#ReadDiverseLit Challenge

I'm always looking to diversify my reading list and today I stumbled upon Thien Kim's blog, From the Left to Write. She is offering up this great reading challenge for the year and I'm in. I'll let you know what I'm reading, make recommendations of favorites in each category and invite you to come along for the #ReadDiverseLit ride!

This is what Thien Kim has come up with and I'm excited to get started. Will post about what I'm reading now soon (hint: it's #10 on this list).

2016 Diversity Reading Challenge Checklist:

1. Contemporary book with a person of color on the cover (set in present day)
2. Historical fiction about marginalized group (due to race, ethnicity, gender, mental ability, physical ability)
3. Book in which character suffers from mental illness
4. Graphic novel featuring protagonists of color
5. Book written by or about someone with spectrum disorder
6. Romance novel with main character of color
7. Book of poetry by LGBT writer
8. Science fiction or fantasy with female main character of color
9. Book in which a main character has a physical disability
10. Memoir or biography by or about a diverse author
11. Book with a main character who is mixed race
12. Novel with an LGBT main character

What qualifies as a diverse book?

Diverse books include books about or written by (but not limited to) LGBTQIA, people of color, gender diversity, people with disabilities*, and ethnic, cultural, and religious minorities. 

The Only Three Books I Loved This Year

So, I only read/finished 10 books this year. I guess I was a little hungover from last year's 50 book challenge. I don't think 50 will ever be possible for me, but who knows. Maybe I'll go on another reading tear in 2016. These are the three books I loved this year:

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander  

This novel in verse kept me turning the pages like novels-in-verse should. A story of basketball and family, love and loss, I was invested in the characters that weren’t stereotypes even though they were basketball-playing twin boys.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay 

This collection of essays was a great way to restart my brain after it was taken over by sleep deprivation and all things maternal. Gay's conversational style makes every essay approachable and she writes about many things that I think about and write about: cultural appropriation in The Help, white privilege, feminism, sexual violence, and the internet. Mostly, her essays made me want to write essays about my multicultural feminist experience and how motherhood sharpened my perspectives on gender inequity and violence.

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson  

I devoured this novel in about a week. It took me a minute to get into the hyperbole and magical realism that the narrators play with, but ended up really loving the story and the way time and one event were the hinge on which the story folded.