Satiric novels can be so many different things. They can be bitter and angry or gentle and warm. They can be cruel to their targets or fond of them, or somewhere in between. To be satire, a story has to use humor, irony, and exaggeration to critique something or someone, but that leaves a lot of room for tonal variety. And, of course, satiric stories can have so, so many different subjects. They can criticize politics, academia, a particular social class, or certain attitudes about race. They can critique widely known subcultures, such as sports, schools, political campaigns, or workplaces.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Be
Read More View in CatalogFleishman Is in Trouble
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations. He co
Read More View in CatalogThe Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules
Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
Martha Andersson may be seventy-nine-years-old and live in a retirement home, but that doesn't mean she's ready to stop enjoying life. So when the new management of Diamond House starts cutting corners to save money, Martha and her four clo
Read More View in CatalogThe Divorce Party
Laura Dave
Two women at the opposite ends of marriage are trying to answer the same question: When should you fight to save a relationship and when should you begin to let go? On their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, Gwyn Huntington and her husband, Thomas, i
Read More View in CatalogCatch-22
Joseph Heller
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy--it is his ow
Read More View in CatalogSchool for Good Mothers
Jessamine Chan
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn't have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents' sacrifices. She can't persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter
Read More View in CatalogMy Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
A shocking, hilarious and strangely tender novel about a young woman's experiment in narcotic hibernation, aided and abetted by one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature. Our narrator has many of the advantages of life, on the s
Read More View in CatalogBunny
Mona Awad
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utte
Read More View in CatalogIf This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe
Jason Pargin
If the broken neon signs, shuttered storefronts, and sub-standard housing didn't tip you off, you've just wandered into the city of "Undisclosed". You don't want to be caught dead here, because odds are you just might find yo
Read More View in CatalogSnow Crash
Neal Stephenson
In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races
Read More View in CatalogA Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his fr
Read More View in CatalogAn Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good
Helene Tursten
Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and... no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translate
Read More View in CatalogAmerican psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through tor
Read More View in CatalogAnimal Farm
George Orwel
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equali
Read More View in CatalogGood Omens
Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
There is a distinct hint of Armageddon in the air. According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655, before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn)
Read More View in CatalogMy Sister, the Serial Killer
Oyinkan Braithwaite
"Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer." Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boy
Read More View in CatalogLess
Andrew Sean Greer
Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too aw
Read More View in Catalog1984
George Orwell
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston fi
Read More View in CatalogFahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
A book burner in a future fascist state finds out books are a vital part of a culture he never knew. He clandestinely pursues reading, until he is betrayed.
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