Late-Start

I was looking at my Storygraph stats as one does when approaching their new year and decided I need to branch out. A good 99% of all of the books I’ve ever been exposed to were written by white authors. Now I’m not upset by that fact, but as a non-white reader having to relate to all-white protagonists in much of my reading, it doesn’t inspire me to read a ton of books.

There’s a book I’ve read by an LGBTQIA author, also there are a couple of books I’ve read by Black or Brown authors, but the vast majority of my reading comes from white, cis-gendered, straight authors, AND AGAIN THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT, IT’S JUST NOT FOR ME.

Books are very much a choose-your-own-adventure. A kind of world or worlds that open up places you never thought existed. So rather than forcing myself to fit into that world, I want to read more from authors like me.

One of the things you can do on The Storygraph App is to search for books. I found a book called The Black Flamingo, by Dean Atta, and there’s a book I’m reading now called Conversations With People Who Hate Me by Dylan Marron which I am throughly enjoying. I want to read some memiors by POCs and finally get around to finishing Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C Ford and maybe even trying out some afrofuturist novels.

My TBR for 2023

• The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
• Allies by DK books
• Conversations With People Who Hate Me Dylan Marron
• Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• Black Girls Must Die Exausted by Jayne Allen
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

anyways if you have any other book recommendations for me I would be glad to hear some. Honesly I’m just dipping my toe into the pool at this point, and it would be nice to find someone to teach me how to swim in these waters.