LitQueuelitqueue

After

Second Glance

Jodi Picoult2003

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Gothic Tales

    Elizabeth Gaskell2000

    A collection of Victorian short stories involving family curses, doppelgängers, and the Salem witch trials.

    Same elegiac register, still ghost story

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Ambergris

    Jeff VanderMeer2020

    This collection follows the history of a city built atop a subterranean race. It uses fake histories, journals, and detective noir.

    elegiac → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

  • Ligeia

    Edgar Allan Poe2004

    A narrator mourns his first wife, Ligeia, then marries another who falls ill. He watches as the second wife's body appears to transform.

    elegiac → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

  • The House of the Seven Gables

    Nathaniel Hawthorne1981

    A New England family lives under a multi-generational curse in a decaying mansion. The story explores the weight of ancestral guilt.

    elegiac → meditative

    pace0·prose+2·bleak0

To recover

3 more ↓

  • To Sir Phillip, With Love

    Julia Quinn2003

    Eloise Bridgerton travels to meet a widowed baronet she has only known through letters. They consider a marriage of convenience.

    elegiac → warm

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • All Rhodes Lead Here

    Mariana Zapata2021

    A woman moves back to her Colorado hometown after a breakup and rents a garage apartment from a grumpy single father.

    elegiac → warm

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Hannah's List

    Debbie Macomber2010

    A widower receives a letter from his late wife suggesting three women he should date. He begins to interact with each woman over the following year.

    elegiac → warm

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • The Rising

    Brian Keene2003

    A father travels across an apocalypse where the dead are possessed by malevolent, intelligent demons. The world is ending permanently.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+2

  • Shattered

    Dean Koontz1973

    A man and his future stepson drive across America while being stalked by the woman's vengeful ex-husband.

    elegiac → tense

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak0

  • The Executioner

    Chris Carter2010

    A Los Angeles detective hunts a serial killer who murders victims using their specific phobias. Each crime scene features a blood-scrawled number.

    elegiac → tense

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Dhalgren

    Samuel R. Delany1975

    An amnesiac wanderer enters Bellona, a city cut off from the world where time and geography shift. He joins a gang and writes poetry.

    elegiac → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    elegiac → 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.

    elegiac → playful

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Frankenstein

    Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley1818

    Victor Frankenstein assembles a living being from scavenged parts. The narrative follows the creature's rejection and its violent revenge.

    Same elegiac register

    pace0·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.

    Same elegiac register

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

  • The Terror

    Dan Simmons2007

    Two British ships searching for the Northwest Passage in 1845 become trapped in ice and are hunted by a creature.

    elegiac → bleak

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2