Hey all, Dani here.
Okay, so yeah, we’re almost at the end of Black History Month, and I know I haven’t talked about it at all yet on my blog. Yes I participate in events like GLBT Book Month in June, and Diverse December reading challenge at the end of the year, but really, lifting up diverse stories, diverse characters, and diverse authors should be something that we promote year-round. Trying to put together this post, I realized that I need to try and add even more diversity to my reading routine. Yes, I’m improving from where I was 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years ago, but there’s always room to do even better.
With that being said, please feel free to recommend some books/authors to me in the comments. My preference is towards fantasy reads, but I’ll read anything if the story sounds intriguing.
Oh, and some of these books I’m recommending I actually have on my TBR, so I’m hoping to read them soon, but I’ve heard wonderful things about them so I feel great about signal boosting them right now.
Let’s jump into the recommendations.
Look here, I already have a book in this section that I still haven’t read…The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; I own it and it’s sitting on my shelves. I know it is an immensely powerful story and I think it’s one that more people should read; I haven’t seen the movie either, but I plan to both read and watch both formats in the future. Obviously I’m a fan of superhero stories, so recommending this lovely story of our new/current Spider-Man, Miles Morales, seems like an obvious one to me. Dear Martin was a good read, but I found myself wanting to have the writing fleshed out more. The story felt like it wanted more description and it just didn’t happen, but it was still a worthwhile read. And Children of Blood and Bone is a book I devoured so quickly, but need to re-read before I pick up the sequel. The world-building and the magic system were pretty interesting, and I hope I enjoy it as much the second time around.
One of these four is on my currently reading list…honestly I keep setting it aside for other books, but I’ve read the other three. Yay. Obviously after watching the movie “Black Panther,” I wanted more of his sister Shuri in my life, and thankfully they decided to give her her own comic series, which is awesome. I need to get the next volume of this one because Shuri is an amazingly badass intelligent woman. Dread Nation was a book I didn’t expect to like as much as I did (but that’s because I do not like zombie books/shows/movies, well usually anyway; there are exceptions), and I’m really looking forward to reading the second one. I liked the first N.K. Jemisin book I read, but I feel like I would probably enjoy it more with a re-read now. But The Killing Moon is one that I recently finished and it was so darn good. I have now decided that I need to read all the Jemisin books this year, so that’ll be fun. Finally, I am currently reading Song of Blood & Stone, and I’m enjoying it, but I keep putting it aside to read other books, so it’s been on my currently reading list on Goodreads for several months now. I should probably just finish reading it. I don’t want it to sound like I’m not liking this book, because I am, but I sometimes suffer from reading ADHD where I just bounce around all the books, and unfortunately some of them sort of get left behind for a while.
Okay, so there’s just one more book on this recommendations list that I’ve read and that is Slay, which was a really cool geeky contemporary story that blended online gaming with black culture and heritage, and I was fascinated by it and I feel like I did learn quite a bit from reading it, so that’s great. The rest of these are on my TBR, and they all sound so good. I really wish I could find the time to squeeze in all the books that I want to read right now. Kingdom of Souls sounds like it has a fascinating magic system and I think the culture will be pretty cool as well, War Girls sounds like a tech-savvy world/set-up similar to that of Wakanda in the Black Panther comics/movie, so I’m really looking forward to that, and A River of Royal Blood feels like it is going to be a challenging duel of two powerful young women, and I am very excited about it.
Yay, even more books on my TBR. Obviously I held off on reading Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky for Middle Grade March, but I have been looking forward to this one since Uncle Rick announced it…well, okay, I look forward to all of the Rick Riordan Presents novel announcements. I love mythology mash-up stories, and I especially love that there is a platform out there that lifts up authors to write mythology and folklore stories of their respective cultures. It’s awesome. The Rage of Dragons is one I picked up in the store because of the cover, and then I read the synopsis and it sounds like an epic fantasy tale, and it wasn’t until I was writing this article that I even realized that the author was black; I’m sad/ashamed to say that I usually don’t pay attention to that when looking for books to read. I just look for stories that sound interesting. But it’s a plus that I know this information now and can increase the signal boost for the story. The Wedding Date is a contemporary romance novel with a fake dating trope, and I’m waiting until I’m in the romance reading mood to pick it up, but it does sound great. Finally, I was intrigued by The Good Luck Girls because of the cover and then the synopsis, because I love a good adventure story featuring a group of characters, especially one that feels like it will be a bit of a genre-mash-up, so there’s plenty of hopefully great reads in my future.
Well, I suppose that is all from me for today. Thanks for stopping by, and if you know of any other books I should check out, please, let me know. All right, well I’ll be back soon with more bookish content.
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