Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly blog meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week’s topic was supposed to be about new-to-me authors I read in 2018, but I’ve done so many posts about authors lately that I wanted to focus on something different, so I’m highlighting ten of my favorite diverse reads published in 2018.
I couldn’t narrow it down to ten, so you’re getting a Top Eighteen Tuesday this week! ?
1. Sawkill Girls — Claire Legrand
YA dark fantasy/mystery
rep: queer (f/f), ace, Black, fat
2. Sadie — Courtney Summers
YA mystery
rep: speech impediment, queer (f/f)
3. Blanca & Roja — Anna-Marie McLemore
YA fantasy/magical realism
rep: Latinx, trans, queer, disability (vision impairment)
4. Next Year in Havana — Chanel Cleeton
adult contemporary/historical fiction crossover
rep: Cuban
5. Toil & Trouble — anthology edited by Jessica Spotswood & Tess Sharpe
YA anthology: fantasy, contemporary
rep: queer, multiple POC reps, fat
6. Over and Over Again — Cole McCade
new adult romance/contemporary
rep: Romani, queer (m/m), demisexual
7. When My Heart Joins the Thousand — A. J. Steiger
YA contemporary
rep: autism, disability (osteogenesis imperfecta)
8. Mirage — Somaiya Daud
YA sci-fi/fantasy
rep: Moroccan
9. A Thousand Beginnings and Endings — anthology edited by Ellen Oh & Elsie Chapman
YA anthology: contemporary, sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal
rep: multiple Asian reps, queer
10. The Astonishing Color of After — Emily X. R. Pan
YA contemporary/fantasy
rep: Chinese, biracial, depression
11. A Girl Like Her — Talia Hibbert
adult romance/contemporary
rep: Black, autism, fat, PTSD
12. The Way You Make Me Feel — Maurene Goo
YA contemporary
rep: South Korean, Brazilian, Chinese
13. Reign of the Fallen — Sarah Glenn Marsh
YA fantasy
rep: queer, POC side characters, (Black, Asian, possibly more), addiction
14. Undead Girl Gang — Lily Anderson
YA mystery/contemporary/horror (light)
rep: Afro-Latinx, Black, fat
15. A Very Large Expanse of Sea — Tahereh Mafi
YA contemporary
rep: Muslim
16. Summer Bird Blue — Akemi Dawn Bowman
YA contemporary
rep: Asian (Hawaiian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Samoan, Black), asexual, aromantic, depression
17. Beneath the Sugar Sky — Seanan McGuire
adult fantasy
rep: fat, queer, trans, asexual, Latinx, Japanese—it’s been a while and I know I’m missing some here!
18. The Kiss Quotient — Helen Hoang
adult romance/contemporary
rep: autism, Vietnamese, biracial
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I loved Astonishing Color of After ❤️ happy reading!
Thank you! It was so good. <3
Wow! Such an amazing list of diverse reads. The Astonishing Color of After was incredibly unique!
Thank you, Chrissi! Oh man, it really was. It was one of those books that I wasn’t sure what to make of it until after I finished it and thought on it for a few days.
So many incredibles books!, I’ll be adding some to my TBR and I LOVE Sadie, it’s such an intense but great book. And I need to read Blanca & Roja! ??
I hope you like Blanca & Roja when you read it!! And yes to Sadie – so good. <3
Ooh there’s a bunch of books on here that I want to read. Sawkill Girls, Sadie, and A Thousand Beginnings and Endings for sure. Undead Girl Gang sounds fun too. 🙂
They’re all so good! I hope you get the chance to check them out 🙂
*adds everything to tbr shelf*
ULTIMATE BLOGGER COMPLIMENT hahah <3
i haven’t read any of these, but most of them are already on my TBR! hopefully i’ll pick them sometimes this year. great list! <3
I hope you get the chance to! <3 Thank you!
The Kiss Quotient was great!
I don’t particularly pay attention to whether a book is diverse or not… I just want to read a good story… but a quick look at the top 10 books I read in 2018, and more than half of them had some sort of diversity to them. I’m glad that publishers are offering all sorts of books to us.
The Kiss Quotient really was so good! I’m so ready for the sequel 🙂
I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t read any of these books yet, although I’ve had my eye on a few of them for a while. This list has made me think I need to prioritise a few of them, though – I had no idea that Sadie included a character with a speech impediment, and I didn’t know that Summer Bird Blue had aromantic/asexual rep either. Great list.
Thank you! Yes, Sadie’s speech impediment is a big part of her character arc, but it’s done so well and I really loved it. And SBB has such good aro/ace rep! I hope you like the ones you pick up 🙂
I need to read these books… They were in my 2018 TBR and I don’t what happened. Typical of me. hehe…
Hahaha I know that feeling!!
18!! You’re spoiling us! Undead Girl Gang and Sawkill Girls were already on my tbr, but now I’ve added a bunch more. Thanks for helping me read more diversely 🙂
Haha thank you so much for checking out my list!! <3
I’ve been on the wait list for Sadie at my local library for ages. So glad to hear you liked it!
