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After

Walking on Glass

Iain Banks1985

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

Same sardonic register, still unreliable narrator

1 more ↓

  • Good Behaviour

    Molly Keane1981

    A woman recalls her youth in an Anglo-Irish manor, where the strict social codes of the gentry mask cruelty and financial ruin.

    pace0·prose0·bleak0

Denser prose

3 more ↓

  • The Pale King

    David Foster Wallace2011

    An unfinished, experimental novel about the mundane daily operations of an IRS processing center in 1985 Illinois.

    Same sardonic register

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • The Vivisector

    Patrick White1970

    A painter uses the people in his life as raw material for his art. He observes their flaws and suffering to translate them onto canvas.

    sardonic → cold

    pace0·prose+1·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.

    sardonic → dreamlike, still unreliable narrator

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

To recover

sardonic → propulsive

3 more ↓

  • This Man

    Jodi Ellen Malpas2013

    An interior designer begins an affair with a wealthy client who demands total control over her life and schedule.

    sardonic → tense

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Ready Player One

    Ernest Cline2008

    A teenager in a dystopian future hunts for a digital easter egg inside a massive simulation. The quest relies on 1980s pop culture trivia.

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • Real Murders

    Charlaine Harris1990

    A librarian in a small Georgia town belongs to a club that studies famous crimes. A real murder occurs that mimics a historical case.

    sardonic → wry

    pace+1·prose-2·bleak-2

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.

    Same sardonic register

    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.

    sardonic → propulsive

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    sardonic → wry

    pace+2·prose-2·bleak-2

Slower

sardonic → elegiac

3 more ↓

  • 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.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak0

  • Walden

    Henry David Thoreau1854

    A man lives in a small cabin by a pond for two years. He records his daily expenses, the local wildlife, and his thoughts on solitude.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-2

  • Gilead

    Marilynne Robinson2004

    An elderly preacher in 1950s Iowa writes a letter to his young son about their family history. He reflects on his father and grandfather.

    sardonic → meditative

    pace-1·prose0·bleak-1

Heavier

sardonic → 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.

    Same sardonic register

    pace+1·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    pace0·prose0·bleak+1

  • 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.

    Same sardonic register, still unreliable narrator

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak+1