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,

Comments

[minim_calibre]

I would suggest the award winning Adios to My Old Life, by Caridad Ferrer.

[minim_calibre]

(The author, full disclosure, is a friend, but she's also good, and it fits the bill. From the Booklist review: "Ali Montero, 17, has been brought up by her father, a music professor in Miami, to be a good Cuban American girl as well as a talented singer and guitarist. But he's not pleased when she makes the finals in a nationwide TV competition to find the "next Latin superstar." Could she win? Caught up in the performance rush with makeup, wardrobe, and publicity, she is helped by cute Jaime Lozano, a smart production major from NYU, who loves her. Ali's first-person colloquial narrative is "totally" with it. But there's also a real story here, with frenetic action, romance (including some hot sex), pop-scene fantasy, and surprises to the very end. What shines through in Cuban American writer Ferre's first novel (part of the MTV Fiction series), though, is the rich diversity of Latino culture, and the celebration of music and its universal connections.")

[oyceter]

Ohh, thank you! That sounds perfect, actually.

[oyceter]

And my library has it, so I placed a hold!

[buymeaclue]

I haven't read either of these yet, but I've heard read good reviews (from a reviewer with reliably excellent taste) on Dear Author for Sherri Winston's The Kayla Chronicles and Justina Chen Headley's Girl Overboard.

[oyceter]

Oh awesome, thank you. I love my library -- they don't have them yet, but both books have been ordered, which means I get holds!

[oyceter]

Huh ok. I think I will look for that one as well.

[keilexandra]

Umm, this is not happy (though not uber-depressing, either, I think) or YA, but I just checked out A CONCISE CHINESE-AMERICAN DICTIONARY FOR LOVERS from the library and it looks very good. THE DIARY OF MA YAN is depressing POC YA, but not of the sort you mentioned specifically--just heart-breaking poverty.

Sorry about offering recs that don't fit your criteria, but I figured it was better than nothing. Will keep thinking, too.

[oyceter]

Thanks! I may not grab those right now, just because the last few books I've read have been about hazing, Japanese internment, and physical and emotional abuse, but maybe after I read happy fluff for a bit.

[limb_of_satan]

I've seen these while I was shelving in the library and thought they looked fun:

Bindi Babes/ Bollywood Babes/ Bhangra Babes by Narinder Dhami.

I've haven't read them so I can't answer to how good they actually are.

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks, and my library has them too.

[rachelmanija]

You already know about this one, but I loved The Bermudez Triangle. Three protagonists, one a girl of color.

I remember enjoying Ellen Wittlinger's Hard Love but years ago, so I'm not sure if it totally qualifies. Boy meets lesbian Latina zine writer; sparks fly. I don't recall it being depressing, but it's not really chicklit.

Virginia Hamilton can be uplifting, but not cheerful or light. The books I've read by Jacqueline Woodson have been pretty serious, but she's written a lot so you might try her out.

This is definitely a genre that needs more of it! It reminds me of desperately looking for books about Jewish girls that were not about the Holocaust.

[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]

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.