Top Ten Books I Read That Were Outside My Comfort Zone

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish featuring a new top ten list each week. Everyone can participate- head on over to their blog and sign up.

I do like to step outside my comfort zone with my reading material from time to time so I don’t get burned out on a particular genre or category of books. I’m willing to read most anything, but for the purpose of this list I chose books with subject matters that initially made me uncomfortable.

In no particular order, these are some books I read that were outside my comfort zone:

2. Unwind by Neal Shusterman – I love dystopian books, but this one is a little darker than I usually read. The unwinding process described in the book is quite disturbing.

3. Wither by Lauren Destefano – Another dystopian book that I enjoyed quite a bit, however polygamy and young pregnant girls are not part of my normal everyday reading material.

4. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray – The over the top satiric in your face writing style is not my usual type of read.

5. Bumped by Megan McCafferty – Similar to Beauty Queens, the lingo, biting humor and religious theme of Bumped made for a unique book for me.

6. Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman – The graphic nature of this book and the sexual predator storyline made for an uncomfortable read.

7. Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott – Same story as above – the graphic scenes and subject matter made this difficult to get through.

8. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender – This book is a bit unusual, and one of my first books with magical realism.

9. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson – Getting inside the mind of someone suffering from anorexia is a dark place to be.

10. Room by Emma Donoghue – This harrowing abduction story is told from the child’s perspective and feels terrifyingly real.

Ultimately, even though I was a little squeamish with the subject matter of some of these books, I did enjoy reading all of them. And by challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone it keeps reading fresh for me.

Did any of these books make your list? I’m curious to see the books that are on your list.

Ornament

16 thoughts on “Top Ten Books I Read That Were Outside My Comfort Zone

  1. Great list. You have quite a few that I still need to read.

  2. Jessica says:

    I forgot about Room, that should have been on my list as well.

  3. I’ve got Forbidden on my list, too. I also imagine we’ll see that one a lot today. I haven’t read most of the others on your list, although I did enjoy Beauty Queens. Of course, sarcasm is like a second language to me :0) Great list!

    My Top Ten

    1. Lucy says:

      Beauty Queens is really good! It just had to read it in small doses for some reason. Yup, Forbidden is the first book I thought of for this list.

  4. Your list has quite a few of the books I want to read soon – especially Room and Beauty Queens. I also don’t know if I could get through a book on incest though. Tough stuff!

    1. Lucy says:

      Forbidden is a heavy read but an amazing book. Room and Beauty Queens are both very unique and also worthwhile.

  5. Beauty Queens is one of my favorite books. I thought it was really funny!

    1. Lucy says:

      Yes – Beauty Queens is so funny and unique!

  6. bookchelle says:

    This was a great post. I’ve only read a couple of these books. I should do the same and read outside of my comfort zone. I love your Tuesday posts, so insightful and inspiring!

    1. Lucy says:

      Thanks, Michelle! You should participate in TTT sometime. It’s one of my favorite memes. It’s great that you read so many different types of books already, but I feel that I need to branch out more.

  7. Michele says:

    Great list! I hadn’t heard of some of these… Wither’s on my to-read list.. and I picked up Beauty Queens a while back for my Kobo but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.

    Michele | My Top 10

  8. Book Nympho says:

    Room should have been on my list too. I only picked it up because everyone was crazy about it. But I just couldn’t get into it. Oh well, at least I tried!

  9. Kelsey says:

    I didn’t make a list this time, a bit too busy, but Wither would have made it into mine, and I haven’t read the others on your list yet.

  10. I agree with Wither being out of my comfort zone as well. It was quite different than anything else I’ve read

  11. Nicole says:

    I’ve been meaning to read Unwind by Neal Shusterman and Wither by Lauren Destefano. Going to have to get on those soon. Nice list! 🙂

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