3.5 stars but deserving of rounding up.

as with all anthologies, especially by more than one author, there where great stories and ones i didn’t enjoy at all.

i loved the diversity in this book. we really got it all!
from myths retellings to folklores to historical fiction to futuristic story.
it was all there and beautifully done.

no story felt the same or as if a specific tone or topic had to be discussed!
they all said their own things and did it wonderfully!

again personally i enjoyed some sorties more than others as most readers will!

the ones i enjoyed the most are:
- gilded by elizabeth acevedo
- the rules of the land by always dawn johnson

and one that i keep thinking back on for some reason i can’t explain is:
- melie by justina ireland

highly recommend this anthology!
great mixture, great authors and beautiful stories!

also because it was mentioned in the book and i have something to say on the topic:

but whenever i went to the ... library to discover more tales, the novels feathering characters who looked like me were, more often than not, rooted in pain set amid slavery, sharecropping, or segregation. those narratives are important, yes. but because they were the only ones offered, i started to wonder, where is my fantasy, my future? why don’t back people exist in speculative worlds?
too often media focuses on our suffering. too often we are portrayed as victims....

this section right in the introduction really got to me because while i am not black -white girl here actually- i do understand the frustration with that.

i always wants to read more book with a diverse cast even as a child! -
give me the real life mix!
i want different ethnicities, i want able and disabled characters! i want people with invisible illnesses and ones you can see! i want someone from this tiny little town that is more a clustered neighborhood far away from anyone else coming together with a big city raised person that has more people on the apartment building that the small town girl knew her entire life! i want people who are too skinny and those that are big and not have it talked about as something that needs to change but just let the characters have their body types as is!
i want single parents, too many siblings and no sibling!
i want all skin types, all body shapes and all health levels represented because only than its actually a good representation of real life!

or in short? i want something that represents reality!

and sure for me as a kid it wasn’t because i struggled to find myself in a book! i am white and had first extremely blond and then slowly brown hair as a kid.
that’s basically represented in every book for a kid and young adult!

but i didn’t just want to read from people that mirrored myself.

i want to learn different cultural aspects and myths and folklores and historical aspects that are mostly forgotten because they where deemed unimportant.

we all finally are getting non white characters telling and experiencing stories outside of slavery and villains! outside of forced environments and the caged victims!

and i do not understand why it took so long and hope that we will finally get all the books with non white main characters in all stories that are there to tell! from romance to fantasy to futuristic tales as well as historic novels that don’t just share slave stories but what else there is in the history outside of the white influenced (colonized) world that is so worth telling!


yes i am saying those things as a white person.
but i am saying it as someone that is still waiting to be represented with my health struggles and disabilities outside of the “miracle healed” or “just suck it’s up” books that exist.

and sure that’s not the same.
and that’s also my point.
everyone deserves to see themselves in books!
everyone deserves to read a book and finally see themselves in the pages and feel seen!

and not just as a victim, the bad guy or the misunderstood “miracle cured” character!
which sadly fits in for both actual ilnesses in books and skin types or specific cultural aspects that characters suddenly “shed” as if they are able to leave those parts of them behind without problems. for some books that means love interests finally “seeing” the character and “helping”. in other books it’s “education” that shows how much better a person can become by adapting specific behaviors and ways to speak instead of what they done before.

i want to finally read books that just represent differences in life without the need to change those things!

this was a rant and possibly mostly unrelated to the book itself in most ways but i hope what i tried this at comes across anyways.

that i can’t wait to finally see more representation in book.
since this book shows how easy it is to do just that!