Coming back with another Top Ten Tuesday! ( Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018.)
This week is: “September 3: Books I Enjoyed That Are Outside of My Comfort Zone (i.e., a genre you don’t typically read or subject matter you’re not usually drawn to)”
Enjoyed is past tense which means these have to be books I read? Oh. This will be hard indeed. Or… maybe. Am I drawn to classics? If the answer is yes, then I might be screwed. I already can’t pick poetry, plays, fantasy, or sci-fi. However, it’s not like I go out of my way to read classics all the time. It should count! We’ll see what I can come up with.
10.
Maximum Ride by James Patterson
When I first read this series (and first book) I was in the 10th grade. A girl in my Chemistry class told me to read the series and I had no interest in reading it at all. I did anyway, and fell in love. I wasn’t drawn to much of the angel scene at that time nor such action stories (plus I knew James Patterson for his adult books not his kid ones). This book started my trend of taking a lot more recommendations from others for books and talking about them way too often in class.
9.
Coiling Dragon by IET
This was the second Chinese webnovel I read (translated of course). The first was Douluo Dalu by Tang Jia San Shao. At the time when I read it, I was already pretty heavy into all other sorts of Japanese Light Novels and I had read/was reading Douluo Dalu. CD, however, pulled me in and threw me head first into the genre. From there I branched out to all other sorts of Chinese webnovels.
8.
Tokyo Mew Mew by Reiko Yoshida and Mia Ikumi
This was the first physical manga I read. I read it in the 7th grade and borrowed it from a girl in my gym class. I had already watched the anime series or part of it before reading this manga. This series was my gateway manga into other manga and reading manga instead of watching the anime. I did not become a full time reader until HS, however, but this was my first stone.
7.
The Bone Charmer by Breeana Shields
This was my first book that I got from Unicorn Crate. It fits the genre that I like to read but it was not a book I had ever heard about. It was something I was apprehensive towards, because I had never heard about it. Most of the time when I get books I’ve never heard of, I have the option of buying them or not at book stores this was given to me from the box and it had the added (sort of) pressure. It was great.
6.
The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques
This series got me into fantasy and I think I’ve talked about it before. Essentially I didn’t read almost any fantasy anything. Children’s books were historical fiction or contemporary. Other books I read were horror and mystery. This series opened the door to a whole other genre for me.
5.
Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer
This book series got me into traditional YA. At the time when I read these (7th grade), I had read children’s novels but my general genre of choice was Mystery and Horror. I was reading Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Agatha Christie. I was not reading Fantasy and Scifi. I can say with hard clarity that it was thanks to this book series that I got invested into more fantasy outside of Harry Potter or the Redwall series. This got me into YA. When I first read this series, I wanted to scream. I was only reading it to fit in, and then I read all four books in a week and everyone thought I skipped everything. It was just really easy compared to what I was reading before. It shoved me in and I never looked back.
4.
Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
I read this book, for a college English class. Its a memoir. I don’t read memoirs, but I really like this one. I definitely recommend it.
3.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Now this is a classic in my eyes. And the reason it is on this list is because at the time when I read it, I did not want to read this book. My 10th grade year I was in an honor class with only three other girls I knew, and all my other friends were in the pre-AP classes. I hated this class. We read the newspaper, The Crucible, watched that movie and then got to this book. I wanted nothing else but to ignore it and to read other great books that my other friends were reading in their classes. Needless to say that this book really changed me. (Its what happens when you read good literature). To be honest, I think this book can take the credit as the first WOC classic novel I read which is saying something.
2.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My best friend and I wanted to read this book only after we had heard the movie came out. I had already seen the movie by the time that I read this book and if you see my review you can see how I’ve compared the two. There are two reasons I would put this down. One, when I’ve seen a movie before reading the book, I tend to be apprehensive towards reading. Two, reading a book that created the movie that made me sob was not something I wanted to subject myself to. I did anyway, and I’m happy I did.
1.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Audio book. About a woman and telling her memoir to a lady. Seven husbands and drama. This book spelled disaster for me. It sounded boring, seemed like it would be long winded, and I simply don’t like romances or drama most of the time. (Okay who am I kidding, I love romance and drama… I simply love fantasy elements more). Then the fact that I listened to this as an Audio book. It was setting me up for failure and somehow this book has come out as one of the best books I have read this year. It’s that good, or maybe, I simply love it that much.
I realize a lot of these are gateway books, aka series or books that I read that pushed me full face into other genres at the time of me reading them, but as it is now I don’t really read many books that aren’t within my genres I read (or ones I’m apprehensive towards). As such, this is the best I got.
Until Next Time,
MM
Marlena Marie 