Top Ten Tuesday...Books Outside my Comfort Zone

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. I have never done one of these, but this week's list seemed interesting. What are the Top ten books that were outside my comfort zone? I'm not sure I can give you ten, but I'm going to try. Some of these books I read this year. Not all of these were out of my comfort zone in a bad way, only a few.

1. There Is No Year by Blake Butler. This is at the top of the list because I still don't know what this book is about. It has no clear plot. Nothing is in sequence. Things came out of the walls. People were drowned. There was a room full of hair. Yes, hair. The only word I can think of is, "WEIRD!!!!"


2. Alison Wonderland by Helen Smith. This one was totally on the eccentric side. I was just stumped by it. I wasn't sure where the plot was going. The blurb on the back just didn't match what was inside.

3. White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I let all the praise from various authors inside the book sway me. I think I picked this one up in high school. I made it halfway through before I gave up. Maybe it was too highbrow for my teenage brain.

4. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. This one I did finish, but didn't understand. I bought it solely because I saw it on Oprah. At the time, it seemed like he was putting as many buzz words in the book as possible.

5. While I Was Gone by Sue Miller. Lady O again on this one!! I saw it on Oprah, read it, and was completely BORED. It had a good premise, a wife and mother is forced to face her past, which included murder. But again, I was BORED.

6. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I know I might be in the minority on this one. But I hated this book. This book has been praised by many since before I could read. I had to read this one for a college English class, perhaps the professor, who I couldn't stand, (She would make me late for my next class nine times out of 10) clouded my judgment. This was also the first time I had ever read a dystopian novel. I was used to books based in reality, and I just couldn't get into this book.

7.  True Colors by Kristin Hannah. It's not totally out of my comfort zone, but at the time I hadn't read a romance novel in a while. It was wrapped up too neatly at the end. It teetered on a Lifetime movie of the week. I actually have another book of hers that I want to get to. I don't give up on a author after one bad book. If Night Road is bad, I might give up on Kristan Hannah for good.

I'm sure there are more, but I coming up blank at the moment. There are lots of books that I didn't like, but they weren't necessarily out of my comfort zone. How about everyone else?