Diveristy Spotlight Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Aimal of Bookshelves and Paperbacks. Every week, we are to come up with one book in each of three different categories: a diverse book we have read and enjoyed, a diverse book on your TBR, and one that has not yet been released.
This is the first time I'm taking part in Diversity Spotlight Thursday, having just discovered it through Read Diverse Books. I think this meme is such a brilliant idea, and being so passionate about diverse books, it's one I can really get behind. I'm excited to post about diverse books each week, and discover new ones through other people's posts!
A Diverse Book I Enjoyed:
Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz
Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.
Everywhere she turns, someone feels she’s too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere—until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca might be Etta’s salvation…but can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself? From Goodreads.
I cannot properly express my love for this book. It's incredible! I absolutely loved Etta, and how she simply wouldn't except that she wasn't good enough in any respect for anything. And I love that she was intersectional; a bisexual woman of colour with a mental illness. This book is also #OwnVoices, as Hannah Moskowitz was also eating disordered not otherwise specified. You can read my review here.
A Diverse Book on my TBR:
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up. From Goodreads.
A slight cheat here as it isn't actually on my TBR right this second, but it is on order. I'm so looking forward to it. I absolutely adored The Weight of Feathers, so I'm really looking forward to reading this! It's another magical realism romance, featuring a trans guy, and I believe at least one latinx characters (?)! It sounds like it's going to be another beautiful book full of gorgeous imagery.
A Diverse Book That Is Yet To Be Released:
The Seafarer's Kiss by Julia Ember
Having long-wondered what lives beyond the ice shelf, nineteen-year-old mermaid Ersel learns of the life she wants when she rescues and befriends Ragna, a shield-maiden stranded on the mermen’s glacier. But when Ersel’s childhood friend and suitor catches them together, he gives Ersel a choice: say goodbye to Ragna or face justice at the hands of the glacier’s brutal king.
Determined to forge a different fate, Ersel seeks help from Loki. But such deals are never as one expects, and the outcome sees her exiled from the only home and protection she’s known. To save herself from perishing in the barren, underwater wasteland and be reunited with the human she’s come to love, Ersel must try to outsmart the God of Lies. From Goodreads.
I am SO excited for this bisexual retelling of The Little Mermaid, with elements of Norse mythology! It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of The Little Mermaid, and there aren't enough of them if you ask me! So I'm super glad there are two coming out this year (the other being The Sea Witch by Sarah Henning!), and one has a bisexual little mermaid! This is coming out 4th May 2017!
Have you read any of these books (I know some lucky people have received early copies of The Seafarer's Kiss already!)? What did you think? Link me to your own Diversity Spotlight Thursday posts!
