Hey guys! I’m looking for new books and i just love books with a unique format. Can be plot, writing style or even cover. My most unique reads were battle royale and horrostor. What are yours? Edit: just remember invisible monsters by Chuck Palanhiuk! Another unique book.
Iain M. Banks Feersum Endjin one of the characters narrates the story phonetically.
Alan Duff Once Were Warriors and sequels. Entirely written as interior monologues.
All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld is told backwards. Each chapter takes place before the previous one.
Twenty-One Truths about Love by Matthew Dicks is told entirely in lists.
A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan switches genres about 60% through. It’s best if you know that and nothing else.
Clemens P. Suter’s “Heavenland” a plainly weird crime story. Entertaining though.
“The people in the trees” lives in my head rent free, but not 100% in a good way. Huge SA trigger warning (not pervasive in terms of time spent on the topic, but yeah, if you are AT ALL squeamish about that sort of thing, give this one a pass). But it is quite unlike anything else I’ve read and stuck with me in a way other books I randomly grabbed at the library with no context generally do not. Left me very much questioning how I view people and the world and how easy it is to allow monsters to hide in plain sight.
I really recommend the Raw Shark Texts. It’s really interesting in that it only works as a book, and it really plays with the meta. I’m told it’s like House of Leaves in that respect, and I loaned it to someone in exchange for their copy of House of Leaves but that’s a way tougher read so I’ve stalled out pretty early.
XX by Rian Hughes uses different fonts for different characters. The story isn’t told in a linear fashion and there are plenty of twists and doubling back.
‘The Iron Dream’ by Norman Spinrad. In 1921, a young German war veteran named Adolph Hitler left his homeland and moved to America. He settled in New York’s Greenwich Village and started illustrating pulp novels. After a few years he was confident enough to start writing. This book is considered his masterpiece …
If you can find it, Gooberz by Linda Goodman is a pretty wild read. It’s a poetic semi-autobiography with an overarching theme of love and grief.
It’s also printed in a fairly bold style in the original hardback.
I can’t think of anything I’ve read that stands out as much in terms of never having run across anything quite like it. People just don’t write 1000+ page stories in rhymed meter for one thing. Doing so with a blend of autobiography and fiction, weaving in bits of mysticism and philosophy (rather woowoo in that regard, the author was a professional astrologer, but don’t let that sour you on the book itself) and managing to tell a heart wrenching story.
Is it something everyone will like? Absolutely not. I did. I recently acquired a first edition of it and plan a re-read soon (the book is fucking thick though, so it isn’t a casual read with my arthritis nowadays). It weren’t cheap, though also not beyond my reach either, so I obviously think it worth the effort of wrestling my attention span for.
I do, however, suggest that one get a digital version and just look up pictures of the printed version lol.
Gnomon by Nick Harkaway is one of my favorite weird books. On its surface, it’s about a detective digging into a wrongful death at the hands of a state interrogator… but as it progresses, you realize things are not quite what they seem.
Hoppscotch comes to mind. There are 2 ways to read, first is read chapters 1-56 and discard the rest. Second is follow the author’s order, which is 73, 1, 2, 116, 3, 84… At the end of each chapter it says where you should jump next. Plus there’s a lot of experimental stuff in it, steam of consciousness, news fragments, a chapter where the author made up his own language, fragments of a fictional writer, etc
Only thing is I don’t know how well the original Spanish translates to other languages (tho according to Wikipedia the English translator won some award so should be good).
“The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime” is written in the narrative of a boy with aspergers, read it many years ago and enjoyed it a lot. Like, it really paints an interesting picture of how the world can also be experienced
Yeah same! I ended up reading all the book very ahead of what my teacher had planned (a couple chapters each week), I was so captivated by it.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Edit: I’m not surprised to see that this is a popular response.
Another, different, one is The Fisherman by John Langan.
The broken earth trilogy by NK Jemisin is written in second person, interesting style and a good read. (Fantasy, sci-fi)
Gardens of the moon by Steven Erikson, not really ‘unique’ but he does a lot of show and tell, so if you’re willing to pay attention and think a long it’s a great read. (fantasy)
I was checking to see if Broken Earth had been mentioned! It’s the only story I’m aware of that does second person (not all chapters).
