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The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

Mira Jacob2014

6 of 6 directions open

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  • The Last Romantics

    Tara Conklin2019

    Four siblings deal with their mother's withdrawal following their father's death. The story spans decades, framed by a poet in the year 2079.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    warm → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

  • 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.

    warm → sardonic

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+2

  • Autobiography of Red

    Anne Carson1999

    A novel in verse reimagines a Greek myth as a modern coming-of-age story about a red winged boy and his lover, Herakles.

    warm → dreamlike

    pace0·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

warm → playful

3 more ↓

  • The Manning Brides

    Debbie Macomber2008

    Two brothers navigate unconventional paths to marriage. One enters a marriage of convenience for a child, while the other finds love after loss.

    Same warm register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Takeover

    T.L. Swan

    A billionaire attempts to acquire a widow's family company but ends up moving into her home. It follows their power struggle and her three sons.

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Pioneer Woman

    Ree Drummond2011

    A city woman moves to a remote cattle ranch after falling in love with a cowboy. She details her transition to country life and farm chores.

    Same warm register

    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.

    warm → 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.

    warm → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    warm → wry

    pace+2·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Moby Dick

    Herman Melville1851

    A sailor joins a whaling voyage led by a captain seeking revenge on a specific whale. Large sections digress into the mechanics of 1850s whaling.

    warm → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

  • To the Lighthouse

    Virginia Woolf1927

    A family and their guests visit a house in the Hebrides. The narrative follows their internal thoughts over two days separated by ten years.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • A Distant Shore

    Caryl Phillips2003

    A retired teacher and an African refugee form a quiet bond in a xenophobic English village. Their past traumas emerge through alternating stories.

    warm → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    warm → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace0·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Nickel Boys

    Colson Whitehead2019

    A studious black teenager in 1960s Florida is sent to a brutal reform school where physical abuse is systemic.

    warm → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace+1·prose+1·bleak+2