Top Ten (Okay Twenty) Diverse YA Contemporary Books

This feature is hosted by the ladies of The Broke and the Bookish.

Today’s prompt was all about celebrating diversity. Now, I’m all for that, so of course I had to jump right into it.

LGBT Books


Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz
-There are so few bisexual main characters in books that I had to put this one on the list even though I haven’t finished it-
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
-My favorite LGBT book of the year so far. Simon & Blue were ADORABLE-
Far From You by Tess Sharpe
-One of my favorite books of 2014. Yet another bisexual main character-
Under the Lights (Daylight Falls #2) by Dahlia Adler
-I’ve heard that Van & Bri are all kinds of sexy, so I cannot wait to read this-
The Summer I Wasn’t Me by Jessica Verdi
-Still my favorite Jessica Verdi book. It was a hard book to read, but so, so important-
One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva
-I loved this book. It was different as there was a lot of emphasis on Armenian culture, which I loved-

Eating Disorders/OCD/Anxiety/Mental Illness Books


Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
-I have not read this one yet, but I have it out from the library right now. Hopefully I can get to it soon-
Paperweight by Meg Haston
-I absolutely adored this book. It was beautiful, heartbreaking and hopeful-
Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
-I have an e-ARC of this. I started to read it last month, but it was so triggering, I had to put it back down-
Made You Up by Francesca Zappia
-Utterly beautiful book. Captivating characters, story and loads of feels-
The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno
-One of my all time favorite books. It was awesome and heartbreaking-
My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga
-One of my favorite books of 2015. This book made me feel all the feels-

Books about Rape/Sexual Assault


Pointe by Brandy Colbert
-This book is the book I routinely recommend to everyone. Such a gorgeous book-
All The Rage by Courtney Summers
-This book enraged me in the best possible way-
Fault Line by Christa Desir
-I adored this book, I think mostly because it didn’t end neatly. It showed a different side to what happens to rape victims-
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
-I need to read this book. I cannot believe I haven’t read it yet-
Faking Normal by Courtney C. Stevens
-One of my favorite books of 2014. It was beautiful, feelsy and heartwarming-

Books that feature disabled characters

 Summer on the Short Bus by Bethany Crandell
-This book was so much fun. I related to it in a way I wasn’t expecting-
Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern
-I was thrilled to read this book. There really is so few books out there featuring physically disabled characters-
The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler
-I have not read this book yet, but I think I probably should. It does look like something I’d enjoy-

If you did a TTT post this week, be sure to leave me links so I can stop by your posts as well.

Review: Fault Line by Christa Desir

Book Title: Fault Line

Author: Christa Desir

Published Date: October 15th, 2013

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Genre: YA Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Ben could date anyone he wants, but he only has eyes for the new girl — sarcastic free-spirit, Ani. Luckily for Ben, Ani wants him too. She’s everything Ben could ever imagine. Everything he could ever want.

But that all changes after the party. The one Ben misses. The one Ani goes to alone.

Now Ani isn’t the girl she used to be, and Ben can’t sort out the truth from the lies. What really happened, and who is to blame?

Ben wants to help her, but she refuses to be helped. The more she pushes Ben away, the more he wonders if there’s anything he can do to save the girl he loves.

Disclaimer: I borrowed this book from the library.

Review:

This book was one of those books I was so excited about. I missed out on getting an ARC of it, so when I got my new library card, I wasted no time in putting a hold on this book. I finished the book in one night and oh my goodness, this book was an important one. It was a messy one and it was definitely one that every single teenager & adult should read. I don’t care if you are male or female, you need to read this book.

Ani and Ben fall for each other quickly and normally that would have made me uneasy but for some reason, this time, it didn’t. Ani was awesome. She didn’t play games, she said exactly what was on her mind and didn’t let what people thought about her, bother her. Her relationship with her mother was very much like my own relationship was with my mother at her age. So I was definitely able to relate to that part.

