Play 2026 Book Bingo
Novels Told From Unexpected Points of View
By: Angela & Melissa
Updated:
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we may earn a referral fee from qualifying purchases.As much as we enjoy (and need) comfort reads that follow dependable themes within our favorite genres, we also enjoy reading books written from a unique or unusual perspective.
We already have book recommendations written from a wide range of human experiences, so we decided it was time to celebrate the creative novels told from other points of view. Across many genres, authors have successfully used everything from trees to typewriters and even death itself as one of the storytellers in their works.
Novels with Unexpected Perspectives
Olivetti
Book Summary
Olivetti is the Brindle family typewriter, and he’s recently been replaced by a computer. While he remembers every word they’ve ever typed on him, they seem to have forgotten about him.
He’s thrilled when Beatrice, the family’s mom, who used to be his most frequent visitor, appears. But then she drops him off at Heartland Pawn Shop. After leaving Olivetti behind, Beatrice goes missing. Olivetti knows he’s the only one who can help solve the mystery…and Beatrice’s twelve-year-old son, Ernest, is the perfect person to help.
What to Expect in This Book
While this novel is classified as Middle Grade, reviewers believe it’s better suited to older readers based on both content and vocabulary. Ernest is obsessed with Oxford English Dictionaries and uses what he’s learned.
Some say the book is sadder than expected, with difficult topics covered, including mental health, physical health scares, and suicidal ideation.
The Briar Club
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Briarwood House is an all-female boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., where secrets hide behind white picket fences. It’s 1950 when the mysterious widow Grace moves into the attic room. She throws dinner parties for her new friends, including a beautiful English wife and mother, a police officer’s daughter who is involved with a gangster, a baseball star frustrated by the end of the women’s league after WWII, and a woman who threw herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.
While Grace’s dinner parties are healing to the women, she also has her own secrets…and there may be an enemy within the group.
What to Expect in This Book
Kate Quinn’s historical fiction novels include mystery and thriller elements to keep the pages turning. In The Briar Club, the Briarwood House provides an omniscient perspective in the prologue, epilogue, and some interludes.
The Tortoise’s Tale
Book Summary
When a giant tortoise is snatched from her ancestral lands and rehomed on a large California estate, she becomes a witness of history, a lover of music, and an astute observer of human behavior.
During her early years at the estate, Takeo, the gardener, is the first to see her depth as a being with thoughts and feelings. Over time, the tortoise is also befriended by young Lucy, and together they watch the estate transform into a haven for industry titans, politicians, and rock stars.
Over the course of decades, the estate changes ownership and faces the impacts of a damaged planet, but the tortoise remains to observe changing history and unexpected connections.
What to Expect in This Book
The publisher says this debut novel is a good fit for fans of Remarkably Bright Creatures.
Keep in mind that it’s literary fiction and more character-based than plot-based, so it’s a lyrical, slower-paced read. Readers enjoyed the use of music as a clue to changing timelines, as the tortoise wouldn’t have known the year.
The Lovely Bones
Book Summary
Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is walking home from school through a cornfield in her suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood when her life is cut short by a neighbor she’d trusted. The story is narrated entirely from Susie’s perspective in the afterlife, where she watches over her family and the world she left behind, observing everything with a clarity and tenderness that only distance can bring.
From her vantage point in heaven, Susie witnesses her family’s unraveling in the wake of her death, her father’s desperate need for answers, her mother’s quiet retreat from the people who love her, and her younger siblings growing up in the shadow of a sister they barely had time to know. As the people closest to her search for the truth and struggle to move forward, Susie longs for the connections she can no longer reach.
Other Books Narrated After Death
Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand also features a character watching her family after she has passed away. In this case, it’s a mom who receives three “nudges” to change things on earth as she watches.
The novel On Fire Island by Jane L. Rosen is told from the POV of a book editor who, after dying unexpectedly at thirty-seven, chooses to spend one last summer near those she loves most rather than move on.
