Diversity Spotlight #1

I have discovered a wonderful blog meme and I knew the second I saw it I had to take part. Diversity Spotlight Thursday is hosted by Bookshelves and Paperbacks, and involves featuring 3 diverse books every week. I'll likely be participating once a month, but I hope I'm able to convince you to get your hands on these books, and maybe in the process get some recommendations too! This month I've decided to focus on contemporaries.


A Book I Have Read
Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate | Review | Goodreads
Diversity note: pansexual protagonist
This book knocked me off my feet. I'm not big on contemporaries and I generally only read them when I've had people tell me I NEED to read it. So picking this up was a big risk for me. But it totally paid off! It focuses on the perspectives of seven teenagers who each represent one of the seven deadly sins, one of whom is pansexual (and another who I believe was hinted to be asexual but the label was never used). Each character had a very distinct voice, and I loved how all of them wove together to form a story where they're all forced together with the knowledge of a big secret. This is an example of where multiple first person perspectives is done successfully, and I can't wait to read more of Redgate's work.



A Book on my TBR
Whisper to Me by Nick Lake | Goodreads
Diversity note: mental illness
I picked this up at YALC 2016 because I was on a first-book-convention high and because the cover was beautiful. I didn't know it was about mental illness until looking it up much later. Although I've heard very little about this book, what I have heard has been so positive. It's about a girl who is writing a letter to the boy whose heart she broke, explaining why, and apparently has an accurate and non-romanticised representation of mental illness. As someone who doesn't read a lot of fiction on mental health (the risk of it going terribly wrong is very off-putting) I have been putting this off, but I completely intend to read this book this year.



A Book Not Yet Released
The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli | Goodreads
Diversity note: fat, LGBT and POC characters
Release date: 11th April 2017
I loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and it's a book I've really been meaning to reread. So I was over the moon when I was provided with an E-ARC of Albertalli's upcoming second book The Upside of Unrequited. It sounds very romance focused which generally doesn't work for me, but I loved Simon so I'm hoping I'll love this too. I hear it's got diversity practically up the walls, and doesn't just focus on one minority group which I think is so great (because let's be real, in real life having one minority to every twenty majority is just not realistic like it seems to be in fiction) so I'm hoping this book pulls it all off!

What about you? What books would you put for these 3 categories? Have you read any of the ones I've listed? What did you think? Is there anything you would recommend to me?