Which books are told in the most interesting / creative/ mind bending ways? How does it add to the book overall?
My all time favourite is Ella Minnow Pea where the book is a series of letters. The characters have to think of more inventive ways to write their letters as an increasing number of letters are outlawed as the book progresses.
Honourable mentions include:
Maribou Stork Nightmares where the narrator is trying to suppress his dark past by allowing himself to slip into hallucinations of a whacky south African safari adventure.
Flowers for Algernon where the narrator becomes more articulate by taking part in a scientific experiment.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi in 2016. She’s a Ghanaian-American writer, and the first two chapters alternate between two sisters in Ghana; one is kidnapped and put onto a slave ship; the other is forced into marriage with an Englishman who’s overseeing the slave trade.
Then the next two chapters alternate between their kids. And then the next two chapters alternate between their kids. And on and on through the generations until the present day. So it’s an epic historical novel that show’s the impact of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic. But then it’s also a short story collection, where you get an intimate portrait of each character at a pivotal moment in their life. She manages to go big and small at the same time, and excels at drawing very well-realized characters in one chapter apiece. It’s really a miraculous piece of writing.