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

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  • Listing 5 books is a great start! I struggled with this topic as well and I definitely had to use “unique” in different ways. Whether it was the storyline or the characters haha! This was a great post! & I love the photograph you used with the Scrabble tiles! Did you take that photo?! :O

    • I wanted to keep the unique very unique so I sticked with things that aren’t very usual for books. But yeah, that title photo is all me.. there’s one for Thursday Movie Picks as well! ☺

  • Great list of books and ones I need to add to my list. I should read Miss Peregrine’s books as I liked how that one looked. I will recommend you check out House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielwiski. It’s about a family that moves into a house that is not what it seems. What makes it stand our from other horror novels is that it it’s written as a txt book about a documentary that was never released about this family. In the foot notes you get these writings from a guy who found this book and is becoming haunted the same way the family does. It changes narrative structure and word font and is really quite good Also check out the album Haunted by Poe which plays as a companion to the book

    • I’ve had House of Leaves in my TBR for quite a few years already but I haven’t bought the book yet. It’s quite a big read as well so it’s definitely intimidating as well. But I’m curious and your high praise definitely urges me on. Maybe this will be the final push!?!

  • I haven’t read any of these, but I don’t know if I can read Blindness with the lack of quotations. I hate when books do that. It was one of my biggest pet peeves about The Price of Salt.

    • I was surprised that I finished that book, and I’m glad I did. It had some very interesting points in regards to society. A clever observation by a very smart writer, and I think the choice not to use the quotations was part of the story itself – it sort of blended everything together without those usual breaks and you couldn’t catch a break.

  • I haven’t read any of these but I saw Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close years ago; I wasn’t crazy about it, but the story was interesting so I’m willing to give the book a try.

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