LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Dead Romantics

Ashley Poston2022

5 of 6 directions open — nothing to recover from

More like it

1 more ↓

  • Worth the Fall

    Claudia Connor

    A Navy SEAL on vacation meets a pregnant woman with four children. They develop a relationship while sharing a beach house.

    Same tender register, still contemporary romance

    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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

  • 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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+3

  • 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.

    tender → dreamlike

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

Faster

3 more ↓

  • The Professional: Part 2 (The Game Maker, #1b)

    Kresley Cole

    A Russian enforcer continues his pursuit of a graduate student across Europe. The focus is on their sexual power dynamic and his mafia duties.

    tender → tense, still contemporary romance

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak0

  • Victory at Prescott High

    C.M. Stunich

    A high school girl seeks revenge against the boys who bullied her while navigating a complex relationship with all of them at once.

    tender → propulsive, still contemporary romance

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1

  • Child 44

    Tom Rob Smith2008

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

    tender → tense

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+2

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → clinical

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Translated Accounts

    James Kelman2001

    Anonymous witnesses describe life under a military regime. The prose uses broken, bureaucratic syntax to mimic a literal translation.

    tender → bleak

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak+3

  • The English Patient

    Michael Ondaatje1992

    Four people shelter in a ruined Italian villa at the end of WWII. They care for a burned, anonymous man who recounts his past in the desert.

    tender → elegiac

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2

Heavier

tender → bleak

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+3

  • A Little Life

    Hanya Yanagihara2015

    Four friends in New York over thirty years. One of them is being destroyed, and the book does not look away.

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+3

  • Slaughterhouse-Five

    Kurt Vonnegut1969

    Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, experiencing his life out of order, from his chaplaincy in WWII to his abduction by aliens.

    tender → sardonic

    pace0·prose0·bleak+3