Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Read Recently That Weren’t My Typical Genre (or Were Outside My Comfort Zone)

Greetings and salutations; Welcome (or welcome back)!

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and I am still getting into the groove of participating.  This week I’ll be discussing 10 books that I read recently (in the last year) that stood out to me in some way.  I don’t really have a reading comfort zone; I read almost everything.  Some things, admittedly, more (or less) than others, but still, pretty varied.  Let’s see what I come up with…

1)  The Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor
I read this recently, and since it’s rare that I read a high-fantasy book, this was a bit out there for me, but I really enjoyed it.

2)  Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do About It – Kate Harding
I am no stranger to nonfiction, but what was strange was the speed with which I read this book.  I usually read nonfiction at a really slow pace, absorbing the info and reading other books in between sessions.  I read this straight through with no interruptions.  It was that engrossing.

3)  Made You Up – Francesca Zappia
This was the first book I’ve read (at least in QUITE some time) that had an unreliable narrator, and that was entertaining and thought-provoking on a different level.

4-6)  Red Rising, Golden Son, and Morning Star – Pierce Brown
As I mentioned in my review of the series, I don’t often read fantasy or sci-fi, but I couldn’t put these books down.  My favorite trilogy of all time.

7)  The Wednesday Group – Sylvia True
This is a beautiful story of friendship, addiction, and the facades we all put on for the world.  It’s adult fiction, so not something outside of my comfort zone, but I found it completely striking.

8)  Necessary Lies – Diane Chamberlain
This is historical fiction, which I enjoy sporadically.  Set in the 1960s and exploring the ideas of racism and agency, this made its way onto my list of favorites of all time.

9)  Treasure – Rebekah Weatherspoon
I stumbled upon this book on Amazon.  It’s a book with Black lesbian protagonist, and I found this after making a decision to try to diversify my reading list.  I’m no stranger to African American literature, but I hadn’t read anything with a lesbian protagonist (that I could recall), so I picked this one up!  I think it could have delved a little deeper into some of the issues it brought up, but if you are looking for books that are different from what is usually out there, it’s worth the read.

10)  The PMS Club – Carolyn Brown
This is an adult fiction book; the characters are a group of women in their mid-thirties.  I feel like most of the books I read have characters a bit younger than that, so this one stood out in my mind.  I loved the characters and a somewhat more mature look on life.  I also like that it is made clear that 35 isn’t old.  I’m not yet in my thirties, but passing that threshold can be scary, and I like that this book paints a good picture.

Thanks for making it to the end of my list; share some of your “non-typical” reads in the comments!