LitQueuelitqueue

After

Imaginary Friend

Stephen Chbosky2019

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Camp Damascus

    Chuck Tingle2023

    A girl in a religious Montana town begins seeing monsters and discovers the truth behind a local conversion camp. It focuses on religious trauma.

    Same earnest register, still horror

    pace+1·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

earnest → dreamlike

3 more ↓

  • Android Karenina

    Лев Толстой2010

    The text of Tolstoy's classic is modified to include robots, cyborgs, and space travel in a 19th-century Russian setting.

    earnest → elegiac, still horror

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Racconti [55 stories]

    Edgar Allan Poe2011

    A collection of 55 stories featuring unreliable narrators and gothic settings. Themes include obsession, premature burial, and the macabre.

    earnest → dreamlike, still horror

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Gormenghast

    Mervyn Peake1950

    A young heir and a social climber navigate the rigid rituals of a decaying, labyrinthine castle. The prose is dense and descriptive.

    earnest → dark

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Love Comes Softly

    Janette Oke1979

    A widow on the 19th-century frontier enters a marriage of convenience with a widower to survive the winter and care for his daughter.

    earnest → tender

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The perfect Christmas

    Debbie Macomber2009

    A woman hires a grumpy matchmaker to find a husband. He assigns her three tasks to complete before he will introduce her to his chosen candidate.

    earnest → warm

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Danger in the Shadows

    Dee Henderson2002

    A woman in witness protection hides from a kidnapper while a FBI agent works to keep her safe. The story incorporates elements of Christian faith.

    Same earnest register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Intercepts

    T.J. Payne2020

    A worker at a government facility monitors human test subjects driven insane by sensory deprivation. The experiment enters his private life.

    earnest → tense, still horror

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+2

  • Infected

    Bobby Adair

    A slow-acting virus turns the population into aggressive predators. The story follows a survivor navigating the initial societal collapse.

    earnest → propulsive, still horror

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

  • The Undead Day One

    R.R. Haywood

    A supermarket manager attempts to survive the first twenty-four hours of a zombie outbreak in England. The story is told in real-time.

    earnest → propulsive, still horror

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Gödel, Escher, Bach

    Douglas R. Hofstadter1979

    An exploration of how cognition emerges from hidden neurological patterns. It uses math, art, and music to explain self-referential systems.

    earnest → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak-1

  • 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-1·prose+2·bleak0

  • 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-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Burning Side

    Sarah Damoff

    earnest → tense, still horror

    pace+2·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Mapping the Interior

    Stephen Graham Jones2017

    A teenager follows a figure resembling his dead father into the hidden spaces of his home. He maps a shifting, dangerous interior.

    earnest → elegiac, still horror

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Flowers in the Attic

    V.C. Andrews1979

    Four children are hidden in an attic for years by their mother and grandmother to secure an inheritance. They face gradual poisoning and abuse.

    earnest → elegiac, still horror

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2