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41 books
—
50 voters
Bleak Books
Showing 1-50 of 2,515
The Road (Hardcover)
by (shelved 45 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.00 — 1,053,017 ratings — published 2006
1984 (Paperback)
by (shelved 33 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.20 — 5,560,618 ratings — published 1948
I Who Have Never Known Men (Paperback)
by (shelved 23 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.08 — 542,497 ratings — published 1995
Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West (Paperback)
by (shelved 22 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.15 — 227,780 ratings — published 1985
The Stranger (Paperback)
by (shelved 22 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,438,463 ratings — published 1942
The Handmaid's Tale (Hardcover)
by (shelved 17 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.15 — 2,468,489 ratings — published 1985
No Longer Human (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.93 — 264,397 ratings — published 1948
The Bell Jar (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.05 — 1,250,877 ratings — published 1963
Never Let Me Go (Paperback)
by (shelved 13 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.85 — 872,798 ratings — published 2005
Tender Is the Flesh (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.77 — 422,301 ratings — published 2017
A Little Life (Hardcover)
by (shelved 10 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.27 — 953,832 ratings — published 2015
Lapvona (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 9 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.54 — 103,593 ratings — published 2022
Lord of the Flies (Paperback)
by (shelved 9 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.70 — 3,235,224 ratings — published 1954
The Book Thief (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 9 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.39 — 2,911,602 ratings — published 2005
The Metamorphosis (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.91 — 1,464,875 ratings — published 1915
Let the Right One In (Hardcover)
by (shelved 8 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.04 — 121,842 ratings — published 2004
Wuthering Heights (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.90 — 2,194,505 ratings — published 1847
Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)
by (shelved 8 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.00 — 290,063 ratings — published 2003
Brave New World (Paperback)
by (shelved 8 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.98 — 2,101,337 ratings — published 1932
Flowers for Algernon (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.24 — 809,740 ratings — published 1966
Shuggie Bain (Hardcover)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.30 — 195,227 ratings — published 2020
Slaughterhouse-Five (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.10 — 1,496,610 ratings — published 1969
The Vegetarian (Hardcover)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.65 — 405,366 ratings — published 2007
The Troop (Hardcover)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.83 — 130,275 ratings — published 2014
All Quiet on the Western Front (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.11 — 526,120 ratings — published 1928
Of Mice and Men (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.90 — 2,871,610 ratings — published 1937
On the Beach (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.98 — 50,282 ratings — published 1957
The Plague (Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.02 — 320,351 ratings — published 1947
Animal Farm (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 7 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.02 — 4,633,414 ratings — published 1945
A Short Stay in Hell (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.15 — 72,715 ratings — published 2011
Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.19 — 274,121 ratings — published 1993
The Trial (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.94 — 403,634 ratings — published 1925
The Ruins (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.69 — 68,151 ratings — published 2006
Beloved (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.98 — 497,660 ratings — published 1987
Gone Girl (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.15 — 3,481,917 ratings — published 2012
Ethan Frome (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.46 — 139,574 ratings — published 1911
Burial Rites (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.04 — 126,260 ratings — published 2013
Night (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.38 — 1,377,406 ratings — published 1956
Crime and Punishment (Paperback)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.29 — 1,104,427 ratings — published 1866
Dark Places (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.94 — 848,420 ratings — published 2009
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.35 — 10,029,336 ratings — published 2008
The Grapes of Wrath (Hardcover)
by (shelved 6 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.03 — 1,004,022 ratings — published 1939
Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
by (shelved 5 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.50 — 1,139,685 ratings — published 2025
Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
by (shelved 5 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.00 — 55,528 ratings — published 2006
Negative Space (Paperback)
by (shelved 5 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.69 — 9,171 ratings — published 2020
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Paperback)
by (shelved 5 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.83 — 54,252 ratings — published 1963
As I Lay Dying (Paperback)
by (shelved 5 times as bleak)
avg rating 3.72 — 189,157 ratings — published 1930
Roadside Picnic (Paperback)
by (shelved 5 times as bleak)
avg rating 4.12 — 89,592 ratings — published 1972
“If we only see things through the cold-eyed lens of factuality and don’t listen to the yearning and screaming of unexpressed feelings, life may remain bleak in a mire of clinical hollowness, sodden in apathy and indifference. ("Morning after")”
―
―
“I’m about to begin halfway saying that—
—that she was incompetent. Incompetent for life. She had never figured out how to figure things out. She was only vaguely beginning to know the kind of absence she had of herself inside her. If she were an expressive creature she would say: the world is outside me, I am outside me.”
― The Hour of the Star
—that she was incompetent. Incompetent for life. She had never figured out how to figure things out. She was only vaguely beginning to know the kind of absence she had of herself inside her. If she were an expressive creature she would say: the world is outside me, I am outside me.”
― The Hour of the Star