Now Ben on the other hand, he lived with his mom and dad and younger brother. So he had much more of a “traditional family” Ben’s a swimmer, a very good swimmer and he’s angling for a college scholarship for swimming. At first, when he begins dating Ani, not much changes schedule-wise for him.

Everything changes after that one night.

Ani is gang raped at a party and as soon as her friend Kate, calls Ben, Ben rushes to the hospital to be with her. It’s there that he learns other details of the evening. Details that are impossible for him to get out of his head.

This book is dark and gritty and sometimes I had to put the book down to collect my thoughts and/or stop crying. The book details exactly how low a person who was raped can go self-esteem wise. It’s a hard book because you want to see Ani start to heal from it but this book also shows you why it’s oftentimes impossible to go back to the person you were before you were raped.

It also shows you how helpless people feel as they watch you deal with this. Ben clearly wanted to help Ani, but she refused his help. She wanted to deal with this her own way. That frustrated Ben because he wanted to heal her. It was hard for him to realize that she didn’t want his help. He also blamed himself for it even happening. He kept telling himself that he should have gone to that party. He should have protected her better. Ben ends up turning to Beth, the rape counselor he and Ani met at the hospital that night. He wanted Beth to tell him how to help her. How to get her to heal.

Some people aren’t going to like this book for various reasons, and that’s okay. I absolutely loved it and I thought it was an extremely important book. It was a fast paced book, which I actually really liked. It was an emotional book and it brought me right back to certain moments in my life that I never ever wanted to visit again. 

The ending was a bit more open ended than I expected it to be, but then I remembered that recovering from a situation like this isn’t cut and dried and it’s not going to just be dealt with and then the person can move on and never think about it again. I will be giving this book 5 stars. Not only because I loved it, but because I felt the author did an amazing job with this topic. I need to get my own copy of this book.

Review: Pointe by Brandy Colbert

Book Title: Pointe

Author: Brandy Colbert

Published Date: April 10th, 2014

Publisher: Penguin

Genre: YA Contemporary

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Theo is better now.

She’s eating again, dating guys who are almost appropriate, and well on her way to becoming an elite ballet dancer. But when her oldest friend, Donovan, returns home after spending four long years with his kidnapper, Theo starts reliving memories about his abduction—and his abductor.

Donovan isn’t talking about what happened, and even though Theo knows she didn’t do anything wrong, telling the truth would put everything she’s been living for at risk. But keeping quiet might be worse.

Disclaimer: This book was a personal purchase.

Review:

Um…

Um…

Holy catfish, this book was far more complex than I ever gave it credit for. It’s not “just” a ballet book with kidnapping and anorexia subplots. It involves friendships, boys, choices and, even a more dark subject matter, rape and I think realizing that was important. There was definitely more than met the eye for this book. It tackled a ton of tough subjects and it was done well, really well. When you first start reading this book, you think it’s going to head in one direction, but it doesn’t and that really threw me off for a little while.

Theo didn’t always make the best decisions, but that’s what I loved about her. She was real, she was human and she was dealing with more issues than I had ever dealt with in my life. She loved and was devoted to ballet, something that never wavered throughout the book. She was loyal to her friends Sara-Kate and Philip. She had supportive and loving parents who she had put through the wringer. And there’s Hosea, he’s spoken for, but Theo cannot help but be drawn to him. 

And then, there was Donovan. Her best friend who she hadn’t seen in 4 years. In those four years there had been leads, but all had been false. Until the day, he returns. It’s an ordinary day, a day much like the previous days. Except Donovan is back. 

Theo is desperate to see him, to talk to him, but he’s not talking, his mother is honoring his request to keep a low profile. So Theo has no choice but to wait.

Waiting is hard for Theo. She likes being in control but she cannot control this situation. She cannot control anything about Donovan’s return and the legal case that will follow it. Because there will be a legal case. The person who took Donovan will be put on trial. Worst of all, Theo must testify about the last time she saw Donovan before he disappeared. Secrets threaten to come to the surface, but Theo knows that she can’t keep quiet anymore. She knows that she must spill secrets that she’s kept for four years. 

