Nine Books I Enjoyed Recently That Weren't My Usual Type

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is good books we've read in the past year that weren't our usual genre or were outside our comfort zone. This was a little challenging because I tend to read pretty broadly — classics, contemporary, YA, nonfiction, world literature, mystery, memoir — but there are still some areas I'm less inclined to read. Here are nine books that weren't my usual fare but which I enjoyed anyway.

1. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
I don't read a lot of fantasy because I tend to get annoyed quickly at illogical or incomplete world building. I was not a fan of City of Bones, but I liked this one better. I gave up on the next book in the series, though, because the audiobook narrator was different and I didn't like him.

2. Dancing with God by Karen Baker-Fletcher
This was a recommendation from a friend when I was trying to diversify my reading, and a lot of the theology stuff was over my head, so I was definitely not the target audience for this book. Still, I found the parts that I understood to be interesting and was glad I gave it a try.

3. for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
I don't tend to read a lot of poetry — I like some of it, but it's not something I seek out. This poetry-turned-performance was too dense for me at points, but most of it was clear and powerful. I wouldn't mind seeing this performed live.

4. Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman
Typically I wouldn't read a lot of books aimed at children, but last year when I was using bottle-feeding time to play audiobooks of children's books, I picked this one because it was available on OverDrive from our library. It turned out to be very enjoyable and funny, even for me as an adult.

5. The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
I stay away from books classed as "horror" because I can't handle a lot of gore or disturbing things. This one was recommended so many times, though, that I gave it a shot, and it was worth it — even though I still had to skip over a couple parts.

6. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
This is the only sci-fi I read all year, and it was for book club. It took me a while to get on board with the oddities of the fictional world and the unique words used, but I ended up really enjoying the book.

7. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
I read an unusually high (for me) number of plays this past year, some because I was auditioning for them and some because they were on my list of classics I was trying to finish. This was the latter. It's a powerful play about Annie Sullivan's dedication to helping Helen Keller learn to break out of her silence by teaching her a way to communicate

8. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
One of my goals in 2015 was to read some graphic novels, since I'd never read one before. This was probably my favorite of the handful I read. I found that the format made the story of Iranian history and revolution (against which background this memoir is set) easier to follow.

9. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
There seems to be a trend recently toward more dystopian literature, and it's not something I tend to enjoy unless it's very well done (see #1 re: world building). This, however, was very well done and deserved its accolades.

What good books have you read recently that weren't your usual fare?

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