The Island of Missing Trees
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
95% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Teenagers Kostas & Defne have a growing love for each other, but it’s forbidden because one of them is Greek Cypriot and the other is Turkish Cypriot. In the taverna where they meet, a fig tree grows through the roof. The tree survives war, the division of the island, and Kostas and Defne’s painful separation.
Decades later, when Kostas returns, he’s now a botanist searching for native species and his lost love.
Reader Thoughts on This Book
While this novel is heavy, our readers say it also beautifully showcases the flora and fauna of Cyprus, with the fig tree serving as one of the story’s narrators.
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
Book Summary
In this poignant novel, Travis wears jeans and a T-shirt in his small, grey town. While he looks normal on the outside, Travis is Death personified. His job is to provide comfort in the final moments of life. While he finds each passing life meaningful and is a great listener, he knows his place and that he can’t interfere with fate.
When he befriends Dalia, a midwife, and her eight-year-old daughter, Layla, it’s suddenly difficult to avoid the detachment he has relied on for so long. This gives him new insight into what is really important in life and a broader view of what is lost in death.
In between Travis’ time with Dalia and Layla, you’ll find many vignettes of the people he interacts with in their last moments. At times, it reads more like short stories than a novel.
What to Expect in This Book
Travis is far from the normal image of death as a grim reaper, but his more caring attitude doesn’t take away from the sadness throughout this novel.
Melissa read the opening pages before selecting it as her Book of the Month pick and was immediately drawn in emotionally. But she could also tell that it would be one to avoid if you’re not in a place to handle a book that could make you sob.
Connection to a Classic
When researching this 2026 novel, we learned that the title phrase “Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt” comes from an imagined epitaph in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five.
Book Summary
When Rennie King married the hotshot baseball player from her hometown of Spark, Tennessee, she had a vision of the perfect life they’d lead. Now she is grieving the loss of her newborn son and desperately needs her husband’s support. The loss of the infant, combined with financial stress, has made Tiny angry, and he’s turning that anger on her. Trying to ease their financial woes, she takes a job at a local diner, which opens her eyes to new possibilities.
Rennie’s beloved beekeeper uncle always told her to tell the bees everything, but she never believed he could actually communicate with the bees. When a glowing bee lands beside her, however, she is struck with the sense that she should reconnect with him, so she begins delivering meals from the diner to Uncle Dixon.
As the summer of 1969 progresses, set against the historical backdrop of the moon landing, both the bees and her uncle provide the advice and encouragement Rennie needs at this low point in her life.
What to Expect in This Book
Readers describe this as a powerful book that will leave you feeling hopeful, but keep in mind that there is sadness along the way. Rennie’s relationship with her husband includes on-page domestic abuse as well as foul language.
This novel includes a “Greek chorus of bees,” with short but meaningful chapters told from the bees’ point of view.
The Book of Form and Emptiness
Book Summary
When Benny is 14, he begins to hear voices after the tragic death of his father. The voices belong to the inanimate objects in his home, from his sneakers to a piece of wilted lettuce. He can’t understand what each item is saying, but he can sense their tone. While he tries to ignore this phenomenon at first, it becomes impossible as his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem. At least when he goes to the library, the objects respectfully keep the chatter to a whisper.
At the library, he also meets unexpected new friends, including a mesmerizing street artist and a homeless philosopher-poet. Most importantly, he meets his own Book, which begins to narrate Benny’s life and teach him to listen for the things that truly matter.
Awards for This Book
In 2022, The Book of Form and Emptiness was the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
93% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This book comes with a unique narrator: Music. Music tells the story of an extraordinarily gifted musician, Frankie Presto. Starting at Frankie’s funeral, you’ll look back at his Forrest Gump-like life as he navigates the music world. From 1950s jazz to the Grand Ole Opry, Elvis, and even Woodstock, Frankie both finds and loses fame. And all along the way, he’s searching for his childhood love.
When Frankie loses his ability to play the guitar, he disappears for decades, returning just in time for a mysterious final farewell.
