My Top 5 Favorite Diverse Romantic Couples in Celebration of Valentine’s Day!! (aka None of You Are Surprised)

I hate Valentine’s Day!

Call me a cynic but I just. feel so weird about getting sappy and sentimental (not really). I know I do it quite often but I like to appear Cold and Unemotional (not really) and Valentine’s Day just messes it all up!

BUT I do appreciate a good sappy romantic post now and then (not really), which is why today I’m going to share some of my favorite diverse romantic relationships!! I don’t know how I managed to narrow it down to just 5, but I love all of them very much.

Also, I just wanted to note how weird it is that while most fictional books have romance, I feel like in contemporaries it’s more prominent (since in fantasies there’s a whole lot of other things happening, like being on the Brink of Death), yet fantasy ships are the ones I find myself and others obsessing over the most??? I don’t know, just a weird thing I noticed!

NOTE: I’ve also included my favorite art of the couple as well! All art is credited of course, and I love them so much and looking at them makes me cry.

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It’s My Birthday! So Here are Books that Represent Me and Mean a Lot to Me (Because Birthday Means I’m Sappy!)

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!

(I posted this 5 minutes before midnight in my time zone but it still counts!!! I can’t help being a procrastinator and writing this post at 10pm okay.)

In “celebration” of my birthday, I decided to talk about books that mean a lot to me / represent me. Because I feel like it’s very on brand of me to talk about books on a day that’s supposed to be all about me*, and books have been worth more than any birthday gift (unless they are, of course, the birthday gift).

And in general, I’m just sappy on my birthday, so why not cry over books that mean everything to me??? I’m getting older and deserve to get a little sentimental about it!!

*I’m kidding! Mostly!

How To Fill The Hole in Desi Teens’ Hearts: Guest Post by Kav @xreadingsolacex

As I think I’ve said many times before on this blog, representation is important.

I mean, I’ve discussed it quite a few times and as a marginalized person I’m ALWAYS going to be looking for books that represent me, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m saying this.

But today, instead of ME talking about how representation of marginalized people is important, I have a guest poster!

Kav reached out to me for some help with a project they’d been planning for some time. Obviously, being friends with her and loving what she was trying to do with this project, I’m having them guest post on my blog about why When Dimple Met Rishi should have a movie adaptation!

I haven’t read WDMR yet, but I’m excited to, and I’m truly glad that this book exists to represent Indian and Desi teens.

Why Diversity & Representation in Books is Important // Why We Need Rep & Why We Need to Promote Diverse Books

Diversity in books is SO. SO. important.

If you haven’t gotten that already????

But seriously, I’ve talked about diversity in books a few times before (definitely not enough), but I never once mentioned WHY it was so important?? Which is shakening information. Because this is something so so important* to me??? And yet I never mentioned WHY.

So today, I’m obviously going to be talking about why diversity is needed in books. And also why we need to promote books with diversity in them.

It’s going to be to VERY ranty and also quite all over the place, but I need a place to vent and ramble and what’s a blog for if not that??

*WHAT’S ANOTHER WORD FOR IMPORTANT.

“Good Representation” Concerning Diversity in (YA) Books: Better None or Forced/Wrong? Different Experiences?

The world is hugely diverse.

Obviously??? You’ve probably noticed by now, but you are DEFINITELY not the same as the person sitting next to you. Even if they’re your identical twin (WHICH IS SO COOL BTW), your personalities are probably different. There are tiny smol things that set you apart.

And because books are aiming to be as realistic as possible, you want to include diversity in your own book*, because it accurately reflects the world!

But… is that diversity always portrayed correctly?

The definite answer is: No.

I don’t know if y’all know this, but I’m a HUGEEEE supporter of equality of all people in the world, no matter their differences. Thus I am a big advocate for diversity in (YA) books.

The things that I’m talking about in this post are things that I’ve always thought about (and even touched a bit on in this post! but that post was an absolute mess and my have opinions have changed now. this post is so much better omg).

*I’m aware that there were some recent heated discussions about diversity and how “realistic” it is on Twitter. I will be avoiding that because I don’t like conflict. And yet I’m writing this post.