Top Ten Diverse Books We’re Excited About

(Images link to Goodreads, Titles link to Amazon)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish in which you make a list of ten to do with a certain topic.  This week is a Freebie Week, we were encouraged to pick our own topic!  We decided since we are participating in the Platypire Diversity Challenge we would do “Diverse Books We’re Excited About.”

Curly Carla’s Top Ten:

First, what is Diversity?  I looked it up and it’s pretty simple really, The state of being diverse; variety. A range of different things.  I like my art to imitate life.  We are not all the same so our books should represent this right?  Books that have people of color or are written by people of color; the LGBTQA community, people with disabilities, cultural and religious minorities, non-traditional family units are books that I would consider diverse.  What do you consider diverse?

1. Cinder & Ella by Kelly Oram.  This is a fantastic book!  Highly recommended, has different family units, an MC who is struggling with a disability and who has a Chilean background incorporated into the story as well.  I still want that recipe…
2. The History of Us by Nyrae Dawn.  This book looks into the gay culture and how it has changed over the years.  It’s title has a double meaning.  Loved this book!
3. Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg.  This book is about a gay teenager who wants to live life without the gay label. To just be ‘normal’ in his last year of high school.
4. Cinder by Marissa Meyer is a fairy tale re-telling featuring a Chinese heroine who is also part android.
5. 180 Days by T.E. Ridener.  This was my first transgender book and I can’t wait for the next one.
6. The Real Thing by Cassie Mae features a Somoan love interest.
7. Creatura by Nely Cab features a Hispanic MC.
8. Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan.  Never read it but it’s been on my kindle for months now.
9. Something True by Karelia Stetz-Waters.  F/F romance, I haven’t read it yet but it’s also on my kindle.
10. I do not have a tenth book…. 🙁 At least not one that I already own or have heard of so if you have recommendations I’d be happy to hear them.

Lenoreo’s Top Ten:

So Curly stole at least 4 of mine…:P  I actually had a hard time narrowing this down to just 10.  For one, I read quite a bit of M/M romance, so it would have been a piece of cake to fill up my list with those.  And I think that when people think of diverse reads, they often think of reads with characters of a different race.  And quite frankly, I’m not sure how many of the books I own with POC actually focused on their differences…so I’m a little light on that category.  Strangely enough I found a lot of books with characters with disabilities — which I found kind of fascinating b/c there are so many different kinds of disabilities.  So here’s my spread:

1. A Hundred Thousand Words by Nyrae Dawn — this is one of my go to authors for diversity.  This book is an M/M romance and features a half black half white main character.  (Check out some of her other titles for diversity: Charade, Freeing Carter, What a Boy Needs, Rush, History of Us all come to mind)
2. Suicide Watch by Kelley York — great LGBT read (contains an M/M romance, though it’s not the main storyline), and addresses topics of depression and suicide.  Highly underrated book, I can’t recommend it enough.
3. My Life After Now by Jessica Verdi — the main character has gay dads.
4. The Cranberry Hush by Ben Monopoli — bi main character.
5. How I Fall by Anne Eliot — main character with Cerebral Palsy.
6. The Year We Fell Down by Sarina Bowen — main character is in a wheelchair.
7. Count On Me by Melyssa Winchester — main character is a high functioning Autistic.
8. True Love by Melissa Pearl — main character has her hand amputated.
9. Chasing Daylight by Carey Heywood — main character has an amputated leg (and suffers from PTSD).
10. Has to Be Love by Jolene Perry — main character of the Mormon faith.