POC in YA chicklit

This is for the 10th POC in SF Carnival, hosted by karnythia!

I joined 50books_poc last year to try to get myself to read more POC; I had unofficially been trying before, but without numbers or statistics, it was hard to see if I had been successful or not. While there were a few SF/F authors of color, the vast majority, as judging from my library shelves, were white. And I didn't feel up to reading the POC authors I largely did know, since most of the ones I'd heard of wrote Great Literary Tomes or Books Assigned in English Class.

While I have nothing against Great Literary Tomes, my brain has been on vacation for a while, and I wanted fluff. Happy, easy-to-read fluff. So I went through the few POC in YA recs that I had, and asked LJ and my YA librarian for more. A lot of the older POC-authored titles in YA focus on weighty issues like oppression, racism, Japanese internment, gangs, teen pregnancy, and etc., and again, while I have nothing against these books and feel it's necessary to have them, my brain wasn't up for it. Which is how I ended up consuming truckloads of YA chicklit by POC (or starring POC, though for 50books_poc, I tried to focus on POC authors).

Many of these were gathered via my librarian and internet recs and my flist, but in a desperate attempt to find more POC authors, I took to randomly browsing the library shelves and looking at author names. Because of this, I tended to find more Asian and Latina authors. I have a whole 'nother post on how awkward this made me feel, but that can wait till IBARW.

So here's a partial list of what I've found. Most of it is YA chicklit, which I find I like better than adult chicklit, due to the relative lack of conspicuous consumption and incompetence in the workplace, but some are just really good books that I stuck in there.

Assume authors are POC unless otherwise specified. Links are to my LJ write ups if I've read the book in question.

( Highly recommended )

( Recommended )

( More books )

Links:
- The Brown Bookshelf (focuses more on children's)
- The YA YA YAs list of Asian-American protagonists in YA fiction
- YA chick lit with POC post with recs in comments

(no subject)

I was going to try to write up some Wiscon panels before going off to Taiwan tomorrow, but clearly that hasn't happened yet. Ah well. I'm pretty much packed and prepped and eying the rat cage sadly. Two months without rats! Whatever will I do?

Speaking of which, whoever sent me the ursulav print of the flying hooded rat, thank you so much! It is awesome and so cute!