Ever Read A Book That Wasn't Your Usual Genre And Been Blown Away?

Maryn said:

Yup, quite recently. I was given a belated birthday gift of "The Girl with All the Gifts," which is post apocalyptic horror, and it was really, really good. I'd never have given it a try had it not been placed in my hands.

Maryn, who takes some convincing

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And Mike Carey has the rep (deservedly) of being "the nicest guy in fantasy". He writes cracking stuff. City of Silk And Steel (with his wife) is one of my fave all time books.

As to the OP. Yes. Fairly often -- I try to read as many different genres as possible. Gone Girl was a rollercoaster.

And you've made a sale (I love the wrestling and if it's a tear jerker too....)

Well, I was talked into reading the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes mysteries a few years ago. I generally find mystery completely boring, but I loved those and read the whole collection in a couple of days. It didn't leave me with any desire to read more mystery, though. I figure I already read the best, lol.

Yes! (And thanks for the tip about Foxcatcher, gothicangel, I've put it on my tbr list.)

Most recently I read The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, a debut novel that came my way because the title I was looking for at the library was out and this was an alternative suggestion. It's a dystopia which I don't tend to seek out, but is the best novel I've read in a long time. Wonderful writing and I hope Heller writes more fiction.

Previous to that, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain (sports -- football, Superbowl in fact -- and military) is not one I'd have chosen on a bookstore shelf but I did pick it up for pennies at a library sale because why not. Another wonderful, beautiful book even though, well, football!

And years ago I rescued a copy of A Fire In The Mind (Stephen Larsen, Robin Larsen) from a trashcan after a failed book sale. Dried the coffee off of it because, throwing books in the trash is not done in my universe.

I'm not someone who seeks out biographies, but this was so good I bought copies of it to give as gifts. It's the authorized bio of Joseph Campbell and peers into that fabulous mind most satisfyingly, and offers up some entertaining gossip of the day as well.

Great thread!

Kylabelle said:

Most recently I read The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, a debut novel that came my way because the title I was looking for at the library was out and this was an alternative suggestion. It's a dystopia which I don't tend to seek out, but is the best novel I've read in a long time. Wonderful writing and I hope Heller writes more fiction.

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I just read the blurb, and I'm intrigued, but... does the dog die? (You can PM me if it would be spoiler-y to tell me here).

I don't have a usual genre. I read books in every genre, though I read very little YA. So, yes, I've been blown away by all sorts of novels.

One of my favorite things to do is browse out public library, picking a dozen or so books at random. I've found some of my favorite novels and writers this way, in fiction and nonfiction.

http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000UZQH4I/

I'm a dedicated SF-fan, with only occasional forays into horror and such, but I'll read just about anything by Tess Gerritsen. This one's a mystery with some romance, and was gripping beginning to end.

Yes!

I once got someone else's book order by mistake from Amazon (and they let me keep it), and whoever that someone was, they had amazing taste in books. Not my taste, by a long stretch, but I enjoyed most of what they had ordered. (Hated one book furiously, was 'meh' on one, but the four other books were a hit with me.)

Life of Pi was the one that blew me away -- I loved it when the book's central puzzle finally unlocked. Memoirs of a Geisha was also really great, and The God of Small Things was quite wrenching and wonderful. The other books were weird and good and well-written.

I don't usually like short story collections, but was recently blown away by Phil Klay's REDEPLOYMENT.

Oh, have I ever! Happens more with Biographies than anything though, and I've still yet to find a Splatterpunk novel I enjoyed. Truth is I'm hoping to find a Splatterpunk novel I like eventually, because then maybe I can find more.

I will say, that even though Thrillers and Mystery aren't my thing. My mum does seem to love them and that makes me want to look through her collection. *goes to look*

Jamesaritchie said:

I don't have a usual genre. I read books in every genre, though I read very little YA. So, yes, I've been blown away by all sorts of novels.

