Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is: "
April 11: Top Ten Of The Most Unique Books I've Read (topic originally done 4/14) Some variations: top ten unique sounding books on my TBR, top ten most unique books I've read in X genre, etc"
Top Ten Most Unique Books I've Read
1. I Am Princess X – Cherie Priest
Best friends, big fans,
a mysterious webcomic, and a long-lost girl collide in this riveting
novel, perfect for fans of both Cory Doctorow and Sarah Dessen;
illustrated throughout with comics.
Once upon a time, two best
friends created a princess together. Libby drew the pictures, May wrote
the tales, and their heroine, Princess X, slayed all the dragons and
scaled all the mountains their imaginations could conjure.
Once
upon a few years later, Libby was in the car with her mom, driving
across the Ballard Bridge on a rainy night. When the car went over the
side, Libby passed away, and Princess X died with her.
Once upon
a now: May is sixteen and lonely, wandering the streets of Seattle,
when she sees a sticker slapped in a corner window.
Princess X?
When
May looks around, she sees the Princess everywhere: Stickers. Patches.
Graffiti. There's an entire underground culture, focused around a
webcomic at IAmPrincessX.com. The more May explores the webcomic, the
more she sees disturbing similarities between Libby's story and Princess
X online. And that means that only one person could have started this
phenomenon---her best friend, Libby, who lives.
2. Done Dirt Cheap – Sarah Nicole Lemon
Tourmaline Harris’s
life hit pause at fifteen, when her mom went to prison because of
Tourmaline’s unintentionally damning testimony. But at eighteen, her
home life is stable, and she has a strong relationship with her father,
the president of a local biker club known as the Wardens.
Virginia
Campbell’s life hit fast-forward at fifteen, when her mom “sold” her
into the services of a local lawyer: a man for whom the law is merely a
suggestion. When Hazard sets his sights on dismantling the Wardens, he
sends in Virginia, who has every intention of selling out the club—and
Tourmaline. But the two girls are stronger than the circumstances that
brought them together, and their resilience defines the friendship at
the heart of this powerful debut novel.
3. Vicious – V.E. Schwab
Victor and Eli started
out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized
the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a
shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and
seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that
under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary
abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the
experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks
out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided
by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability.
Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered
person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with
an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by
the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for
revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?
4. Rejected Princesses – Jason Porath
Well-behaved women seldom make history. Good thing these women are far from well behaved . . .
Illustrated in a contemporary animation style, Rejected Princesses
turns the ubiquitous "pretty pink princess" stereotype portrayed in
movies, and on endless toys, books, and tutus on its head, paying homage
instead to an awesome collection of strong, fierce, and yes, sometimes
weird, women: warrior queens, soldiers, villains, spies,
revolutionaries, and more who refused to behave and meekly accept their
place.
An entertaining mix of biography, imagery, and humor
written in a fresh, young, and riotous voice, this thoroughly researched
exploration salutes these awesome women drawn from both historical and
fantastical realms, including real life, literature, mythology, and
folklore. Each profile features an eye-catching image of both heroic and
villainous women in command from across history and around the world,
from a princess-cum-pirate in fifth century Denmark, to a rebel preacher
in 1630s Boston, to a bloodthirsty Hungarian countess, and a former
prostitute who commanded a fleet of more than 70,000 men on China’s
seas.
5. The Female of the Species – Mindy McGinnis
Alex Craft knows how to
kill someone. And she doesn’t feel bad about it. When her older sister,
Anna, was murdered three years ago and the killer walked free, Alex
uncaged the language she knows best. The language of violence.
While
her crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can’t be trusted among other
people, even in her small hometown. She relegates herself to the
shadows, a girl who goes unseen in plain sight, unremarkable in the high
school hallways.
But Jack Fisher sees her. He’s the guy all
other guys want to be: the star athlete gunning for valedictorian with
the prom queen on his arm. Guilt over the role he played the night
Anna’s body was discovered hasn’t let him forget Alex over the years,
and now her green eyes amid a constellation of freckles have his
attention. He doesn’t want to only see Alex Craft; he wants to know her.
So
does Peekay, the preacher’s kid, a girl whose identity is entangled
with her dad’s job, though that does not stop her from knowing the taste
of beer or missing the touch of her ex-boyfriend. When Peekay and Alex
start working together at the animal shelter, a friendship forms and
Alex’s protective nature extends to more than just the dogs and cats
they care for.
Circumstances bring Alex, Jack, and Peekay
together as their senior year unfolds. While partying one night, Alex’s
darker nature breaks out, setting the teens on a collision course that
will change their lives forever.
6. Illuminae – Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman
This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.
The
year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet
that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the
universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With
enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even
talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating
fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.
But their problems
are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is
mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be
protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will
say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to
find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to
light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.
BRIEFING NOTE:
Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including
emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews,
and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping,
high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the
courage of everyday heroes.
7. When the Moon Was Ours – Anna Marie McLemore
To everyone who knows
them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable.
Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a
water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and
hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life
before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers
Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful
sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from
Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love.
And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to
make sure she gives them up.
8. And I Darken – Kiersten White
No one expects a
princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since
she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their
homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the
Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to
survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an
unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes
them special also makes them targets.
Lada despises the Ottomans
and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can
return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a
place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and
lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and
Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.
But
Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight
against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and
Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty
to the breaking point.
9. The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
Greece in the age of
heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court
of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their difference,
Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men
skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into
something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a
cruel sea goddess.
But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has
been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his
destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with
him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything
they hold dear.
10. A Little Something Different – Sandy Hall
The creative writing
teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best
friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in
common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe
are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture
references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same
places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite
their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work
things out. But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone
can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The
baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus
driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner
automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the
college green believes in their relationship.
Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together....
what's on your lists this week?
xx
Caroline
