two slaves escape a Georgia plantation via a literal underground train system while being pursued by a slave catcher.

    tender → bleak

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+2