2017 AMC 12B Problem 11

Call a positive integer monotonous if it is a one-digit number or its digits, when read from left to right, form either a strictly increasing or a strictly decreasing sequence. For example, 3, 23578, and 987620 are monotonous, but 88, 7434, and 23557 are not. How many monotonous positive integers are there?

\textbf{(A)}\ 1024\qquad\textbf{(B)}\ 1524\qquad\textbf{(C)}\ 1533\qquad\textbf{(D)}\ 1536\qquad\textbf{(E)}\ 2048

Full credit goes to MAA for authoring these problems. These problems were taken on the AOPS website.