Conversations Week 1: Are There Any Diverse Books You Read More and Why?

I’m so excited to be participating in the first-ever discussion post meme Conversations! Conversations is a meme created by Geraldine @ Corralling Books and Joan @ Fiddler Blue with a basic theme and a topic to follow! For more information on the meme, click here. This week’s theme is popular issues, and the topic is: Are there any diverse books you read more and why”?

My answer to this question is: yes, there are diverse reads that I tend to go for more than others, and that is specifically LGBT books. The reason for this is, that LGBT rights is an issue that I am passionate about and I really enjoy reading different takes on them. Being a contemporary junkie, romance is obviously a huge component and it’s almost always between a boy and a girl. Now while this gives me something to relate to, it get’s kind of repetitive after a while reading about the same relationships. In LGBT contemporary books, there is more of a diverse romance that brings a fresh new edge.

I think that the reason I am so passionate about LGBT issues is because of my upbringing. I was raised in a very religious family, and obviously in the church LGBT rights is a huge issue. Now while I am fortunate enough to have a family that is accepting of all people, many of our friends have more negative views and there is always that sour note in a room whenever someone mentions “gay marriage”. This issue really angers me especially when people bring religion in it, but I guess this is another story. Right now, let’s just focus on the books.

The point is, that LGBT books appeal to me more when it comes to diversity because I enjoy the change in relationships. One of my favourite LGBT books is Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda, because it was a very unique take. You’d expect LGBT contemporary to be very dark with very negative views towards the person, and while this issue is sadly very relevant in real life, this book had a much lighter,funnier tone to the issue where everyone was accepting of Simon. It made me happy that there are good people in this world.

Now you may be wondering, do you not read any other diverse reads? The answer is, while I would like to, I don’t really find other extremely striking diverse reads, that is, I don’t know which books are diverse. You don’t see many books that perhaps have a person of colour as the main character, actually write on the synopsis: “this book has a black character”, so I don’t think I really know if a book’s diverse or not unless I actually dive in. In LGBT books, the theme is pretty much obvious.

The other diverse reads that I have read that contained people of colour as the mains, would have to be Everything, Everything, which contained a mixed girl who had a rare illness, and My Name is Parvana, which was an incredible series involving a Afghan girl. These books were both done really well, but I do think that more could be done on the racial diversity front.

I guess that’s all of my thoughts down! If you have any racially diverse book or even LGBT book recommendation's, please let me know as I’d love to check them out! Thank to Geraldine and Joan for creating this meme, and I can’t wait for the next topic! 

Emily @ Paperback Princess