What are some books that think outside the linear first- or third-person storyline? Some examples I can think of include:

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi The book starts out with two sisters separated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. One stays in Africa, the other is taken to America. The rest of the book bounces back and forth between across the ocean, each covering a direct descendant of these two women for about 300 years. The author had to create a character, world, and story for each individual chapter of the book, basically making the reader connect with this newly-introduced person in the span of just a few pages.

• Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold The narrator is telling her story after having been murdered.

• Inland by Téa Obreht One half of the book told the story of a woman struggling in the American southwest in the 1800s. It took me a good while to figure out who was narrating the other half of the book: >!A dead body riding around on camelback.!<

• Always Never by Jordi Lefabre This one’s a graphic novel told backwards. Chapter 1 is actually the end of the story, and each chapter works its way back in time until you arrive at the last chapter, which is the beginning of the story.

EDIT: Adding Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday. Two different narrators break the book up into three parts: Alice’s story part 1, Amar’s story, then Alice’s story part 2. I had to read the reviews after finishing this story to figure out what the author has done, but it was brilliant.