Top Ten Tuesday: Diverse Beach Reads!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke And The Bookish. For more info on how to participate in this weekly post or future topics click here.

This week’s topics is a Summer Reads Freebie since Memorial Day is this weekend. I chose to share my top 10 Diverse Beach Read Recommendations. For the most part I tried to choose lighter, not too serious stories because when I think of beach reads they tend to be on “carefree” side of things. This is a compilation of diverse beach reads has a multicultural focus. There are some own voices books mixed in and each book that feature of person of color as its main protagonist. Hope you enjoy!

Opal Charm is a great start to a fantasy series by Miri Castor! It features a girl named Opal who is trying to navigate through school and her home life. When she finds out she harnesses the power of “twilight” after stumbling upon a new world outside of Earth, her life will never be the same.

The Reader is a magical story about a girl who discovers a strange book and heads out on a journey to find the truth about who she is and what happened to her family. Chee’s descriptive world building will immerse readers into the story, and the flashes between the past and present intensify the mystery that lies between the pages.

An Extraordinary Union is perfect for fans of historical fiction. Cole mixes the perfect amount of romance, suspense, history, and action into the first book of the Loyal League series. The character development was good and it was so interesting to reading about an undercover spy in the Civil War (that is actually based off a historical figure). I need more stories like this!

Just So Happens is an intriguing graphic novel that explores the topic of cultural identity as the main character, Yumiko, give readers an immigrant’s perspective of living in a place separate from your native home. Though the story was short the overall message packs a powerful punch along with Obata’s visual artwork.

In I Almost Forgot About You, the main character Georgia goes through a soul-searching process of going through past relationships to figure out why she feels so lost/confused in her current (love) life. It’s a fun, heartwarming book with well-written and realistic characters. I’m definitely going to seek out more of McMillan’s books.

Of Metal and Wishes is a unique retelling of Phantom of the Opera.  It’s fun of suspense and a bit romance as well. I found it to be an entertaining read and it’s one of those YA stories where the character is placed into a “be careful what you wish for”. I plan to read the sequel soon and I can’t wait to see how the story will continue to unfold.

The Star-Touched Queen is the book for you if you’re looking for a romantic book mixed with mythology/folklore. The main protagonist, Maya becomes the queen of an otherworldly palace of Akaran. The thing I enjoyed most about this book is I love that Chokshi enriches this tale with her cultural background and Indian mythology.

The Gathering is the first book in the Darkness Rising series, a slight spin-off of her Darkest Powers series. The story follows a teenage girl named Maya, who lives a simple life on an isolated Vancouver Island, but discovers that  the an odd paw-print marking on her hip may be just more than an ordinary birthmark. This series is a great combination of action and fantasy.

Love on My Mind is a sweet, and steamy contemporary romance PR Executive, Chelsea and a CEO of computer company, Adam that team up in order to prepare him for the media promotion of his new product launch. They learn to break down each other’s barriers by working with one another and learn more about themselves.

Saving Montgomery Sole follows a girl named Monty feels that she is powerless and is tired of dealing with bullies and ends up ordering the “Eye of Know” in order to handle these issues. The mysterious amulet helps her take down bullies, but not without its own consequences. It’s a good  contemporary novel and equal parts magical realism.

Those conclude my my top 10 Diverse Beach Read recommendations! What books do you have on your own list? Share some diverse recs in the comment section below. 🙂