YA chicklit with POC

[oyceter]

Does anyone have recommendations for happy YA chicklit starring POC and/or by POC?

Qualifications:

I have read half of Dana Davidson's Jason & Kyra and got bored by the prose and descriptions of what everyone was wearing, I know about Melissa de la Cruz, I've read Does My Head Look Big in This? and liked it, may check out First Daughter soon, read half of Born Confused and got bored by the prose, just read Whale Talk and will probably blaze through Crutcher's backlist, and read a few pages of The Fly on the Wall and got bored. I've also read Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Susan Vaught, Nancy Farmer, Tamora Pierce, and am planning on going through suggestions here. (How is Virginia Hamilton on the depressing scale?)

I also want books, not manga or comics.

I know about the imprint Kimani TRU but haven't read anything of theirs, so thumbs up or down are appreciated.

1. I want happy. As in, I am tired of scanning summaries of books about POC and going "gang, unwanted pregnancy, gang, violence, gang, OPPRESSION, gang, racism, gang, abusive boyfriend, gang, historical oppression, gang." (if you can't tell, please no more gangs!)

2. I am thinking of something sort of like Fresh off the Boat or Does My Head Look Big in This?, or like Maureen Johnson. Sarah Dessen works too (I would prefer interior angst over GANG). I tend to like girls who are not ashamed of their culture and/or race, interesting prose, and romance, but romance isn't required.

3. The book has to star a girl, or at least have her section of the story comprise of at least half.

ETA: 4. The book has to have a POC protagonist (not a secondary role, no matter how cool) or a POC author.

5. Fluff is good! Just to give you an idea... the last three books I have read were about hazing, Japanese internment camps, and physical and emotional abuse. I think I need to read something light and happy and fluffy before going there again.

Comments

[oyceter]

I mean to read Bermudez Triangle, really! I actually own it but keep forgetting to get around to it.

Will keep the Hamilton and the Woodson in the back of my mind, but right now I desperately need fluff.

OMG. I was just so depressed scanning through the list of books about black teens at my library. I am sure they are not all depressing, but it was just: gangs, single-parent family, gangs, pregnant, gangs, etc.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

When I was making my list of interesting YA books to read yesterday, going through Amazon was so disheartening, because I'd click on these cool-sounding titles, and get books on dying, gangs, slavery, divorce, etc. GAAAAAAH! The entire contemporary YA section is plagued by Message Books.

ETA: Not to mention the one that has the main character's family adopting a small almost-dead boy who's the only survivor of an illegal immigrant group crossing the border. AND the main character's aunt is a Bosnian refugee, which just seems like adding insult to injury there.

[oyceter]

Aiiieeee! Yeah, there are a lot of YA message books, and unfortunately, it feels like if you add POC, it doubles the message quotient.

I mean, I am all for people knowing about the realities of slavery and the Civil Rights movement and the Japanese internment camps, but right now, I am reading nonfiction for that and need to feel like the world is not horrible.

Wow. That's um... depressing.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I just started poking about Amazon.com again, and in the description for a book about a teen with incurable leukemia (http://www.amazon.com/Deadline-Chris-Crutcher/dp/0060850892/ref=pd_sim_b_title_20), is this: "Crutcher fits far too much into this ambitious novel, which includes subplots about incest, pedophilia, manic depression, and intellectual freedom, as well as a Jesus-like character who appears in visions."

MY GOD IT'S MANGA.

Now I kind of want to hold a contest to see who can dig up the most over-the-top Message Book.

[oyceter]

Wow! Yeah, the Crutcher I just read was really good, but ... um, not fluffy. I think it has the worst baby death I have heard of so far.

I think my favorite over-the-top Message Book that I remember is Nell's Quilt, which is All About Anorexia and Oppression of Women, in which a girl in 1800s America (I think) decides to protest her forced marriage by not eating. She goes a little wonky in the head and starts embroidering bugs and creepy-crawlies on this quilt she was working on, and then symbolically dyes the entire thing black. All I remember about the book was how it described all the symptoms of anorexia in great and excrutiating detail.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

And I just ran across Zane's Trace, where the description reads, in part, "Zane Guesswind has a tough life: a family riven by mental illness, substance abuse and suicide, plus his own epilepsy and grief. To exorcise his demons, Zane writes obsessively with permanent markers on his bedroom walls and later on the dashboard of the 1969 Barracuda he commandeers and drives to Zanesville, Ohio. There he plans to shoot himself at his mother's graveside with the heirloom pistol she used to kill herself."

I know what these books need: MORE HEADS IN JARS.

I didn't like Message Books much as a kid, so I avoided them when I could. My favorite authors were Daniel Pinkwater and Gordon Korman, which probably explains a lot. I am currently sad that Korman's latest, Schooled seems to be about a boy raised on a commune who is forced to integrate into a regular school, and whose description sounds a lot like a Message Book and not like Korman's normal insanity.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I used to skip anything recommended by awards as a kid because they were always depressing! I should probably go back and read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry some day.

Gordon Korman! I used to love him!

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry! As a warning, I read To Kill a Mockingbird after this, and thought it was a rip-off of RoTHMC. But i like RoTHMY much better.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

BWA HA HA!!!

My favorites were Son of Interflux and Don't Care High.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Don't Care High was awesome. I had a friend who worked in the office during first period, who got to read announcements, and we tried so hard to get the vice-principal to let us read announcements similar to the ones in DCH on April Fool's Day. To no avail, alas.

apropos of a different post...

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I do not think you would be scared of the Bermudez Triangle girls! At least not Mel, she's very shy and sweet. It's a lovely warm book and was what put me onto Johnson in the first place, do try it.

Re: apropos of a different post...

[oyceter]

Hee! Oh good! I have only good impressions of this book from people's recs, and from your siccing it on teenage boys ;).