February 23, 2016

Out of My Comfort Zone

Today's Top Ten Tuesday topic is Books I Enjoyed Recently That Were Not in My Typical Genre.

The problem is that I don't have a Typical Genre. I would say that some types of books I definitely read less often, so we'll go with that. Now, what might those be? Well, I'm not a huge fan of horror. I don't typically read romance books. Not a huge fan of sci-fi. So let's see what I've read in the last year or two that might have surprised me.

  1. Dear Life by Alice Munro - I forgot! I'm not a big short story collection reader. But this collection was pretty great.

  2. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - This horror novel only got 3 stars from me, but that's pretty good for a genre I tend to avoid.

  3. Joyland by Stephen King - Another horror novel I didn't hate.

  4. Redshirts by John Scalzi - This one is a sci-fi novel. I mean it takes place on a space ship for crying out loud. But it's also a parody. And I love a good parody.

  5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - I avoided this book for a long time because I was afraid it would be too "science-y". And it does have that element, but it mostly focuses on the social issues of the case. I am always down for social issues reading.

  6. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine - This is a collection of poetry. Yeah, that's not really my thing. But I gave this one 4 stars. I struggle with poetry. I often don't understand what is going on. But even if I don't get everything, I got enough to like what I read.

  7. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - This is self-help. Not only that, it's self-help about housekeeping. I don't care for self-help in general, but household chores are the worst! Why would I waste my precious reading time thinking about tidying up? But it was so weird and actually kind of inspiring. I cleaned my sock drawer.

  8. Lock In by John Scalzi - Here's another sci-fi novel. But it was also a mystery. And it was a good mystery. It's probably not a mystery why John Scalzi has two books on this list.

  9. Cinder by Marissa Meyer - It's not just a sci-fi novel. It's a fairy tale retelling in a sci-fi novel. But it actually was really well done with a girl power theme.

  10. The Dinner by Herman Koch - I wouldn't classify this as a horror novel exactly, but it is definitely creepy and messed up. I ended up liking it way more than I expected.

So what are some books that surprised you?