Broken Earth trilogy — If you only read one thing from this list, make it The Fifth Season, which is the first in the series. Very character-driven, really unique world-building and parallel narratives that tie together in The Most satisfying way. The first 50 pages or so are a tad confusing since it introduces a lot of its own lingo and is written in an unconventional POV, but it picks up fast. It does alternate between first, second and third person depending on character (of which there’s three) throughout the book, which SOUNDS gimmicky but I promise it’s done well. Copies come with a glossary at the back, which I’m mentioning because I didn’t realize it was there when I first started, but it helped clear up a lot of the initial confusion with terminology once I found it. Great emotional moments and explorations of humanity. Fantasy with a touch of apocalyptic.

Villains duology, which is by the same author as Darker Shade of Magic. Starting with Vicious, the plot revolves around the idea of what makes a hero vs a villain. The protagonist is an anti-hero who definitely does a lot of amoral things, but the one who is presented as and sees himself as a hero is also a straight-up serial killer...so there’s that. Not as emotion-driven since both the protags/antogs are sociopaths. Features superpowers, but in a realistic way? If that makes any sense? Setting is modern day, real world. Second book isn't as necessary a read since the plot wraps up pretty nicely. 

Chaos Walking trilogy, which starts with The Knife of Never Letting Go. Unlike the others I’ve listed, it’s technically YA but avoids a lot of the tropes in that genre; the main thing is that it is a coming-of-age type plot. Emotional prose? Check, if you don’t mind it being written in vernacular. Character struggles with humanity? 200%. Setting is a pre-industrial sci-fi world where people’s thoughts are audible, but is by no means hard sci fi.

The Poppy War trilogy — Historical fantasy, with magic and shamanism, and is based on imperial China and Chinese-Japanese history. Genre does kinda shift halfway through, from being more academy-focused to a war. Revolves a lot around the trade-off between power vs humanity vs vengeance, though it does take awhile to get there. Content warnings for genocide, drugs and mentions of rape.

A Song of Ice and Fire - Because no list about books with conflicting moralities, great antagonists and deep world-building is complete without mentioning this. Also I’m a shameless evangelist of these books in general. It’s the opposite of small scale, but all the characters are so well done and you can really get in the heads of each of them and ugh, I love. The show adaptation wishes it could be a tenth as good. Also, no lavish descriptions unless you count GRRM’s fondness for being really detailed about listing food items.