One of my favorite things to do is browse out public library, picking a dozen or so books at random. I've found some of my favorite novels and writers this way, in fiction and nonfiction.

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Poppycock. I don't believe for a second you don't have a genre you read slightly more than others, and that is exactly what usual genre means. By your own summation you read it, but YA still isn't your usual reading fare. That is exactly what gothicangel meant, books that blew you away despite not being something you read or read much of.

Unimportant said:

Conversely, I want to like steampunk -- I love me the cover art, for sure!! -- but for some reason I just can't get into it, even when it's written by authors whose other books I've enjoyed. I have no idea why.

And I tried reading romance recently. I bought some Nora Roberts novels, since, yanno, Nora! Top romance writer! Never heard anything negative about her, and have heard heaps of positive! And I just could not slog my way through any of them. I've no idea what was wrong with me, but I just got bored, annoyed, and/or frustrated.

Weird, innit?

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Not so much Unim, at least I don't think so. Sometimes we don't like a writers writing and sometimes a genre just doesn't appeal to us. Maybe another writer would appeal to you for Romance?

Unimportant said:

And I tried reading romance recently. I bought some Nora Roberts novels, since, yanno, Nora! Top romance writer! Never heard anything negative about her, and have heard heaps of positive! And I just could not slog my way through any of them. I've no idea what was wrong with me, but I just got bored, annoyed, and/or frustrated.

Weird, innit?

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I don't much care for Nora Roberts, either. Well, I've only read a couple of her books, so maybe I just had bad luck, but I wouldn't write off the whole genre based on her.

What other genres do you read? Maybe you could try one of the Romance sub-genres - like, if you usually read fantasy, you could read a fantasy-romance.

YA is NOT a genre. It is a market.

Unimportant said:

Yep, I read and enjoy fantasy-romance. I think that I need the romance to be a side plot or, at least, for the protagonist to have a problem other than should I/should I not love/bed/lust-after/marry Person X.

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I like historicals, or other sub-genres where the choice of who to love/bed/lust-after/marry was a really life-changing decision! I think straight-up contemporary romance is hard to do right, because really, the stakes aren't all that high, unless the author amplifies things beyond the reasonable.

Lillith1991 said:

Poppycock. I don't believe for a second you don't have a genre you read slightly more than others, and that is exactly what usual genre means. By your own summation you read it, but YA still isn't your usual reading fare. That is exactly what gothicangel meant, books that blew you away despite not being something you read or read much of.

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I can't help what you believe, but I read more books than most, and I really don't have a usual genre. My TBR stack(s) contain almost three thousand novels, and they're in every conceivable genre. I have another couple of thousand novels on my computer.

I read a LOT of every genre. I just do. I love pretty much every genre out there because it's the way something is written that matters to me, not something silly and meant only for marketing like "genre".

And if you want to go by what I said about YA, fine. My usual genre is every genre that isn't YA.

Had the questions been about writing outside of the genre you write most, I would have had a very different answer, but whether you believe it or not, I don't have a "usual" reading genre, or even two or three. I switch off routinely between mystery, suspense, western, literary, SF, fantasy, horror, MG of all types, category romance, historical, contemporary, techno-thriller, sub-genres of each. I also read all sorts of poetry.

Part of this is by design, and I arrange my current reading bookshelves just this way. I believe the wisest thing a writer can do is read as widely as possible, but there is no genre I don't enjoy, there are only writers I don't enjoy, and this is true in every genre.

Yes. That happens in no small part because, as a reader, I don't subscribe to a "usual genre". I bond with JAR on this question.

caw

I don't have a usual genre, but there are a couple that I don't read very much: romance and women's fiction. I was recently given a "women's fiction" book to review, and I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style and the setting. Which leads me to distrust labels in general: I always look at a sample of the book first, and I read based more on the writing quality than the genre/category.

The Count of Monte Cristo was the one that blew me away.

My all-time favorite, hands down.