Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten of the Most Unique Books I’ve Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is Top Ten of the Most Unique Books I’ve Read.

For me, what makes a book unique is when it goes in a completely different direction to what I assumed it would when I read the blurb. We’ve all had books like that; where the blurb only reveals a small part of the plot, smaller than it normally would, so you go in with few expectations only for them to be blown out of the water by the story the author has written instead.

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Half Bad by Sally Green

The blurb for Half Bad does give you a good idea of what the story is and where it goes in this first book, however it’s the journey the author takes us into Nathan’s character that made this such a unique read. Half the book was spend watching him grow up in a world that despised him, and it gave us a much greater insight into his character that we would have never had otherwise.

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The Next Together by Lauren James

Again this is a book where the blurb gives you a good idea of where the story goes. What made it unique for me was the way it was written and all the questions that were raised. The characters were never sure what was happening to them, and as the reader I wasn’t either. It’s only in the second book that we get the answers we need for this story to make sense.

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The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet focuses on the characters more than the plot, and that’s what makes this book stand out from every other sci-fi release I’ve picked up so far. The development of the characters was perfect; they all had their own voices, their own personalities and their own conflicts they needed to work past.

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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

When I first read the blurb I thought this would be a light-hearted (ish) fantasy story about the children who come back home from their dream worlds. What I got was a horror story, in more ways than one. Even in terms of fantasy books Every Heart a Doorway is a unique book, but add the horror storyline and it was like nothing I’ve ever read before.

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Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Laini Taylor is an author who’s stories you can never really predict. Strange the Dreamer has a long blurb which, at first glance, appears to give you more information on the book than you could possibly need. Instead it’s more of a smoke screen, and the second Lazlo steps foot into Weep the story and the characters move to places you never could have expected.

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The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness is an author who seems to excel at writing unique stories, something you can likely tell given there are three of his books on my list this week. The Knife of Never Letting Go is my favourite of all his releases, and the blurb gives absolutely nothing away so I found myself constantly surprised at where this story went.

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More Than This by Patrick Ness

I’ll admit when I first saw this book on Goodreads I wasn’t all that interested. Like with The Knife of Never Letting Go the blurb gives nothing away and when I first read it I wondered how Ness could have filled a 300/400 page book with a story based on it. However when I picked this book up on a recommendation it ended up surprising me in the best way possible.

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Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

I could fill this list with magical realism books, simply because it’s in their nature to be unique; to create magic in the world and make it real for the readers. Bone Gap is the first magical realism book I read and in terms of unique books it’s still at the very top of my favourites list.

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We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

If you’ve read this book you likely already know what made me pick it for this list this week. The twist at the end was something I’d heard a lot about before picking up We Were Liars, but despite my best guesses, and even the fact that I thought I could see it coming a mile away, I was still left stunned when the twist was revealed.

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A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Having already seen the trailer for the film by the time I finally got around to this book, I knew what to expect. The blurb and trailer were a pretty good indication for what this book would be like, but what makes A Monster Calls unique is pretty much everything. Even though you know where this story will go it is still one that you’ll quickly fall in love with.

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what some of the most unique books you’ve read are.