3 adult fiction books which have a similar setting/plot/theme and differ in difficulty for psychology experiment

[Pauliina]

Hi all!

I am conducting a psychology experiment about reading behaviours at my university in Scotland. For the experiment, I am looking for 3 books: an easy read, a regular and a difficult fiction book.
I am a huge book-lover myself, but I am having a hard time coming up with good books to use in the study.

All the books should be for adults, and have about a similar structure/storyline. Basically, I am looking for 3 adults' fictional books which differ most significantly in how easy or hard they are to read. Also, it is important that the participants have not read the book previously, so it is a plus if the books are not so well-known.

All help would be massively appreciated!! I would love to hear any suggestions, no matter if you are recommending 1, 2 or 3 books.

Thank you! :)

[Joseph]

You give an interesting challenge. Maybe these three will work, all have pirate-themes to them.

Easy read: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Regular read: Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
Difficult read: Hook & Jill by Andrea Jones

[Anna]

The most challenging part is finding three books sufficiently varying the difficulty...

"Beauty and the Beast" theme:
Easy read: Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast
Regular read: Entreat Me
Difficult read: The Land of the Beautiful Dead

[Pauliina]

Thank you so much Joseph & Anna! Both themes would seem like really good options, the only thing I came up with was America in the 20s and I'm not sure if that's too interesting for Scottish participants.

[Michele]

I like Anna's suggestion -- I think going with retellings of classic stories is the best way to ensure that the books have similar structure and storyline.

For example, Cupid and Psyche (caveat: I haven't read the first two, I'm going by the "preview" sample provided)
Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire - easy
Painted Blind - medium
Till We Have Faces - difficult

It depends also, though, on what you mean by "easy read" and "medium read." For example, Bridget Jones's Diary is a modern version of Pride and Prejudice. P&P would probably count as your difficult read, but would Bridget Jones count as an easy or medium read?

[Aerulan]

Anna wrote: "The most challenging part is finding three books sufficiently varying the difficulty...

"Beauty and the Beast" theme:
Easy read: [book:Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast|414..."

Not disputing your suggestion, but it's worth mentioning that Land of the Beautiful Dead is very sexually explicit ( and quite dark too, it's a great book though!) just in case that's a factor that the OP needs to consider when choosing the books to use.

ETA it's also really long at over 700 pages which might be a problem too depending on how long the experiment allows for completing the reading for each book.

[Aerulan]

Pauliina
When you talk about "difficulty" are you looking more for writing style, vocabulary/language use, or content?

[Empress]

There is a similar thread on reddit, but the books are recommended by genre. In case you are curious here is a link.