Some books you read are not quite the normal fare you expect them to be. For instance, Lemony Snicket leaves you with more questions than answers, expecting an audience can put two and two together to get four. Today I have some suggestions for books that are odd, but excellent.
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I'm going to start with books I have read and can fully endorse. The next section is a list of books that the internet highly praised as odd, but good. If you read those books in the second section please sound off in the comments so I have an idea of how good they are.
Fully Endorsed
Shepherd of the Hills by Harold Bell Wright
This book starts out with a man being hired in the mountain country to be a shepherd. The mountain folk are usually odd. This book also involves what might be a ghost? It is a bit weird. This is also a movie, but I'm only discussing the book plot. They are different. All through the book a mentally ill child (the child of a woman who died giving birth) keeps saying he can hear his mother's voice in the valley. The man we follow seems to spend lots of time with this kid. That's where I'll stop and let you pick up this book. It has plot twists I won't spoil. Read it and you'll understand why it is here on this list.
Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
This one is about a girl who grows up alone in the swamp area and then gets suspected of murder. It goes back and forth between her growing-up years and the present investigation. It has a twist ending. If you want to cry or be upset, pick up this book. You feel the loneliness reach out of the pages to grab you. I call it a bit odd because of how it is written (past and present and repeat) and the way the girl in the story grows up.
Be warned, this book includes abuse, rape, and sex. Not something to read to the kids. This also includes child neglect. I wanted to call Child Protective Services every time I read about her upbringing. You'll cry. I promise.
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Anything by Lemony Snicket
I think Lemony Snicket hits a specific niche of people, a very specific fan club. My best friend is not into his work, but I love it. He has a kids' book written about a lump of coal finding an artist on Christmas. A Series of Unfortunate Events is anything but normal. It takes a unique sense of humor to find someone not able to describe the dark and instead put a page of black ink as the description. Or to describe reading the same line over and over as writing the same line over and over. All the Wrong Questions (the series) links to Unfortunate Events as a prequel. Both leave more questions than answers. And the author refuses to answer them. Find an event where he speaks and you'll see this plainly.
I love this series because of its quirky sense of humor. It is also a bit dark for children's fiction in some people's eyes. Some don't like the aspect of it that includes the abuse of the orphans in Unfortunate Events. That is okay. They don't have to read it if they don't want to. All ages can enjoy it, as long as they have a darker sense of humor.
Suggested By The Internet
I cannot fully endorse these suggestions because I didn't read them. I know they are considered a bit odd by the internet at large, yet also considered worth reading. The books below are what many people said were odd but good. Let me know in the comments if I should consider picking them up. If any of these interest you your library, a bookstore, or your ebook app of choice probably have them. These are all books I've heard of.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
I found a plot summary from Litcharts.com to explain this one. I know this is a TV show. I don't know if the novel matches the TV show or not. I didn't copy the entire plot here, just in case the plot twists are spoilers.
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| Courtesy of Female First |
"The novel starts as a man named Shadow Moon is getting ready for his release from prison, after three years inside. Shadow has spent his time practicing coin tricks and reading a copy of Herodotus’s Histories borrowed from his cellmate Low Key Lyesmith. Two days before he is supposed to be allowed to go back to his beloved wife Laura, Shadow finds out that his wife has died in a car accident. He is released early and catches a plane back to his home in Eagle Point, Indiana so that he can attend the memorial. On the plane, Shadow falls asleep and has a strange dream about a man with a buffalo head who tells him to believe “everything.” When he wakes, he meets a strange man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday and offers Shadow a job. Shadow refuses, then gets off the plane early to avoid talking to Mr. Wednesday any more."
Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Once again, I am leaving it up to someone else to describe this book because I have never read it. I know about some of it from friends. I know it has some creepy pictures in it. I know there are strange children. Other than that, I'll leave it to Amazon to tell you the plot.
"A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.
A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows."
Welcome to Night Vale
I once saw a theatre friend of mine wearing a shirt or some kind of merch from this podcast, which is also a book series. He didn't explain it at all. Today I'm giving the floor to Amazon, once again, to explain the plot.
"Welcome to Night Vale . . . a friendly desert community somewhere in the American Southwest. In this ordinary little town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are commonplace parts of everyday life, the lives of two women, with two mysteries, are about to converge.
Pawnshop proprietor Jackie Fierro abides by routine. But a crack appears in the standard order of her perpetually nineteen-year-old life when a mysterious man in a tan jacket gives her a slip of paper marked by two pencil-smudged words: KING CITY. Everything about the man unsettles her, especially the paper that she cannot remove from her hand. Yet when Jackie puts her life on hold to search for the man, no one who meets him can seem to remember anything about him.
Diane Crayton’s fifteen-year-old son, Josh, is moody and a shape-shifter. Lately, Diane has started to see the boy’s father everywhere she goes, looking the same as he did the day he left when they were teenagers. Josh is growing ever more curious about his estranged father—leading to a disaster Diane can see coming but is helpless to prevent.
Diane’s search to reconnect with her son and Jackie’s search to reclaim her routine life draw them increasingly closer to each other, and to this place that may hold the key to their mysteries and their futures . . . if they can ever find it."
Good Omens By Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
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Okay, I'll admit that even I know this one. This is a book featuring an angel and a demon who are trying to stop the end of the world. This is a TV show many have loved and suggested. Given the book and TV show may differ in some respects, I still found a plot to copy, this time from supersummary.com. This is only some of the plot. I'll let you look further into it if you are interested.
"Aziraphale, an angel, and Crowley, a demon—adversaries since the Great Fall from the Garden of Eden—have been living on Earth and attempting to steer humanity’s moral course. In those many millennia, however, they have grown fond of life among the humans and developed a tenuous friendship with each other. One day, Crowley receives a delivery from two fellow demons: a basket containing the infant Antichrist, who will gain access to his full powers when he turns 11 and trigger Armageddon. Crowley is charged with overseeing his placement with the American Cultural Attaché, Thaddeus Dowling. Due to a mix up at the hospital, however, the Antichrist, Adam, ends up with the Young family in the fictional village of Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire, England."
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
A booktuber I know read this one and loved it. It was a thick book, though, so keep that in mind. I am yielding the floor to goodreads.com to explain the plot. It was a novel of whimsy and atmosphere, if I remember correctly.
"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart."
Conclusion
And with that, I leave you to contemplate what goes on your next book shopping list. I know some of these are not everyone's cup of tea. If you are interested in any of these novels, I'll let you peruse the link list below. I am leaving the Amazon listings in those links for anyone who wants to support these authors.
https://www.shortform.com/best-books/genre/best-weird-books-of-all-time
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