Armchair Book Expo: Diversity In Fiction

Today's blog post is talking about diversity in books. Now as a white, straight (mostly) cis woman, I'm not exactly the type of diversity people want writing out there anymore. And if I'm honest, that's fair enough. We're always going to have white authors out there writing about white, straight characters and it just gets a little boring. This year I've noticed that there seems to be a stream of diverse books coming out by people about their own cultures or about others cultures and this is really exciting.

A really great YA contemporary about fandom and two boys in love

Books like When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon are the type of books we need out there showcasing another culture. I usually hate contemporary but this book is actually on my to-read list as the author seems so nice and the book so cute. It focuses on two Indian-American teenagers who are being put together in an arranged marriage and wind up getting to know each other at a coding summer camp. So we have a smart female protagonist, a glimpse at something that is sadly most portrayed as bad but isn't most of the time and we get to see more diverse authors out there. For Indian teenagers across the world this book is going to be a must-read and that's what I like most about diversity. It's people getting to see their stories and cultures portrayed in the fictional worlds they love so much. And for adults, it can help educate them so maybe they won't pass any negative bias onto their own teenagers. What we don't need though is diversity shoved in for the sake of saying, hey look, my book is diverse. It's not just about using diversity as a plot point or as a way to get popular. It's about providing more books that allow all people to feel included.

Personally, the type of diverse books I read the most are the LGBTQA+ ones and a lot of the ones I've read, I haven't picked up new. I read a bunch of Alex Sanchez books a good few years back and loved them, I've devoured Prodigy and Guardian by Alex London and let's just say that I need The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich like now but all the UK websites are saying I have to wait until the 27th which sucks. The problem here though is that though it's great that we're seeing more gay protagonists, we aren't exactly seeing many pan, ace or aro ones. We don't even see many bi protagonists though they're a little more likely than the other three. Whenever I see a book with a pan or an ace/aro main character then I grab it whilst I can. I need to start doing so with trans main characters too and I already have an idea what book I'm gonna start with, As for bi characters...well...I have The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow in which I've heard has a bi character in and I'm hoping it's the main girl.

The fact of the matter is that we do need more diversity. Ideally, we should be encouraging, publishing and reading my own voices books but us white people should be writing about other cultures too. As long as we do so respectfully and with plenty of research. Look at the many super white fantasy books there out there for god's sake. They just don't make sense. My manuscript has a bunch of kids from different countries training together and becoming friends. And guess what? They're mostly POC. Because funnily enough, if you have different countries with different eco-systems, you'll have people with different ethnicities too.

I think slowly we are allowing books to become more diverse but we do still have a long way to go. So once you've finished here, get out there and pick up a diverse book, or even write one if you'd rather.