Top Ten Tuesday, as always, is brought to you by my other blog – The Broke and the Bookish and the letter “L”…because L is for licorice..and I’m eating some right now. BUT EW BLACK LICORICE..you taste like POOP. Strawberry = win.

Now, if you’ve been a reader of my blog for a while..you’ll know that I’m an eclectic reader. If you haven’t been, welll then…hello…I’m Jamie and I read very eclectically. I will read juuust about anything. So it’s not like I just read from one or two genres…so this one was KINDA hard for me.

1. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov: This book, also mentioned last week in books that made me EMOTE ALLL OVER THE PLACE, was out of my comfort zone because I typically really have a hard time reading books about pedophiles. I didn’t want to be in a sick perverts mind but this book was on all sorts of lists. It gave me the creepy crawlies but Nabokov really is an incredible writer and it was sort of worth the read…but VERY outside of my comfort zone.

2. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer: I NEVER read paranormal before a bunch of people on Goodreads commanded me to. I thought paranormal was weird and totally something i wouldn’t like and I felt SO embarrassed walking up to the counter with this book. BUT it definitely made me realize that I could enjoy paranormal. And luckily, I’ve found MUCH better paranormal books since Twilight! Like SHADE...sorry I just reviewed it and HAD to plug it because it was fabulous.

3. Crank by Ellen Hopkins: I had never read a novel in verse before I read this one. I was pretty skeptical of it when I saw the structure of the novel when a friend showed me but I’m SO glad I read it. I know can enjoy a good novel in verse from time to time!

4. What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson: I think that this was out of my comfort zone just because I had NEVER read a LGBT book. I didn’t really know what to expect and I guess I just naively thought that because I wasn’t LGBT that it “wasn’t written for me”. That might sound weird but I just had no idea what to expect but I’m SO glad I read it. This book was really wonderful and I learned that LGBT lit isn’t just for LGBT! Seems like a silly lesson..but hey..I didn’t know any better!

5. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert: While I love memoirs and I love travel lit..something about this book just seemed like something I didn’t want to read. I kept thinking, “WHAT could I possibly learn from a 30 year old divorcee taking a trip around the world.” It just seemed not at all like something I’d enjoy. But there were things about it that I did enjoy (some that I didn’t) but it made me not fear super girly looking covers

6. I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb — This is only on here because I listened to this on audio…my FIRST audio ever. Sooo THAT was way way way out of my comfort zone. I since have learned to really love audiobooks!

7. Stiff by Mary Roach: I always read non-fiction before this book but it was always memoirs or biographies or books about topics I was really into — like music or something. This was really outside my comfort zone because it was the most random non-fiction I ever bought and it was about CADAVERS. That’s right, cadavers…like dead bodies. This book was actually quite humorous and insightful and just didn’t feel like reading non-fiction at all. SO glad I read it despite how weird it looked and how when I read it during my lunch break that I always got the stink eye for reading about dead bodies.

8. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin: While I read lots of non-fiction, I NEVER READ SELF HELP-ish books. I always think blah blah blah stop telling me what to do because I feel like most of the time their advice sucks or that they are just putting a bandaid on a bigger problem. ANYWHO..I read this and felt really inspired by it. I don’t think I’ll be perusing the self help section anytime soon but I needed this book in really bad life slump!

9. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien – Pretty much I don’t read books about war. Sure, I’ll read a book set during war..like a historical fiction..but not books about soldiers and war and what not. No particularly reason WHY..it just never appealed to me. THIS BOOK. I was supposed to read it in 10th grade and write a paper..I sparknoted that shiz and got an A without reading the book. But then it resurfaced in college and I had to do a HUGE project revolving around it. So I HAD to read it. I’m so sososososo glad I did. Truly a remarkable book. Very quotable and my project was the SHIZ.

10.  Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon – For as much as I read, I really have never gotten into fantasy. It’s not that I don’t LIKE it…I just never have had the guidance of which books to read. I really really loved this book! I’m sure there is much more intense and intricate fantasy books but this was a good one to make me realize I DO enjoy it.

But honestly, as someone who doesn’t really have much of a comfort zone because I’ll read anything..I honestly challenge you all to try and read outside of your comfort zone more often. It’s amazing the gems you find. Even just one book a year that’s different than what you’d normally read.

What about you guys? What’s ONE book that was really outside of your comfort zone that your read? Did you like it?