Top Ten Tuesday: Most Unique Books I’ve Read

Here we go, week two of Top Ten Tuesday, and with the topic now fully book-related, I’m already sensing that this will become a much harder challenge than I originally thought. There is just no way I could think of ten books to fill up a category each week. As proven by the fact that for this week’s theme, I manage to think of five unique books I’ve read – which isn’t a good start to my Top Ten Tuesdays but at least it leaves me a lot of room to grow!

Since unique can refer to any aspect of the book, there are various different ways I decided to approach this topic. Most of the picks are based on the visual aspect of the book though because those seem to stand out from the crowd just by being themselves – different and unique.

1. ILLUMINAE, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

It’s no surprise that The Illuminae Files is a series that looks like something from out of a sci-fi movie – it is literally the manifest of the story itself. And while the first half of the book took me a while to get into, by the middle of the book I was hooked and the way the story was presented through files, interviews, logs and images, was actually way more awesome than I initially thought. Illuminae’s story and plot benefit from its visual presentation and it makes this book (series) clever and unique. For those who do not know yet, Illuminae takes place in space and there is a war happening – the rest I recommend to find out for yourself.

2. EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE, by Jonathan Safran Foer

I read this book before I was fully committed to reading, way back when I read like 5 to 12 books a year, and yet I still remember the way the book elevated its story through images and various ways to present the text format. Visual elements that accompany the story give it a more realistic feel, we are not only reading but we are also seeing what the main character is seeing – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but with this book, it worked. The story revolves around 9/11, and there is a series of images at the end of the book, reversed, that is still as haunting as it was when I first saw it.

3. THE INTIMATE ADVENTURES OF A LONDON CALL GIRL, by Belle de Jour

A British television series by the same name lead me to this book, which I haven’t technically finished yet, but it’s still on my TBR. The reason why I think it’s unique is the fact that the story itself is based on true events and the author was an actual call girl, and I think that is not so common when it comes to having an authentic and true to life perspective. Written at first as a web diary, the book is definitely not for younger readers since it’s pretty much like Sex and the City meets the sex-worker.

4. BLINDNESS, by José Saramago

I chose this book because of it’s writing style – there aren’t any quotation marks in the entire book. None what so ever. There is dialog, and characters do speak to each other but none of the conversations are presented through quotations which is a very unique way of writing. Also, it is very interesting to read such a book because it is very tense and yet it somehow sucks you in and doesn’t allow you to lose focus. The story itself is a very sophisticated take on a dystopian world where everyone except our main protagonist has white-blindness. It’s the way she sees the world slowly losing its humanity that makes the reader wonder how fragile our society actually is.

5. MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN, by Ransom Riggs

Last but not least (I told you this was going to be a quick one), there’s another book that stands out because of its visual presentation. Miss Peregrine’s series looks mysterious from cover to cover, and it’s the photographs, collected by the author himself, that illustrate the story so well that it makes the whole reading experience fascinating and yet eerie. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a middle-grade book completely suitable for adults as well. It has unique characters, friendship and a message of acceptance all sprinkled with a bit of adventure and horror.

THIS SERIES IS CREATED BY THE BROKE AND THE BOOKISH