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After

If I Survive You

Jonathan Escoffery2022

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • The Sympathizer

    Viet Thanh Nguyen2015

    A half-French, half-Vietnamese double agent flees to Los Angeles after the Fall of Saigon. He continues to spy on his fellow refugees.

    Same sardonic register

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Denser prose

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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.

    sardonic → dreamlike

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  • Don Quixote

    Kathy Acker1986

    A woman undergoes an abortion and adopts the persona of Don Quixote to pursue a quest in a fragmented, postmodern landscape.

    Same sardonic register

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same sardonic register

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To recover

sardonic → playful

3 more ↓

  • I Capture the Castle

    Dodie Smith1948

    A teenager journals about her eccentric, impoverished family living in a ruined castle. Two wealthy American brothers arrive and change their lives.

    sardonic → warm, still coming of age

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  • Mile High

    Liz Tomforde2023

    A professional hockey player and a flight attendant clash on the team's private plane during a season-long road trip.

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  • Behind the Net

    Stephanie Archer2024

    A former musician becomes the live-in assistant for a professional hockey goalie she knew in high school.

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Faster

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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.

    Same sardonic register

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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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    sardonic → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

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  • Absalom, Absalom!

    William Faulkner1936

    The rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen is recounted through multiple, conflicting memories. The prose uses extremely long, complex sentences.

    sardonic → elegiac

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Housekeeping

    Marilynne Robinson1980

    Two sisters grow up in an isolated Idaho town under the care of their transient aunt. The prose focuses on memory and the nature of loss.

    sardonic → elegiac, still coming of age

    pace-2·prose0·bleak0

  • 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.

    sardonic → clinical

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    sardonic → bleak

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • The Underground Railroad

    Colson Whitehead2016

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

    sardonic → bleak

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same sardonic register

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1