June is the month for LGBTQIA pride! Normally I would take this time to focus only on pride but with everything going on (riots, protests, BLM), I would like to also focus on POC authors. I think people often forget that we have pride because of two queer black women so it's time we give it back and fight for them as well.
I am ashamed to say that my shelves are not as diverse as I thought they were. I thought I was better than this considering I am not only a Pansexual woman but I am also a Latina (shocking, I know). I just never realized that non white or non straight authors weren't marketed as much as white authors.
I took the first week of June to find queer and POC books for my months TBR pile. Some books are unavailable due to being on high demand during this time but I still added them on my general TBR list for future reads such as 'Why I'm no longer talking to White People about Race' by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
Here is what I do recommend from my own collection:
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (POC)
Zelie is born for magic but her people have been massacred and oppressed for years. One day the magic within her is awakened. Together with her brother and a princess, they journey to bring magic back for all and free all Magi.
Reverie by Ryan La Sala (POC/LGBTQ)
Kane remembers nothing. The police told him where they found him half dead but how did he get there and why was he there? As he tried to discover the truth, he begins to realize reality is not what it seems.
The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen (LGBTQ)
Caleb discovers that he has extreme empathy. He can feel and see other's feelings. It's too chaotic until he notices Adam. His emotions are the only ones that seem to fit with his own and make him feel peaceful. With his therapist's guidance, he begins to explore a friendship with the boy who has green emotions.
Mask Of Shadows by Linsey Miller (LGBTQ)
Sallot Leon is a thief who enters a competition to become the Queen's Left Hand, her personal assassins. This is a competition to the death and Sal must survive to reach their ultimate goal: revenge.
Ash by Melinda Lo (LGBTQ/POC)
A queer retelling of Cinderella where she meets the kings Huntress but Ash has already been claimed by a Fairy Prince. Who shall she choose? True love or her fairy tale dreams?
Internment by Samira Ahmed
In an alternate universe where a certain president makes laws and internment camps for Islamic people.
My June TBR:
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi (POC)
Continuation and aftermath of book 1, Children of Blood and Bone.
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (POC)
Dana has just turned 27 and moved into a house with her husband but somehow she is pulled into the past, across the country to a plantation. Dana must find a way to survive being a free, modern, black woman in a time where free black people were rare.
Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron (POC)
Arrah yearns to wield her own magic but she keep failing at beinf able to read the bones or call upon her ancestors. There is one solution but it will cost years of her life and that number is a mystery until the ritual is already done. Children are mysteriously disappearing she must find the kidnapper and the missing kids. What she finds instead is a demon king who wants to devour her world. She must pay the price to save her world.
Infinity Son by Adam Silvera (LGBTQ/POC)
Growing up in New York, brothers Emil and Brighton always idolized the Spell Walkers—a vigilante group sworn to rid the world of specters. While the Spell Walkers and other celestials are born with powers, specters take them, violently stealing the essence of endangered magical creatures.Brighton wishes he had a power so he could join the fray. Emil just wants the fighting to stop. Then, in a brawl after a protest, Emil manifests a power of his own—one that puts him right at the heart of the conflict and sets him up to be the heroic Spell Walker Brighton always wanted to be.
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender (LGBTQ/POC)
Felix is proud of his identity, but he also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle....
Rereading Ash
If you have any other suggestions, please let me know so I can add to my library and make my collection as diverse as it should be! Or if you read one of my recommended, let me know what you think of it! Ash is personally a favorite of mine.
Also, real quick:
Although I am a person of color and queer, I am both white passing and in a straight passing marriage. I don't personally understand all the struggles my fellow people have, do, and continue to go through. I do see and have personally experienced what the rest of my family goes through as they are clearly not white people. It so sad and break my heart that anyone is treated terribly just because they have more melanin than another person. Keep protesting and educating not only yourselves but others as well! Everyone deserves love.
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