Out of My Comfort Zone Book Tag

Hello Everyone!

Today I am going to be doing the Out Of My Comfort Zone book tag! This tag was crated by @emmmabooks on youtube a few months ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kod0ZGDgqDY and I really loved the idea, so I thought I would give it ago. The idea of this tag is that you have to choose one genre/age range of books that you frequently talk about and then choose only books that fall outside of that genre/age range. For me I am going to say that I am not allowed to choose any kind of fantasy – whether that be high fantasy, urban fantasy, middlegrade, YA or Adult. Fantasy is my favourite genre and I talk about it a lot, so I am not going to be choosing any books from that genre for this tag. Now I’ve chosen my rule, let’s get into the tag:

1. A book that is an exception when it comes to genres or elements in books that you don’t typically like.

For this first prompt I have gone with Boy Solider by Andy McNab and Robert Rigby. This is the first book in a 4 book series that I read when I was 12 or 13, so a good few years ago now. I read it when I was first getting into the reading world, but I had read enough at that point to know that I liked fantasy way more than any kind of ‘real life’ based story. My mum is also a huge reader and has pretty much all of Andy McNab’s books (he is mainly an adult fiction writer, but I believe the Boy solider series is Young Adult) and suggested that I try them. I wasn’t interested in the Adult books and I doubt I ever will be and I was skeptical about the Boy Solider series at first and I wasn’t going to read it, but I ran out of books to read during the October half term one year, so I decided I would give them ago seeing as I had nothing else to read and I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t give them a rating because I hadn’t started doing that when I read them, but I think I probably would have given them about a 3.5/5 stars, which is pretty good considering I thought I was going to hate them.

I don’t remember all of the details about what the Boy Soldier series is about because it has been a while and I didn’t absolutely love them, but I loosly remeber them being about a teenage boy who gets involved in something and there is lots of running away from the bad guys, guns, army and it is very much an action type book. I will leave a link to the goodreads page here if you want to find out more: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/591822.Traitor?ac=1&from_search=true

2. A book you enjoyed from a genre you previously held some stigma about.

I’m sure a lot of you know by now that until this year I HATED non-fiction. I had associated non-fiction with school, so I therefore thought it was nothing but boring and a waste of my time. I have talked about how I discovered that was not the case in several posts before, so I won’t go into it again, but one book that really made me fall in love with the genre is ‘The Periodic Table of Feminism’ by Marisa Bate. I adored this book! It made me feel empowered, inspired and made me realise that I can learn anything I want. I don’t have to wait for someone to teach it to me. I then of course went out and bought a load of new non-fiction books that I haven’t yet gotten round to reading!

Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35407303-the-periodic-table-of-feminism?ac=1&from_search=true

3. A book you didn’t know was actually out of your comfort zone until you started reading it.

The book I’ve chosen for this question might surprise some of you, who have been reading my blog since the summer because I gave it a pretty good rating and that is ‘Girlhood’ by Cat Clark. I do generally like contemporary books and would say it is my 2nd favourite genre after fantasy, but I am very picky when it comes to what kinds of contemporary’s I like. I like quirky, fun ones like John Green’s books and Becky Albertallis, but they also have a bit of a kick to them. I like some mental health related contemporary’s (although I’m very specific with these because I find some triggering) and I like ones that are fun, but also takle important topics. What I don’t like though is classic coming of age stories/stories about a character mourning a dead *insert relative/friend here* and learning to deal with it. I find books like that a bit boring, I don’t learn anything from them and I also just don’t tend to care about the characters. I always feel like I’ve missed the actual story (i.e. the lead up to how the person died) and I’m just reading the credits.

Girlhood by Cat Clark is exactly that though. It only took me a few chapters to realise it and I almost put it straight down because I was just not interested, but I kept at it and it was alright. I didn’t love it, but I also didn’t hate it. It did have some important messages in it, which I think is why i raised my rating slightly, but I have read books which have put the same message across in a better and more comprehensive way in my opinion.

TW: Eating Disorders, Suicide, Depression, Car accidents

Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26224552-girlhood?ac=1&from_search=true

4. A book that your friend convinced you to pick up.

I struggled with this one for a while because my friends generally don’t recommend me that many books due to the fact that I have read most of the ones they suggest already and I am usually the one doing the recommending. One book that I do owe my love of it my friend though is ‘Am I Normal Yet?’ by Holly Bourne. I have mentioned how much I love this book and all of Holly Bourne’s books multiple times, so you might be surprised to know that I was hesitant of reading it at first. My friend generally likes to read the kind of contemporary’s that I mentioned in the last prompt that I hate, so I was hesitant about that, but also because Am I Normal Yet? has a heavy emphasis on mental health and I wasn’t sure I was able to handle that at that point in my life. My friend bought me a copy for Christmas though and I did pick it up and I am sooooooo glad I did because I ADORED it!

TW: OCD, Assult, Mental Hospital

5. A book that is out of your comfort zone that you would like to read.

Something I’m sure none of you know is that I’m quite scared of reading re-tellings. I have never read one before because I love fairy tales of all kinds and I have always been scared that reading re-tellings will some how taint my memory of the original fairy tale. There are two main re-tellings that I would like to give a try and that is ‘To Kill a Kingdom’ by Alexandra Christo and the ‘A Court of Thorns and Rose’ series by Sarah. J. Maas. I have heard nothing but amazing things about To Kill A Kingdom, so I definitely want to give that one a go next year and I have heard amazing things about the ACOTAR as well, but there of course some negative reviews too as there always seem to be with Sarah.J.Maas’s books.

Goodreads Page To Kill A Kingdom: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34499221-to-kill-a-kingdom?ac=1&from_search=true

Goodreads Page ACOTAR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16096824-a-court-of-thorns-and-roses?ac=1&from_search=true

6. A book or genre so out of what you normally read that you’ll probably never give it a(nother) chance.

Anyone that knows me at all will know that I HATE anything even remotely scary and or suspenseful. I can therefore say with a conviction that I will NEVER read any kind of Horror or Thriller novel because I just do not understand what people find so fun/fascinating about scaring themselves. I could barely even handle reading ‘The Hazel Wood’ by Mellissa Albert, so Horror is not on my TBR.

That is it for the Out Of My Comfort Zone book tag! I had a lot of fun doing this because it really made me think about what books I had read, it gave me a chance to talk about some books that I rarely talk about if at all and it has convinced me to maybe try some of the books I have been scared to read, so look out for next years TBR’s and Wrap-up’s to see if I do read them or not!Make sure you go and check out @emmmabooks original video on YouTube because I adore her channel and her video was so funny and tell me your answers to the questions down below or over on my Instagram (@theoriginalbookdragon)!

Goodbye for now!

Over and Out