LitQueuelitqueue

After

The Taxi Driver's Daughter

Julia Darling2003

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

    Bryn Greenwood2016

    The daughter of a drug dealer grows up in poverty and begins a romantic relationship with an adult ex-con. It spans her childhood and adolescence.

    wry → earnest, still coming of age

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • Brother. do. you. love. me

    Manni Coe2022

    A man moves to a cottage to care for his brother who has Down syndrome. They navigate daily life and reconnect through art and nature.

    wry → tender, still coming of age

    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.

    wry → dreamlike

    pace-1·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.

    wry → sardonic

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2

To recover

3 more ↓

  • Going Cowboy Crazy

    Katie Lane2011

    A woman travels to a small Texas town to find her secret twin sister and is mistaken for her by the local residents and her sister's ex-flame.

    wry → playful

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Marrying Mr. Wrong

    Claire Kingsley

    Two rivals wake up married in Las Vegas and decide to stay together to help their respective careers.

    wry → playful

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Hot Number

    Carly Phillips

    A sports publicist undergoes a physical makeover to shed her tomboy image. She attempts to catch the attention of a professional ballplayer.

    wry → playful

    pace0·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.

    wry → sardonic

    pace+1·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.

    wry → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    Same wry register

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

Slower

3 more ↓

  • On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

    Ocean Vuong2019

    A son writes a letter to his illiterate mother, recounting his family's history in Vietnam and his own experiences growing up in America.

    wry → elegiac, still coming of age

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • Blackouts

    Justin Torres2023

    A young man cares for a dying elder in a medical facility. They use a 1930s study on homosexuality to reconstruct their personal histories.

    wry → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

  • 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.

    wry → elegiac, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+1

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • The story of a brief marriage

    Anuk Arudpragasam2016

    Two refugees enter an arranged marriage in a Sri Lankan camp during the final days of the civil war. It focuses on the physical details of survival.

    wry → meditative, still literary fiction

    pace-2·prose+1·bleak+2

  • 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.

    wry → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace-1·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.

    wry → bleak, still literary fiction

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2