Please suggest a novel dealing with people trying to be better in their ordinary lives

I love fiction books that aren’t preachy or moralizing but include an aspect of characters trying to be better people in some way without heroics. Like in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, there’s this quote about people “who live faithfully their hidden lives and rest in unvisited tombs.”

I don’t mean it needs to be dark like that (that no one cares or will remember them), but just that I’m looking for stories about ordinary people and not The Chosen One type of stories.

To give you an example, I love Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which involves romance and isn’t dark, but the character of Anne is someone who tries to be kind and help others, even though she isn’t perfect and struggles with depression.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!