Important Notes About This Book
Some readers find this book a bit intimidating at the start because of all the musical terminology, although definitions are given. However, as the narrative begins to unfold, you’ll quickly be pulled into this special story.
The Memory of an Elephant
Book Summary
This 238-page book has phenomenal ratings and is considered a must-read for animal lovers. The book is narrated by an aging African elephant as he goes on a perilous journey to find the humans who rescued him fifty years earlier.
The story spans from 1962 to 2015 and takes place across eastern Africa, Great Britain, and New York. Along the way, you’ll find the elephant’s journey both heart-warming and heartbreaking.
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Liesel Meminger is a 9-year-old foster girl living in Nazi Germany in 1939. While trying to avoid all the death around her, she learns to read and begins stealing books. Soon, she’s sharing the books with neighbors and the Jewish man hidden in their basement.
It’s a heartbreaking read like so many others that cover this subject, but The Book Thief also underscores the vast power of books to help you through a terrible time.
Thoughts on This Book
Not only is Liesel reading books to escape her own reality, as she shares them, but she also makes unexpected connections with neighbors. Our readers voted that they believe this book will be considered a classic in the future, with one saying it’s “a heart-wrenching understanding of the effect of war and hate that should never be forgotten.”
This novel, which received a Printz Honor and won the National Jewish Book Award, is narrated by Death itself.
Pony Confidential
Book Summary
Pony is a grumpy pony who has been shuffled from owner to owner his whole life. He’s only loved one human, Penny, who was a little girl the last time he saw her. He was sold without warning when she was 12.
After stewing on this for 25 years, Pony decides that it’s time to confront Penny, and he escapes to find her. During his cross-country adventure, he learns that Penny has been arrested for murder. Despite his anger at being sold, he knows she’s innocent and changes his mission from confronting her to helping clear her name.
What to Expect in This Book
Reviews agree that this book is both funny and full of wisdom. While it’s marketed as a mystery, readers say most of it leans more into contemporary fiction for animal lovers with a side of humor, mystery, and adventure.
There are some facts about animal abuse included that are hard to hear.
All Systems Red
Book Summary
We couldn’t write a list of unexpected narrators without including a book told from the perspective of an AI droid. In this humorous novella, the main character is a self-aware “SecUnit” that hacked its own governor module, which was supposed to limit its control, and internally refers to itself as “Murderbot,” though it never tells the humans its name.
While the self-assigned nickname sounds like Murderbot has nefarious motives, they really just want to be left alone to binge-watch TV and figure out who they really are.
Unfortunately, in a society where security contracts go to the lowest bidder, things can go wrong. When a neighboring survey team goes dark, the scientists and Murderbot must figure out the truth.
What to Expect in This Book
While this novella falls into the Sci-Fi genre, many of the readers who rate it highly note that they don’t normally enjoy Sci-Fi.
Because it’s a short read at 144 pages, it’s a perfect way to test the genre for yourself. If you enjoy it, there are several additional books and an Apple TV+ series titled Murderbot based on the books.
Entitled
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
94% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This humorous and warm-hearted novel follows the adventures of an extraordinary book titled The Serendipity of Snow. This book IS the narrator of the story as it makes its way around the world, including stops in San Francisco, Paris, London, and New York.
The Serendipity of Snow is misplaced, loaned, and abandoned as it and its reader experience love, heartbreak, loneliness, and friendship. You’ll also see fun interactions between the personalities of other books throughout the story.
What to Expect in This Book
In this very unique book, the characters who read The Serendipity of Snow become the story of the book itself. One reviewer called it the “Toy Story” of books.
If you can, pick up a paper copy of Entitled vs audio or Kindle because there are some fun margin notes included throughout. You will still get these as part of the main body of the text in ebook and audio form, but seeing them in the margins adds charm to the print copy.
