Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Enjoyed By Being A Genre Rebel

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Rebel: a person who resists … convention.

Convention: a way in which something is usually done, especially within a particular area or activity. See: norm, habit – Google translation

I wasn’t sure that rebel would be the right word, but I think it fits. In this case, I’m only rebelling against the norm that I myself set and continued to follow. For reading, my genre norm tends to be Sci-Fi/ Fantasy, heavy on the fantasy and Urban Fantasy with a little YA thrown in. I’ll read almost anything as long as a book keeps me interested beyond page 30 though. However, I do tend to go towards the genres listed above first, which means that a lot of my classic novels will probably end up on this list.

So, with that being said, here are the books I recently enjoyed when I decided to be a genre rebel (titles link to Goodreads):

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Just by starting a classic reading list/ challenge for myself, I was already setting myself up to read outside my comfort zone, which is one of the reasons why I did it. I thought One Hundred Years of Solitude was going to be one of those classics that was hard to understand, but ended up being a well-written and beautiful novel.

All Quiet On the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

I usually don’t find myself initially attracted to war novels or novels set in the past, but I did enjoy reading this and found it worth the read.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway was another writer that I was afraid of. I always think that many of these older, ‘classic’ novels are going to be dense with intellectual and philosophical themes and dialogue that are hard to understand. The Sun Also Rises proved me wrong.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Okay, so I did mention above that I do tend to gravitate towards YA literature. However, that was really once recently in the last couple years considering Sarah Dessen was the only YA author I always look for. Fangirl opened up the YA door so to speak, especially through the blogging community. I look forward to more YA reads.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I definitely would not have even considered reading a Russian literature novel from the 1800’s if it wasn’t for my classic reading list.

A Million Ways To Die In the West by Seth McFarlane

This was definitely a surprise. One, historical fiction is another genre I don’t always gravitate towards intentionally. Two, McFarlane is a creator of Family Guy, a show that I find annoying and with humor that I just don’t understand half the time.

Crazy Little Thing by Tracy Brogan

Contemporary (Adult) Romance Fiction is another genre I don’t always think of first. This is definitely a beach/summer read. I finished it within a week. I enjoyed it, it was cute.

Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

This is technically a Children’s Literature book, right? I don’t know if it would technically be outside my comfort zone, but it was definitely not within my usual reading norm.

Eight! That’s all I got. My classic novel list has definitely put me behind on my reading wishes and TBR list. Now that I’m done with it, here’s to hoping that my answers for these kinds of things gets more interesting!

Are any of these outside your normal reading habit and/ or genre?

Happy Reading!