Top Ten Tuesdays is hosted weekly by The Broke and Bookish and anyone is free to participate! This week’s topic is top things on my reading booklist, this is basically more things I want to see in the books I read. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a feminist ride here over at Spoilers.
- Female Mentors
Guys, yes Professor McGonagall is an amazing mentor, but she doesn’t really do any hardcore mentoring. I want to see more women as mentors/role models to girls AND boys. There’s a reason an old white MAN comes to mind when you think “mentor” (spoiler: it’s sexism). There’s only a couple books I’ve read with female mentors, if you know of any please let me know!!! - Women supporting women
I CANNOT emphasize this enough. Women supporting women needs to become a more common thing in books, but more importantly IRL. I can think of maybe 3-4 books, off the top of my head, where women/girl support women/girls in books (Beautiful Broken Things, Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom Three Dark Crowns). This may have to do with the fact that friendships are just seen as less important than romantic relationships in books *side eye* and therefore friendships are focused less on. But NO MORE. It’s friendship time. - More NA that’s NOT erotica
I LOVE ME some NA. That’s the period of life I’m at right now. I’m older than high school, but I don’t have kids (the definition of NA is kind of shaky right now; it’s really unclear) and I’m just living life. But I haven’t found very much NA that’s not erotica (just to be clear, like what you like, it’s just not for me). Highly unlucky, please give me more like The Hating Game, Fangirl and Songs of Our Breakup; amen. - LESS anti-feminism
I can’t even go into how much I hate seeing this concept in YA because it LITERALLY would take a million years. I can’t escape it, literally everywhere I look books are parading themselves around and calling each other feminist only to shoot themselves in the foot 5 page in. Don’t think I don’t see you, I do (looking at you ACOTAR/ACOMAF).- Further reading on my opinions on feminism include my feminism in YA discussion post.
- Asexual rep books
This is highly underrepresented in books at the moment, currently we’re seeing at least a couple mainstream books published with asexual characters. But it’s time for the world to see them all, it’s time it’s time, everyone. So far we have (Every Heart A Doorway, Tash Hearts Tolstoy and Jughead [the comics not the show]). - Graphic Novels
Duh, because they’re amazing. - #Ownvoices stories
Obviously, explanation N/A
And that’s about it, I have A LOT to read, because I’m a human being so I don’t have a lot of demands. What about you, what do you want to see more of in books?
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Yes to all of this!!!
I loved how girls supported each others on Queens of Geek!
And omg yes please NA that is not erotica, I want T^T In fantasy I can think of Clockwork Dagger where the main character is in her twenties, and Woodwalker too!
There’s a lot more novels with asexual reps but you’re right, we need more anyway!! (recently I loved City of Strife <3)
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Oooh you just gave me so many books to look forward too! I can’t wait to read Queens of Geek. I think I have it on hold at the library! And YES. I really want more NA, but I’m really NOT about the erotica stuff. There’s SO much more to explore in the category.
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YES to NA that has less sexual content! I would totally love to read more about girls who are actually my age, but the sexual content always stops me. If you haven’t read it already, I recommend Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park and she just came out with a new one, 180 Seconds, that’s also good. The 2nd and 3rd Flat-Out books have more sexual content, but the first one doesn’t have any if I remember correctly!
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YES YES YES. There’s SO much more to explore in this category, especially with the different challenges so many of us are facing right now with jobs and education and stress! I’ll definitely look up those recommendations while I’m still on my contemporary kick! Recently I’ve read Songs of Our Breakup, and The Hating Game (which has some sexual content, but not a lot) which were some of the best NA I’ve read besides Fangirl.
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Really good to know! I definitely added them both to my Goodreads 🙂
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I am so with you on more NA that isn’t all erotica and sex and romance. Give me some NA about people trying to find jobs and trying to just live life and navigate it.
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SAME! So many of us are in that stage, I just want to read about other people with my same challenges so I can know I’m not alone, haha
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It really isn’t too much to ask for.
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What a great list, and yes to more women supporting women.
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