Top Ten Tuesday is a fun weekly feature hosted by the fantastic blog The Broke and the Bookish. This week the topic is Top Ten Most Unique Books I’ve Read. This category crosses quite a few genres for me!
Top Ten Most Unique Books I’ve Read :
1) Lolita by Vladamir Nobokov- There’s never been quite as elegant, distracting, and unreliable narrator as Humbert Humbert.
2) Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Lani Taylor- Taylor takes on the most unique and elegant approach to the genre of YA angels-and-demons/paranormal romance I’ve read. She’s unparalleled in world building, and her detail-rich writing takes place in lavishly described cities all over the world (and in other worlds). Taylor has the most elegant writing of any YA author I’ve read, and Karou is a stand-out main character with her blue hair, collection of teeth, and ability to resurrect. Read my review here.
3) Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson- Speak was the first book I encountered about sexual assault in the YA genre. It’s unique in its raw depiction of the truth of sexual assault and the aftermath that’s often just as traumatic, and Anderson doesn’t try to sugarcoat or undermine the very real problem of assault amongst teenagers and young adults.
4) The Selection by Kiera Cass- The premise of this series is what makes it so unique to me- it blends the trendy dystopian genre with our culture’s obsession with reality tv shows like The Bachelor and smashed the two together. I’ve never read a series that read so much like a reality show.
5) Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin- Loosely based off a story by Edgar Allan Poe, Masque of the Red Death haunted me for weeks after reading it with its eerie combination of steam-punk elements, infectious plague, and dirty glamor. It retains a beautiful and chilling darkness that I’ve yet to find in any other YA series.
6) Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami- This is the first text by Murakami I read for a Japanese Literature in Translation class, and Murakami has a way of writing that really gets under your skin, proving that fear really resides and manifests in the self rather than in things that go bump in the night.
7)Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides- Middlesex does an amazing job weaving together many different narratives into one engaging story, including sexual identity, immigration, multiculturalism, and cross-generational narratives. It explores a family’s quest for the American Dream side by side with the quest for gender and sexual identity.
8) Cinder by Marissa Meyer- The Lunar Chronicles take the most unique modern-interpretation of fairy tales I’ve read, blending them with sci-fi, cyborgs, and a dystopian world set over a thousand years in the future. And it all works flawlessly. Read my review here.
9) Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout-If you’ve read my blog you know I have no love lost for the Lux Series. Armentrout takes a really unique twist on the YA paranormal fiction and instead of using the predictable cast of vampires, werewolves, and fairies, she chooses to go in an underdeveloped area- aliens.
10) Twelve by Nick McDonell-The most gritty portrayal of a high school cast in a YA novel I’ve seen. It has a dark tone throughout that exposes the underbelly of the type of privileged cast that appear in other YA series of the 2000’s, such as Gossip Girl or the A-List.
Link back to your Top Ten Post and I’ll be sure to stop by and check it out! I’d love to see your thoughts this week!
Girl in the Pages 