LitQueuelitqueue

After

Where the Forest Meets the Stars

Glendy Vanderah2019

6 of 6 directions open

More like it

1 more ↓

  • 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

    Elif Şafak2019

    A sex worker dies in Istanbul, and her brain remains active for ten minutes. Each minute triggers a memory of the friends who shaped her life.

    Same tender register, still contemporary

    pace0·prose+1·bleak0

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.

    tender → sardonic

    pace-1·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+2

  • Beloved

    Toni Morrison1987

    A mother in post-Civil War Ohio is haunted by the ghost of the daughter she killed to spare from slavery. The prose is dense and non-linear.

    tender → elegiac, still magical realism

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+1

To recover

tender → warm

3 more ↓

  • Loner

    Jamie Schlosser

    A socially isolated young man becomes protective of a popular girl after they connect in a small town.

    tender → earnest

    pace0·prose-1·bleak-1

  • Till There Was You

    Marie Force2019

    A man returns to his island home to recover from a tragedy. He finds comfort and a new relationship with a woman he has known for years.

    pace-1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • To Sir Phillip, With Love

    Julia Quinn2003

    Eloise Bridgerton travels to meet a widowed baronet she has only known through letters. They consider a marriage of convenience.

    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.

    tender → 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.

    tender → propulsive

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

  • The Martian

    Andy Weir2011

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

    tender → wry

    pace+1·prose-1·bleak-1

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+1

  • 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+2

  • Invisible Cities

    Italo Calvino1972

    Marco Polo describes fifty-five imaginary cities to Kublai Khan. The book is a series of short, prose-poem meditations on urban existence.

    tender → meditative, still magical realism

    pace-2·prose+2·bleak0

Heavier

3 more ↓

  • Ironweed

    William Kennedy1983

    A homeless alcoholic returns to Albany in 1938. He encounters the ghosts of his past while trying to find a day of work and reconciliation.

    tender → elegiac, still magical realism

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Summer that Melted Everything

    Tiffany McDaniel2016

    A boy claiming to be the devil arrives in a small Ohio town during a 1984 heatwave. His presence triggers a series of local tragedies.

    tender → elegiac, still magical realism

    pace-1·prose+1·bleak+2

  • The Road

    Cormac McCarthy2006

    A father and son walk through a landscape of ash and scavengers toward the coast. They carry only what fits in a shopping cart.

    tender → bleak

    pace-1·prose+2·bleak+2