Squashed Possums: Off the Beaten Track in New Zealand
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
Book Summary
Ten years after returning from New Zealand, Jon receives a mysterious manuscript in the post. Squashed Possums reveals what it’s like to live in the wild through four seasons, including New Zealand’s coldest winter in decades. The book is narrated by his home during that time, his caravan (camper)!
Stories include how Jon found himself reversing off the edge of a cliff, meeting a Maori chef who survived 9/11, encountering flying hedgehogs, screaming possums, and the elusive kiwi bird.
About the Book
This NZ travelogue gets mixed reviews, but Bill Bryson calls it “terrific,” – which makes it worth a look in our book.
The Travelling Cat Chronicles
Book Summary
This quirky, best-selling translated novel is told from the perspective of a cat. The cat and his human companion, Satoru, take a road trip through Japan, visiting old friends from Satoru’s past and reliving important moments from Satoru’s childhood.
This book is described as charming, funny, and bittersweet. It’s perfect for animal lovers who have ever wanted to be inside the mind of their pet.
The Overstory
Book Summary
This sweeping, multigenerational novel intertwines the lives of nine individuals, each profoundly connected to trees. It begins with individual backstories that read like short stories: a soldier saved by a banyan tree in Vietnam, a young woman struck by lightning who becomes a passionate eco-warrior, a scientist who uncovers the hidden ways trees communicate, and an artist who inherits generations of photographs documenting a single chestnut tree.
As their lives unfold, each character comes to understand the vital role trees play in sustaining life on Earth. Their paths converge as they join a movement to stop deforestation, leading to acts of protest, sabotage, and reflection.
What to Expect in This Pulitzer Winner
While the trees are not direct narrators in this novel, the author uses an omniscient, third-person narrator who represents the trees as it tells the intersecting stories of nine different people.
The Overstory was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019. The Pulitzer board described the novel as “an ingeniously structured narrative that branches and canopies like the trees at the core of the story, whose wonder and connectivity echo those of the humans living amongst them.”
This is a complex work of literary fiction with an interesting structure and dense, descriptive passages.
The Flightless Birds of New Hope
Book Summary
Aden Shah left home as soon as he was old enough, tired of his parents constantly valuing their Bollywood-loving cockatoo, Coco, above their human children. But now, his parents have died unexpectedly in an accident, and he is the executor of the estate. His estranged sister, Aliza, still lives at home caring for their 13-year-old brother, Sammy.
While at home trying to settle the estate, Aden recklessly opens Coco’s cage and lets her fly away like he once did. The siblings quickly realize they need to catch her and assume it will be a quick job thanks to her tracking chip. However, Coco leads the trio on a cross-country road trip that challenges their fractured relationships and then helps them see each other in new ways.
What to Expect in This Book
While the bright cover may suggest this is more of an upbeat book, it’s very much a story about a dysfunctional family and how the parents’ actions affected the siblings in the long term. Some of the chapters are narrated by Coco, adding a fun dimension to the story.
Another Option for Bird Lovers
For a fun read told partially from the perspective of a backyard Goldfinch, pick up Duet by Elise Broach.
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
Be warned: while this often hilarious and uplifting story will make you smile, you’ll also need tissues to wipe your eyes. The novel is narrated by Enzo, a philosophizing dog who recalls all that he and his family have been through on his final evening on earth.
Enzo’s master, Denny, is an up-and-coming race car driver who has taught Enzo that life, like racing, isn’t simply about going fast. While this sounds like a quirky concept, it’s actually a beautiful book about the wonders and absurdities of human life.
About the Book
Random fact of the day: The adorable dog photographed for the cover of this book belonged to one of Angela’s friends!
The Way
Book Summary
This sci-fi novel takes you on a post-apocalyptic road trip through a world in which only 20% of the population has survived a lethal virus. The natural world has reclaimed cities and much of the infrastructure.
Will is the de facto caretaker of a Buddhist monastery in Colorado, and he has received a mysterious message to deliver a potential cure to what was once California. He sets out in a pickup pulled by two mules, but there is danger around every corner. He’ll only make it with the help of Peau, a raven who guides his journey; an opinionated cat; and a tough teenage girl.
