+1 on loving the bleak books. 5 stars for me over the past few years:
Old Filth trilogy by Jane Gardam (pretty much anything by her actually)
The Juniper Tree and Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
The Bird Family Trilogy by Joseph Boyden (Three Day Road, Through Black Spruce, and The Orenda)
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, and Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Any Alice Munro short story collection
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knausgard
Freya by Anthony Quinn
A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Villavicencio
In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne
Anything by Sarah Moss
Patience by Toby Litt
Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel
Zorrie by Laird Hunt
Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey
Anything by Claire Keegan