This is my Top Ten Tuesday post.
I hope you get to read Sadie soon! It’s so good. 🙂
I haven’t read any of these! Reign of The Fallen & Toil and Trouble are on my TBR though. Fave diverse books of 2018? Children of Blood and Bone & For A Muse of Fire are definitely up there, both amazing books.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/15/top-ten-tuesday-194/
I hope you enjoy them! I haven’t read A Muse of Fire, but I’ve heard good things. Sadly I wasn’t a big CoBaB fan! 🙁 I might check out the sequel if it gets rave reviews, though!
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings is my favorite read of 2018 too! I’m so sad that I didn’t get to Toil and Trouble last year, but it’s a priority this year! 🙂
I hope you get the chance to! It was so good 🙂
I absolutely adored Sadie as well! I really need to read Sawkill Girls and Next Year in Havana. I’ll need to remind myself to buy copies of those soon. Also, I’m really excited to read A Girl Like Her! I bought it after seeing you mention it in one of your posts, and I really feel like I’m in the mood to pick it up soon.
Yaaaaaay! I get so excited when people read A Girl Like Her haha!
I read it this morning and loved it so much! 😀
AHHHHH this makes me so happy!!! <3
Great list, I love Mirage and can’t wait to read Next Year in Havana and Blanca & Roja 🙂
Thank you!! I hope you like them when you do 🙂
You’re welcome and thanks ???
I loved Sadie and The Kiss Quotient! I still need to read Blanca & Roja! Happy reading!
Thank you, Victoria, and happy reading to you too!!
Mirage and Sadie have my heart ❣
They were so good. Both of those were books I just couldn’t force myself to put down!
This is an excellent list! So many of these are already on my TBR, but I have about five more I’m adding today.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday. Thank you!
Thank you! Haha I love to hear that I helped someone’s TBR grow! 🙂
Oh my gosh I loved Sadie and A Very Large Expanse of Sea!
They were sooo good! I’m glad you loved them, too 🙂
This is a great list! I LOVED The Astonishing Color so much. I can’t wait to read Blanca & Roja, as well as Toil & Trouble, both sound so good 🙂
Thank you! Aww, I hope you love them both when you get to them 🙂
I am freaking out bc I didn’t even realize Sadie ft. a queer character???? sldkfj I need to reread, I read the audiobook and it was my very first audiobook so that explains my detail-missing,,,,,,but HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN
also i’m so excited for sawkill girls!
It’s kinda subtle but yes!! She’s attracted to the girl she meets and there are some minor references she makes. When it first came out I saw some reviewers say they thought she was just starved for attention and I think the author actually confirmed that she is attracted to girls! <3
I hope you love Sawkill Girls!!
Really great list and I love your focus this week!
Thank you! 🙂
I’ll have to add some of these to my TBR!!
Yay! I hope you like them!
I don’t think I’ve read many of these. Next Year in Havana is on my list.
http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2019/01/top-ten-tuesday-new-to-me-authors-i.html
I hope you enjoy Next Year in Havana — it was really lovely!
I’m actually reading Mirage right now and I’m loving it. 🙂
Lauren @ Always Me
That’s awesome, I’m so happy you’re enjoying Mirage! 😀
I’ve only read Sadie in this list. I didn’t really enjoy the book, although the audio book was fun. Just didn’t like the story. I’ve been wanting to pick up Mirage (THAT COVER!). I’m constantly looking to your blog for recs!
tiffanysbookblog.com
I’m sorry you weren’t a big fan of Sadie! But thank you for the kind words about my blog! ♥♥ That makes me so happy to hear!!
SO MANY GOOD BOOKS ON HERE. I still have a few on my TBR I need to get to (starting, ironically, with the first book on your list: Sawkill Girls) and ughhh I’m READY.
Thank you! Ooooh, I hope you like Sawkill Girls. It’s WEIRD but so good.
The Astonishing Color of After is on my priority list for this year! I love Anna-Marie McLemore and devoured Blanca & Roja and will continue to devour everything she writes but… as a person who is not a romance fan, I feel after four books I’m starting to tire of the same general arcs to the romantic plots ? This is just a personal preference though – there’s so much more going on in each of her books that makes them well worth reading!
TACOA was so beautiful but SO heavy at times, so make sure to have tissues on standby. I remember just being stunned by how spot-on some of the commentary on depression and suicide was. And that’s actually really understandable, how you’re feeling about the romance in AMM’s books! I’ve only read 2 novels and a few short stories from her, and I loved them all, but I find that I have to be in just the right “mood” for her romances because they do feel a bit similar! So I can definitely see how it would bug you if you’re not a big romance fan in general!
Hoping to read Beneath the Sugar Sky and A Thousand Beginings soon. I’ve only read Toil and Trouble and Reign of the Fallen but both were great reads yes. 🙂
I hope you get to soon! <3 And I hope you love them!
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