The feels were definitely there in abundance. I cried a lot in the beginning of the book and I cried a lot at the end of the book, so major kudos to Colbert for giving her readers those all important feels. This book didn’t read like it was penned by a debut author. It read much more like Colbert was a seasoned author. It was well written and beautifully written. 

I think this book was incredibly important for reasons that you’ll find out as you read the book. It touches on important topics and it does it with honesty. As I laid awake in bed after finishing it, I felt my feelings for this book only soar higher. I want to be able to give this book a full five stars, but I wanted to see Donovan more in the book. He was the one I wanted to know more about. 

Yet I understood why he wasn’t in the book that much and my favorite part between Donovan and Theo was at the end. It was beautiful, heartfelt and so damn perfect. 4.5 stars to this extremely important and beautifully written book. I definitely would recommend it to fans of contemporary YA and I will definitely read anything this woman writes.

Blog Tour: Let Me Go (Let Me Go #1) by L.L. Akers

Book Title: Let Me Go by L.L. Akers (Let Me Go #1)

Publication date: July 5th 2013

Genres: Contemporary, New Adult

Synopsis:

A scarlet dragonfly tattoo—meant to be a beautiful, family mark of freedom, but instead becomes a prophetic brand for those who wear it, to forever be suffering. Wounded and broken, they find themselves flittering back into the cycle of abuse that relentlessly clings to their family, a reality they can never seem to escape.

One mother and her daughters, bound by blood—torn apart by abuse. They begin their lives intertwined but are forced to fight for their survivals separately, struggling to hide their fear and undeserved shame from each other and the world. One of these women finds herself trapped—alone—and she battles to survive the terrifying darkness. With long hours of nothing to do but wait in fear, she grapples through her obscure dreams and memories of the past, sorting which memory belongs to whom: physically harmed, mentally damaged, raped, sexually abused, an unwanted pregnancy… and even the vivid memory of a dangerous dance with death in a last attempt to escape the shambles and horrors of a seemingly unchangeable situation.

Twin sisters, Gabriella and Olivia, dive blindly—and much too early—into adulthood. They are soon followed by their younger sister, Emma, all running from a not-so-idyllic past; chasing the happiness they believe they will find, by abandoning their childhoods to be “grown-up” and start their own lives.

Deeply evocative, Let Me Go is a coming-of-age story: the struggles of one mother and her daughters trying to survive life—marred by abuse and misplaced blame—and their need to reach peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Review:

Normally this book isn’t something that I would read. In fact stories of abuse have been one of my bookish no-no’s from the very beginning. However I got the invitation to be part of this blog tour and after a bit of consideration, I decided to participate. Now while this book was a quick read for me, it was in no way, an easy read. This book took me on a roller coaster of emotions.

From a purely academic standpoint I understood the cycle of abuse as I have studied it intently. However, nothing prepared me for what I was about to read. Olivia and Gabby have all these plans not to be like their mother. Yet they don’t know how not to be like her. They accept abusive men into their lives because they don’t know any better. They’d rather be in these abusive situations than deal with the emotional problems that would come of realizing that this is wrong.

Olivia has an abusive husband who is much like her father. Her family begs and pleads for her to escape. Yet when she does, her abuser finds her and lures her back into his clutches.This is the perfect example of the true cycle of violence. The Honeymoon stage, the buildup and then the violence.It goes around and around again and no one is sure if Olivia will be strong enough to end it once and for all.

Gabby had to take care of her younger sister Emma while her mother reinvented herself.During that time she got pregnant unexpectedly she also met a truly wonderful man who took her in when she had no place in the world to go. It wasn’t until she had gotten a better job than the one she had before that she ran into problems. The problem was her superior who forced himself on her multiple times. Fearing that her husband would blame this on her, Gabby kicks the husband out and shortly afterward attempts suicide.

Emma was a bubbly child until her mother’s boyfriend Mark began touching her.No one ever knows the full story until much later.However the signs are all there and the part that really makes my blood boil is when Gabby finds out and tells their mother, their mother takes Mark’s side. Although as it’s later discovered, she never truly believed Mark’s story.

