LitQueuelitqueue

After

How to Walk Away

Katherine Center2018

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

Same warm register, still contemporary romance

1 more ↓

  • Beach Read

    Emily Henry2020

    Two rival authors living in neighboring beach houses challenge each other to write in the other's genre over the summer.

    pace0·prose0·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.

    warm → playful

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    warm → elegiac

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+3

  • 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.

    warm → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    warm → tense, still contemporary romance

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

  • Victory at Prescott High

    C.M. Stunich

    A high school girl seeks revenge against the boys who bullied her while navigating a complex relationship with all of them at once.

    warm → propulsive, still contemporary romance

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

  • Child 44

    Tom Rob Smith2008

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

    warm → tense

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

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.

    warm → clinical

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

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

    warm → bleak

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+3

  • 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.

    warm → elegiac

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • I'll Go to Bed at Noon

    Gerard Woodward2004

    The Jones family spends a decade succumbing to alcoholism. The book tracks their physical and social disintegration in 1970s Britain.

    warm → bleak, still domestic fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3

  • 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.

    warm → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+3

  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

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

    warm → bleak

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3