Many readers want to see themselves in a book. However, for a long time, most young adult literature has created a stereotypical main character who was a white woman with light eyes and long brown hair – your “average” girl.
Well, she may be average, but she is not everyone.
There has been an influx of authors over the past few years that bring us the diverse books we so desperately need. These authors pave an easier path to publication for future writers from different backgrounds. Even today, it’s difficult to land a deal or to promote a diverse book. Here’s a look at those authors writing a new normal:
Angie Thomas
Thomas’s book, The Hate U Give, shook the young adult book market. Her novel follows a 16-year-old girl, Starr Carter, who lives in a poor neighborhood but attends a suburban prep school. She struggles with balancing these two worlds when a police officer shoots her unarmed childhood friend.
Thomas grew up in a neighborhood much like that of her main character, strengthening the novel’s overall impact. She witnessed drug deals and gun violence growing up but wished for a better future as a writer. The book also rose to fame in 2017, two years after the climax of major police brutality protests. The Hate U Give acted as a way to step into the shoes of those experiencing first-hand the effects of racism.
Thomas released her newest book, On The Come Up, in February.
Sabaa Tahir
This Pakistani-American author hit the New York Times bestseller chart for the first time in 2015 with her debut novel An Ember in the Ashes. Tahir grew up in the driest place in North America, the Mojave Desert. Here, her parents, both immigrants from Pakistan, owned a hotel. She attended UCLA and interned with the Washington Post, taking a job as an editor at the latter.
Tahir uses her experiences to create a world based in the desert with Ancient Roman and Middle Eastern elements, combining themes that are relatively unused in young adult novels. While diversity is not a key aspect of the novel, Sabaa Tahir voices her political and cultural opinions on her social media. Her pinned tweet at the moment reads: “I am an American-raised Pakistani-descended British-born Brown Muslim IMMIGRANT Woman. And I have a NYT bestselling fantasy series. SERIES. Because of you. Thank you.”
She released the third installment of the Ember quartet, A Reaper at the Gates, in June of 2018.
Rainbow Rowell
Not all diversity stems from race. Spectrums of sexuality and body shape slowly, but surely, make its way into young adult literature. Typically, characters come from a straight and thin mold. Rainbow Rowell, however, breaks down these barriers in two different books.
In Carry On, Rowell publishes the actual fanfiction that Cat wrote in its companion novel, Fangirl. This spin-off features a world similar to Harry Potter’s, but with two gay wizards. The release of this book was a leap forward in normalizing different sexualities in literature.
One of her earlier creations, Eleanor and Park, explores the topic of body positivity. “Eleanor knew she was fat” but neither her nor Park ever see it as insecurity or a downfall. She’s simply fat. Books and movies that try to address body positivity make the story all about weight when the best way to normalize something in popular culture is to treat it as the norm.
The more creators who use weight and sexual orientation as plot points, the less normalized and less positive people feel about their body. Rowell found the perfect balance to make an impact on her readers.
Renee Ahdieh
One of the most popular Asian-based fantasy series comes from the mind of the American-Korean author Renée Ahdieh. The Flame in the Mist and its subsequent novels involve a young girl, Mariko, who is attacked on her journey to meet her arranged fiancé. She feels determined, as the only survivor of the attack, to find the people behind her attempted assassination. When she finds herself among the ranks of the region’s deadliest gang, she disguises herself as a man and learns their ways in order to stay alive. Bathed in the culture of Japan and splashed with inspirational feminism, this duology makes you wish there were a third installment.
Ahdieh bases the second series, starting with The Wrath and the Dawn, on the classic novel A Thousand and One Nights. The young king, Khalid, marries a new bride every day, killing each woman at dawn. When Shahrzad’s best friend is taken as Khalid’s next bride, she becomes the first woman to volunteer to marry him but does so with a plot for vengeance. With magic carpets and haunting curses, it’s easy to get swept away in the Arabian folklore and culture.
I find, despite that she writes fictional works, Ahdieh’s novels as a way to learn more about two cultures I didn’t realize I knew so little about. All the while, legends and myths swept me away.
Jenny Han, of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before; Rupi Kaur, of Milk and Honey; and Tomi Adeyemi, of Children of Blood and Bone, are among other diverse writers. Although countless other authors write diverse pieces, these writers rise to the top of their game. There is a demand for books, now more than ever, that make every reader feel normal. This demand allows various authors of diverse backgrounds to tell their stories and make a difference.