Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

This week’s topic is atmospherric books. I have no idea what to do with this, so I gave this topic a spin. What about whymsical or different writing styles? They are not always easy to follow, even a challenge sometimes. So here are 10 books I believe have such a writing style.

• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo – I tried so hard with this book, but this writing style really put me off. I was clueless from the first sentence and therefore didn’t make it far into this book before I had to give up. The author barely uses punctation so for me it was hard to figure out where I was in the story as I use either audiobooks or VoiceOver on iPhone/iPad to read ebooks. I know other people love this book, but it’s definitely not for everyone.
• Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – Again, a book I had a tough time with the first time around because of its writing. I wasn’t as experienced in reading in English back then, so I didn’t understand the hype surrounding this book. However, I absolutely did when it got translated.
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong – This book is a letter from a son to his mom who is illiterate. The letter part is a bit different, but it was easy to follow.
• The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab – This falls under the whymsical category again. I thought the writing was gorgeous and that’s exactly what lifts this book up. Because let’s face it, the plot itself is not that intriguing.
• Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – This trilogy is told by an all-knowing narrator and starts with the ending of Mia’s story. From there on, we go back in time until the final events in Darkdawn. Also, the little footnotes are something you don’t see in many books. For me, they were quite confusing though.
• One by Sarah Crossan – This is a book written in verse, like most (if not all) of this author’s books. Therefore, it’s not an easy read. You have to read between the lines for which you need to be in the right mood honestly. I wasn’t and felt like there were many plotholes because of this verse writing. Well, verse and poetry aren’t my cup of tea anyway.
• The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta – Another book partially written in verse but this one worked really well for me. Probably because I listened to it on audio.
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds – Another book written in verse. I havven’t read this one myself because I heard many mixed reviews and I already found out that verse isn’t for me.
• The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili – This is a huge family saga, about 1000 pages long in English. I’ve read it in Dutch and there it even has 1250 pages. It might be a little intimidating, but it is actually so, so, so good. I finished in about a week. It’s a different writing style as Niza is an all-knowing narrator who tells the family history to her cousin Brilka by writing this huge saga.

Have you read any of these books?