LitQueuelitqueue

After

Steppenwolf

Herman Hesse2009

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • The Woman Upstairs

    Claire Messud2013

    A schoolteacher becomes obsessed with the family of one of her students. She documents her growing resentment and their eventual betrayal.

    dreamlike → sardonic, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    dreamlike → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    dreamlike → sardonic, still unreliable narrator

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+1

  • A Brief History of Seven Killings

    Marlon James2014

    A large cast of characters recounts the 1976 attempt on Bob Marley's life. The narrative spans decades and moves from Jamaica to New York.

    dreamlike → propulsive

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2

To recover

dreamlike → playful

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • Behind the Net

    Stephanie Archer2024

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

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

  • She Went All the Way

    Meg Cabot2002

    A screenwriter and an actor survive a helicopter crash in the Alaskan wilderness and must hike to safety while being pursued by a killer.

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-1

Faster

3 more ↓

  • Child 44

    Tom Rob Smith2008

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

    dreamlike → tense

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    dreamlike → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    dreamlike → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • Nausea

    Jean-Paul. Satre1969

    A historian living in a French port town becomes overwhelmed by the physical realization of his own existence and the world's indifference.

    dreamlike → meditative, still philosophical fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • February

    Lisa Moore2009

    A widow in Newfoundland moves between her quiet daily routines and the memory of her husband's death on a sunken oil rig decades earlier.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

  • The Wilderness

    Samantha Harvey2009

    An architect with Alzheimer's attempts to reconstruct his life story. The narrative fragments as his memory and sense of time dissolve.

    dreamlike → elegiac, still psychological fiction

    pace-1·prose0·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The Lighthouse

    Alison Moore2012

    A recently separated man takes a walking tour of Germany while reflecting on his childhood abandonment and his failing marriage.

    dreamlike → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • The White Hotel

    D. M. Thomas1981

    A woman's life is told through poems, a Freudian case study, and a narrative. It moves from her sexual fantasies to her death in the Holocaust.

    Same dreamlike register, still psychological fiction

    pace0·prose0·bleak+2

  • My Dark Vanessa

    Kate Elizabeth Russell2020

    Vanessa reflects on her teenage relationship with a teacher after he is accused of abuse. The narrative shifts between 2000 and 2017.

    dreamlike → bleak, still psychological fiction

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2