Top Ten Tuesday #102

Hi everyone! I hope you’ve all been having a good week since I last did one of these, I’ve had a pretty good week and I’m flying out to France tomorrow to join my family for the Easter holidays, so I’m excited about that. Courtesy of the wonderful ladies over at the Broke and The Bookish, I have another Top Ten Tuesday post for you. This weeks topic is about the most unique books we’ve ever read. It was kind of a vague topic prompt, so I’ve decided to twist it into Top Ten Books With Unique Narrators, as I love it when books have a slight twist on the normal first/third person narrator. So here they are, my Top Ten Books With Unique Narrators:

1. The Book Thief-Death-Markus Zusak

This book is narrated by Death himself, you can’t get much more unique than that! He’s got a very interesting, kind of self deprecating voice and a very dark sense of humour but that’s kind of to be expected of Death! It sounds like a very strange narration choice, and it is but it really works for this book.

2. A Series of Unfortunate Events-Lemony Snicket-Lemony Snicket

Yes, I did just write Lemony Snicket twice, and no, it wasn’t a mistake. Lemony Snicket is both the pseudonym for the author of the book, Daniel Handler and the narrator of the book as well, which is pretty cool, and the whole Snicket family mystery is a big part of the story.  Plus you don’t actually know who the narrator is and what his connection is to the orphans until right at the end of the series, so it adds to the mystery.

3. Black Beauty-Black Beauty-Anna Sewell

This story of the life of the horse Black Beauty is narrated by, you guessed it, said horse himself. It sounds weird, but honestly, it wouldn’t have worked any other way.

4. Born To Run-Best Mate-Michael Morpurgo

This is a story much in the vein of Black Beauty, it follows the life of a greyhound (narrated by said greyhound) through his various owners, it’s a very sweet little story, perfect for dog lovers.

5. The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Nighttime-Christopher-Mark Haddon

In the interest of full disclosure, I actually didn’t really like this book very much, but I thought I should include it on this list because the narrator Christopher is autistic and that makes for Haddon telling the story in a very unique way. Personally, it didn’t work for me, but I’m sure it will work for some people.

6. Challenger Deep-Caden Bosch-Neal Shusterman

Caden has schizophrenia so naturally he makes for a rather unique narrator as his thought processes are always on the borderline between reality and the fantasy he has constructed, and it’s very interesting to see his reality and his hallucinations merge as he falls further into the depths of his mental illness.

7. Thirteen Reasons Why-Hannah Baker-Jay Asher

Though the book is mostly from Clay Jensen’s POV, Hannah also acts as a kind of dual narrator, as we hear her thoughts and feelings through the tapes that she leaves explaining why she committed suicide. And a beyond the grave narrator is nothing if not unique?

8. The Lottie Project-Charlie-Jacqueline Wilson

Granted, this book was one I read as a kid, parts of it are written as a diary from the point of view of a servant girl that the main character creates for a school project, so it’s quite a unique narration.

9. Between The Lines-Oliver-Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer

Parts of the book are written in the POV of Oliver, the prince in the main character’s favourite book (who comes to life), so it’s a slightly different narration style as his story is a story within the main character Delilah’s story.

10. Look Who’s Back-Hitler-Timur Vermes

The narration is normal, 1st person POV, but the narrator is Hitler, having come into 2011 from 1945, so I think that alone is enough to count this book as having a unique narrator. I have to admit I didn’t love this book, but I think a lot of it was that certain things were kind of lost in translation (it was originally written in German) and had it been a short story rather than a novel, I probably would have enjoyed it more.

That’s all I have for this week! It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, evidently I need to read more books with unique narrators! What books with unique narrators have you read? Any of these? Did you like any of these? Let me know in the comments!

I will be back with a new Top Ten Tuesday, it’s Top Ten Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want To Read A Book, so it should be quite a fun one. I’m not sure what else I’ll have for you guys this week as I’m going to be away, so you’ll have to stay tuned to see if you hear anything else from me!