Diverse Books Pledge – An Update, a List, and a Call for Requests

We are halfway through 2015 and I’m only about halfway through my Diverse Books pledge of reading 20 books. Now, that doesn’t sound bad, at first. However, I’ve read 33 books, which means only a third of them satisfy my pledge.

Ok, that doesn’t sound too bad either, but it is for me.

Why you ask? Because 20 books is a low number for me. I low-balled myself, expecting to read 20 diverse books easily and hopefully double that total, so that at least 50% of my Goodreads goal would celebrate diversity.

Now, I can blame that month and a half that I didn’t read anything. I can certainly blame the industry for not promoting and/or acquiring books that fit the description. But, I’m going to put the onus on myself. As such, I’m reaching out to you, 80 Books readers, to help me reach my goal. If you have suggestions for good diverse books that fall into the mystery, suspense, romance, erotica, SFF genres, send them my way.

Here are my criteria:

• The MAIN character and/or author must be either a PoC or LGBQTIA.
• If the main character doesn’t fit the typical westernized idea of beauty, that counts for me as well.
• Main characters with disabilities whose stories aren’t all about their disabilities definitely count.
• Anything I’m leaving out? Probably. Oh, I try to avoid anything that makes those characters stereotypical or caricatures. Sadly, that’s harder than you think. One such book on my READ list falls into that category…

READ –

• Glutton For Pleasure by Alisha Rai
• Fit by Rebekah Weatherspoon
• Three of Hearts (Anthology) – Kristina Wright, Editor
• Voltron – Dan Jolley, Editor (Yes, it counts. Keith is Asian. Hunk, I believe, is as well.)
• Half-Resurrection Blues – Daniel José Older
• Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson
• Vanilla – Megan Hart (More for the main character’s sexual kinks than anything)
• A Little Too Much – Lisa Desrochers
• The Virgin – Tiffany Reisz

CURRENTLY READING (though not counted in my goal yet) –

• Dirty Kiss – Rhys Ford
• Heart of Gold – Beverly Jenkins

What do you recommend? And how hard are you finding it to add more diversity onto your bookshelf?