LitQueuelitqueue

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Letters from Home

Kristina McMorris2011

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

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  • Orphan Train

    Christina Baker Kline2013

    A foster teen helps an elderly woman clean her attic, uncovering a shared history of displacement and the 1920s orphan trains.

    Same earnest register, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    earnest → sardonic, still historical fiction

    pace0·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

  • 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.

    earnest → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

3 more ↓

  • This Girl

    Colleen Hoover2013

    A husband retells the story of his early relationship to his wife. It uses dual timelines to revisit events from the first book in the series.

    Same earnest register

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Red Lily

    Nora Roberts2005

    A single mother in Tennessee falls for her employer's son while a century-old ghost possesses her. It is the final book in a trilogy.

    earnest → warm

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The American Roommate Experiment

    Elena Armas2022

    A writer with a collapsed ceiling shares a studio with her friend's cousin. They start a fake dating experiment to cure her writer's block.

    earnest → playful

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    earnest → sardonic

    pace+2·prose0·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.

    earnest → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    earnest → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

earnest → elegiac, still historical fiction

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.

    earnest → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    earnest → clinical

    pace-1·prose+2·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.

    earnest → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Heavier

earnest → bleak, still historical fiction

3 more ↓

  • The Known World

    Edward P. Jones2003

    A black man who was once a slave becomes a slave owner in antebellum Virginia. The story follows the fallout on the plantation after his death.

    earnest → meditative, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • A Long Long Way

    Sebastian Barry2005

    A young Irishman joins the British Army to fight in the trenches of World War I while his home country moves toward rebellion.

    earnest → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • Brotherless Night

    V. V. Ganeshananthan2023

    A young woman in Sri Lanka tries to study medicine while her brothers join militant groups during the civil war. It covers a decade of conflict.

    earnest → elegiac, still historical fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2