Happy Black History Month!
Obviously it’s important to celebrate Black History any month of the year, but February gives us all the more reason to give extra attention and love to Black authors and their books that discuss and honor Black culture. So I’m here to provide a list of books written by Black authors that I’ve read and personally loved.
I also have a vlog on my BookTube channel where I read a few of these books and share my thoughts along the way: https://youtu.be/KHu3ATrGP0I
I’m planning on reading a bunch more books by Black authors and vlogging my thoughts/reviews throughout this month, as well as the rest of 2021 so I can expand this list even further!
- A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by: Roseanne A. Brown | YA fantasy |my rating: 4 stars | This is the first of a debut duology inspired by West African folklore. It’s about two characters named Malik and Karina in a city called Ziran. Every year, Karina’s mom, aka the queen of Ziran, hosts the Solstasia festival, but when the queen gets assassinated, Karina takes over while trying to find a way to bring her back to life using ancient magic. In order to do so, Karina needs the heart of a king, and she comes up with a plan involving a competition during the festival and making the champion her husband and therefore king. Malik, on the other hand, gets into a situation with a spirit who takes his little sister away, and the only way to get her back is for him to kill the queen of Ziran, aka Karina. And the story takes off from there.
- The Hate U Give by: Angie Thomas | YA contemporary | my rating: 5 stars | This was my first audiobook ever, and I absolutely loved it. This story follows a girl named Starr, who grows up in a poor neighborhood but goes to a predominantly White school. Here are some additional things to her double life that cause turmoil and sparks crucial discussions as well as provides important information for the readers: Starr dates a White guy, her dad used to be in a gang, there are some family secrets, and one night she witnesses her childhood friend get shot by a police officer, which makes national headlines and causes Starr to take action in bringing justice to his death. This is one of the books that has impacted me the most, taught me a lot about Black culture, and also brought me a lot of joy because there are some humorous lines in the novel as well. Not to mention the movie adaptation is really good, too!
- Dear Martin by: Nic Stone | YA contemporary | my rating: 5 stars | Dear Martin follows a boy named Justice who writes letters to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whenever he has strong feelings or thoughts about what it means to be Black, whenever he’s going through hard times, or whenever he simply feels lonely and wants someone to vent to. Martin has very problematic friends who say extremely cringey and disrespectful things throughout the book, which the author does on purpose to make a point, of course. This one is super short, yet jam-packed with good information weaved into a solid story.
- Children of Blood and Bone by: Tomi Adeyemi | YA fantasy | my rating: 5 stars | I never read fantasy books until I read this one, and Tomi Adeyemi made me fall in love with the genre. With that being said, I recommend this one for people who want to try fantasy out but are intimidated by complex worlds and magic systems. This is the first of the Legacy of Orisha series, and the author makes it such an easy story to follow. Orisha has been banned of magic, and an abundance of magi were killed under the orders of a new ruler. Our main character, Zélie, however, refuses to allow her family’s magic be suppressed any longer, so she goes on a mission with her brother and a runaway princess to defeat the crowned prince and bring magic back to her homeland.
- Take a Hint, Dani Brown by: Talia Hibbert | Adult romance |my rating: 5 stars | I have a whole separate blog post about this book only because it deserves its own full-blown review, as well as a vlog where I cry while reading this book! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irkWbs-kx5Q However, if you don’t feel like checking either of those out, the bullet points you need to know about this one are that it involves fake dating but written really well, it discusses the importance of normalizing men’s mental health, it talks about the fear of commitment, as well as how crucial it is to have a healthy work-life balance. It’s so much more than just a romance, but it definitely has some steamy scenes!
- Such a Fun Age by: Kiley Reid | Adult contemporary | my rating: 4 stars | A 26-year-old Black woman named Emira is trying to figure out life and how to support herself once she gets kicked off her parents’ health insurance, so she takes a second job as a babysitter for a White woman named Alix. One night, Emira takes the kid to a convenience store late at night and another White woman calls security on her, accusing her of kidnapping Alix’s daughter. A man records the situation and offers Emira the footage so she can bring it to the authorities, but she refuses and the story goes from there. This book explores interracial relationships really well, as well as classism and privilege while mixing in an underlying story with deeper secrets and unusual intentions.
- The City We Became by: N.K. Jemisin | Sci-Fi/Fantasy | my rating: 3 stars | Though I thought this was very long-winded and unnecessarily dragged on, I found the overall concept of the story so intriguing. The City We Became is set in New York and follows five main characters who are the embodiment of the five boroughs of New York. They don’t just represent the boroughs, they ARE the boroughs. For instance, the first character we meet is Manny, who IS Manhattan. When the city is attacked by an ancient evil, he feels every bit of it. He’s able to control the city as well. Then the five boroughs find their way to each other and work together to try to defeat this evil while trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
- Sula by: Toni Morrison | Adult Fiction | my rating: 5 stars | I originally read this one for a Gender & Literature college course but also reread it in 2020 on my own because it made such an impact on me, and Toni Morrison’s writing is simply a different breed. Sula is our main character, who is the pariah of her small town because she refuses to be told how to live her life as a woman. She does not want to get married and have kids and follow the “rightful path” that is expected of a woman, especially during that time period (the ’20s). We meet her as a little girl running around town with her best friend, all the way until they’re adults, when Sula suddenly leaves the town then surprises everyone when she comes back and brings everyone bad vibes. There are discussions about motherhood in addition to womanhood and various expectations that Sula spends her life trying to defy to preserve her own happiness and sanity.
- Hunger by: Roxane Gay | memoir | my rating: 5 stars | This book is a raw and brutally honest memoir about Roxane Gay’s relationship with food, her body, and overall self-image throughout her life. For this one, I’m just going to pull directly from Goodreads’s synopsis because it is better said than any way I could elaborate on this beautiful book.
In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.
With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.
10. When No One is Watching by: Alyssa Cole | thriller | my rating: 4 stars | I’ve fallen in absolute love with the thriller genre in the past year, and I’m glad I’m able to add this one to my archive. There are so many good discussions in this novel about gentrification, racism, Black stereotypes, etc. There is also a lot of humor within this creepy story, making it a super enjoyable read. When No One is Watching is about a Black woman living in Brooklyn who eventually realizes that people in her neighborhood have been gradually disappearing suddenly and replaced by strange White people with stories that don’t add up as to where her previous neighbors went. It’s a much slower pace than your typical thriller, but I think the ending is worth it!
I hope this was helpful in your search for books to read by Black authors if that’s one of your reading goals, and I hope you read at least one of these recommendations! If you do and want to discuss with someone, feel free to DM me on Instagram (@janagaton) or comment on my YouTube videos!
If these books aren’t in your typical reading comfort zone, now’s the time to disrupt it<3
disrupt your comfort zone. 