Diverse December TBR

Hey all, Dani here.

I think I’m ready for all the food I’m going to eat tomorrow. I have two, possibly three, Thanksgiving meals to attend. But before I can enjoy the holiday and then my weekend, I have to make it through this last work shift. Naturally I pass the time by thinking about books.

Anyway, my buddy Kathy over at Books & Munches is hosting this fun reading challenge in the month of December called Diverse December. The basic concept is to read as many diverse books as you can in the month. What’s fun for me with this idea is that my recommendations post next week actually is about diverse reads.

Now, I absolutely do not believe that I will make it through all of these books in December, but this is an idea of some of the books I’m hoping to read next month. Obviously I do also have some NetGalley review copies to read and all that, but I’m hoping to finish my year off strong and really boost my total number of books read for 2017. This may be fairly easy considering that I am off work the whole last week of the year and plan to read as much as possible in that time.

Let’s just go ahead and list off the books I might be reading next month.

First off, The Librarian of Auschwitz sounds like such an important and interesting read. I think it qualifies as a diverse read because I am not Jewish, so it is a different culture for me to read about. Mask of Shadows follows a gender fluid main character and it has been high on my TBR for months. Then there’s And I Darken, which I’ve heard amazing things about and apparently there is a potential gay relationship, though I’ve heard that has a greater focus in the sequel.

Okay, so Phantom Pains has a diverse cast of characters, most of whom are dealing with some sort of psychological diagnosis. For example, the main protagonist is a double amputee who deals with borderline personality disorder. I’ve been wanting to read Heroine Complex for a few months now but keep putting it off. Well, it features a main character who is an Asian-American, so it definitely fits the qualifications for Diverse December. And The Upside of Unrequited has at least a girl-girl romance and possibly more. Plus I’ve been wanting to give Becky Albertalli another try because while I liked Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, it didn’t quite meet my expectations.

Two teenage secret agents sent to seduce one teenage girl and they end up falling for each other instead. Yeah, I’ve been wanting to read The Love Interest for a while. Next is a John Green book, and honestly I hadn’t originally planned on reading this. Then I read some wonderful reviews, ones that praised the mental health representation in the book, so I’m going to give it a try. Of course, I also still need/want to read The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. I have heard so many wonderful things about this story, and I need to stop putting it off.

In this final batch of TBR possibilities, I have When Dimple Met Rishi, which I’ve heard is a cute contemporary read, and the two main characters are Indian-American. Next is the middle grade novel for Lumberjanes. Now I love the graphic novels and I’ve heard great things about this story too. And I know that a couple of the Lumberjanes start a relationship together, so we’ll see if that ends up in the books too. The Hate U Give is a story I have been hearing about all year, and I think its focus on police brutality and the black lives matter movement is important. Actually, I should probably have Dear Martin on this list for the same reason. Finally, my last option is A Closed and Common Orbit. I have gushed repeatedly about the wonderful political, racial, religious, and sexuality diversity in the first book of this series, so I’m expecting this one to be more of the same. We’ll see what happens.

Okay, that is all for my TBR possibilities in December. Hmm…adding Dear Martin to this list, I have almost challenged myself to read 14 books. Will I succeed? So long as I read a few books then I’ll consider it a success, but if I could read all of these, that would be an amazing end to 2017. I suppose if all goes well I’ll have a lot of book reviews coming soon enough.