About this Book
The perspectives of the raven that Will has learned to communicate with, along with the POVs of the cat and teen girl, add depth to the dystopian story. While the novel takes a hard look at the realities of Will’s post-apocalyptic world, it also has a balance of hope and optimism.
Black Beauty
Book Summary
Black Beauty spends his early years in the gentle pastures of an English farm, learning the ways of the world from his mother and the kind groom who raises him. He’s a sturdy, good-tempered colt with a glossy black coat and one white foot, bred for both strength and beauty.
However, as he gets older, he’s broken to be harnessed and saddled and sold into a life that will carry him through the homes of squires, cab drivers, and cruel strangers alike, all narrated in his own voice. The touching story includes his memories, his fears, and his quiet observations of the humans who hold his fate in their hands.
About This Classic
Black Beauty is widely regarded as a classic of children’s literature and often credited as one of the first novels written from an animal’s point of view. It’s also notable for its influence on animal welfare attitudes in Victorian England, particularly around the treatment of working horses.
Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty while in poor health, and it ended up being her only novel. She died just months after its publication, but the book went on to become one of the best-selling books of all time.
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
99% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
In this charming debut novel, Widow Tova works at the Sowell Bay Aquarium to occupy her mind and time. She takes pride in cleaning perfectly every night, even though she doesn’t need the money. She loves all the aquarium life but forms a special bond with the intelligent (and curmudgeonly) octopus named Marcellus.
He’s just as surprised to feel friendly toward this human who visits him nightly. Soon, he connects the sadness he sees in her with something he saw in the ocean long ago. Can he help her solve the mystery of her son’s disappearance 30 years ago?
Our Thoughts on This Book
Neither of us expected to have a book partially narrated by a giant Pacific octopus on our best books of 2022 list, but Marcellus stole our hearts. Beyond that, we loved each of the human characters and their struggles in different phases of life. Young or older, so many people deal with loneliness and loss. Watching characters process and evolve through that was a heartwarming treat.
Book Club Resources for Remarkably Bright Creatures
We have a great printable Remarkably Bright Creatures book club guide available on Etsy, including discussion questions, themed games, a Marcellus bookmark, and more!
You can also find free resources for your book club discussion about Remarkably Bright Creatures on our website.
The Violin Maker’s Secret
Book Summary
This novel follows a violin as it passes through different owners, and the unlikely group that bonds as a found family as they try to trace its provenance.
Devlin, an airport baggage handler, finds an antique violin in the lost and found. He turns to his retired teacher, Mr. Walter, for help finding the owner. To solve the historical mystery, they enlist an appraiser named Gabrielle. The trio has no idea how their lives are about to change as they get to know each other.
What to Expect in This Book
This story is told across multiple timelines, from the 18th century to the present day, and includes the violin’s perspective as it passes through different owners over time.
Dog Person
Book Summary
This uplifting and insightful romance is narrated by Harold, an elderly dog who is determined to help his owner find a reason to love again. Amelia, a romance novelist, adopted Harold and taught him so much before she died. She also left him with a final wish: to help her partner, Miguel, find love again. This seems like an impossible task to Harold because Miguel rarely leaves the house. He doesn’t even go to the bookstore that he co-owned with Amelia. But when a renowned author doesn’t show up for an event, it pushes the store’s already precarious finances into the red.
In a desperate attempt to save the bookstore, Miguel and Harold set out to find the no-show author. Instead, they meet Fiona, the author’s sunny yet secretive sister. To Harold’s horror, Fiona doesn’t like dogs. However, Fiona’s precocious eleven-year-old daughter, who’s also named Amelia, immediately befriends him. As Harold races against time to complete his mission, he’s convinced that if he can just get his stubborn human to let Fiona in, Miguel will find his own happy ending.
You are welcome to choose any book you’d like to read for the challenge, but we hope this list of books has given you a good starting point.
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Book Recommendations for Every Bingo Prompt
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