Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Celebrate Diversity

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish wherein each week bloggers list out their Top Ten. This week is to celebrate diversity in lit, as in books which “featureminority/religious minority, socioeconomic diversity, disabled MC,  neurotypical character, LGBTQ”.

As I was making this post, I realized I haven’t really read that many diverse books, when you account the ratio over the entire book list. I’ll take you through the reasons I’ve included them in the list, but do remember that the diversity is not the only thing going for these, even though I will be highlighting that aspect here. In no particular order, here we go:

Viral Nation by Shaunta Grimes

Featuring an autistic protagonist, this science fiction book deals with time travel and is post-apocalyptic in theme.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

This fae book might have first seemed like just another urban fantasy but is a dark and well-thought out series featuring a diverse set of sexualities (there are bisexual characters) and relationships (polyamory included), as well as issues such as depression, rape and suicide.

Pantomine by Laura Lam

The main character, Micah Grey, is intersex, and bisexual.Raised as a girl, he identifies more as a boy, making him feel suffocated in his home, until he runs away and joins a traveling circus.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Leviathan

A gay protagonist, as well as a gay secondary character, and a story about love and understanding.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinderella with a twist. The Lunar Chronicles features a differently abled woman of color as protagonist – Cinder has a prosthetic arm and foot. It also features other POC characters, like Kai and Winter.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Though Hollywood white-washed this one, the setting of the book takes place in a distant future, meaning there has been considerable racial mixing that almost every character is of color, including our favorite arrow-wielding protagonist. Not only that, both main characters Katniss and Peeta, over the series, become differently abled. Katniss loses her hearing in one ear while Peeta loses a leg. And Avoxes.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

The Gemma Doyle series features POC characters, as well as lesbian characters. And is feminist in it’s central idea. Gemma and her gang of girls chafe against the restrictive society they grow up in, and this series is pretty heart-breaking overall.

The Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare

Okay, the entire chronicle, consisting of two whole series, as well as short story collections contains a diverse array of POC, sexualities (against the background of a bigoted Clave) and what’s it like to be different.

Adaptation by Malinda Lo

I did not find this well-written in terms of characters, but I wouldn’t deny it is one of the few LGBT books with aliens.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Besides featuring POC characters, it also includes an asexual character – Liraz.

Honorable mentions

  All of them feature POC characters

   

 

And this one for differently abled characters surviving a post-apocalyptic world