This story is an emotional one despite the predictability of some of it.I loved all three sisters equally. They all were strong women who dealt with their upbringing in very different ways. Olivia used Billy to get out of it,Gabby used Jake and his wonderful family and Emma used alcohol.

This book had all of those feels that are so important in a book. I really had only one issue with this one. Their mom. I thought she was a selfish woman who I never really liked. That was a pretty big issue. I didn’t like how she talked to her kids or how she failed to protect them. Especially Emma. What Emma went through at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend was sickening. So this book will be getting 4 stars.I just couldn’t connect with their mom.The rest of this book was perfect though. 

Author Bio:

L.L. Akers is originally from the Midwest where she grew up climbing trees, haystacks, and haylofts—escaping into other worlds with a good book. She enjoyed playing cow-pattie hopscotch and outrun-the-bull with her siblings.

She now lives in the South, the silly wife of a serious man, and mother of: one very gifted and fetching male-tween, a chubby beagle that looks astonishingly like a mini-cow, a deranged terrier as well as five Koi fish, a herd of tiny but boastful lizards, and dozens of obnoxiously loud serenading frogs.

After a career in human resources, she now pursues life as a recluse writer; hanging out at home in her PJ’s with her iPad, Burt’s Bees lip balm and her posse of creatures. Regardless of her self-isolation, she can still be lured outside for brief moments by the scent of freshly mowed grass and a bowl full of cherries.

Let Me Go is her first novel, and book 1 of the Let Me Go Series – each book is a stand-alone, with no cliffhangers.

Connect with the Author:

Goodreads

Facebook

Twitter

Blog Tour Schedule is here.

Review: Broken Beauty (Broken Beauty #1) by Chloe Adams

Book Title: Broken Beauty (Broken Beauty #1)

Author: Chloe Adams (real name Lizzy Ford)

Published Date: September 22nd, 2013

Publisher: Indie Inked

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Series: Book 1 in a 6 book series

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Link: Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

**Contains graphic content and the sensitive topic of rape and its aftermath. Not intended for teens under the age of 18.**

Sometimes bad things happen to beautiful people.

When socialite party girl Mia Abbott-Renou wakes up in a garden she has little recall of the previous night — except that she is naked…hurt…terrified. Not only has she been raped, but she knows one of her assailants: the son of a wealthy politician who happens to be her own father’s political ally.

Mia wants and needs justice. Except this privileged boy has an alibi and her father forbids her from going to the police. It’s a critical election year, one that his party might lose if his image as a doting father is soured due to Mia being labeled a lush or worse, promiscuous.

Devastated at not having the support of her family, Mia finds herself in a tug-of-war with her conscience over what to do, especially since she can’t remember exactly what happened that night. Worse, the men who attacked her have hurt several other girls, and Mia may be the key to stopping them.

Mia tries to forget, until the unthinkable happens, and she’s left reeling once again, faced with a new challenge that will force her to take more control of her life.

Originally published in October 2012 as “No Way Back” by Chloe Adams.

Disclaimer: I received this e-book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

When I first started this book I had no idea that it was part one of a six part novella that had initially been one whole book.I only found that out after I finished reading it and was formatting this post.This book was horrifying and heartbreaking but it did send a very strong message,that no matter what,rape victims are strong and they are fighters. No matter what.Even if, like Mia, they have no family support.

That to me was really the most heartbreaking part. She had a politically minded family but they couldn’t put aside their politics to help her. That was awful and I cried SO much. The only people she seemed to be able to rely on are her best friend Ari and Dom, who was one of the detectives assigned to her case.The only family member that seemed to care about her at all was her uncle Chris.Very rarely are incles featured so prominently in books.This book or novella as it’s referred to,was different.

Normally I don’t like novellas all that much but this one was different. In 85 pages it brought out the feels in me so much. I was angry,heartbroken,happy and hopeful. It’s rare to have all of those feelings in such a short book which is why I am giving it five stars. I eagerly await the next installment of this series.