YARC Announcement Post!

It is probably no secret by now that I love reading challenges, and I just couldn’t resist one supporting diverse books, so I am very pleased to announce that I will be participating in the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge, hosted by the lovely Lily, Vicky, Shealea, and CW (who made the lovely graphics you will see as part of this post)!

The goal of this challenge is to read as many books by Asian authors as possible.

My goal is to reach Tarsier level, which is between 1-10 books! If you want to know how cute a Tarsier is, CW’s graphic featuring one is below:

^look how cute he is!!

Here are some of the books I hope to read for this challenge:

Symptoms of a Heartbreak | Sona Charaipotra – This book sounds like it will be filled with a lot of disasters and romance. It’s about Saira, a med student, who falls in love with a patient. I can feel the tears and tension coming already.

• The Kiss Quotient | Helen Hoang – I’m actually reading this one right now and I’m so shocked by how much I’m enjoying it because it’s NOT YA!! It’s about Stella, an autistic woman, and her quest to learn about romantic relationships with Michael, an escort. I was worried that sex stuff would make me uncomfortable like it usually does in books for any age range, but it’s actually being handled super well so far and consent is so important in this book, which I appreciate.
• Fake it Till You Break It | Jenn P. Nguyen – We all know I just read and loved this book, but just for a quick rundown, it’s about two teens who’ve been pushed together by their moms their whole lives and they decide to fake date to stop their moms from shipping them, but of course realize they don’t actually hate each other.
• Somewhere Only We Know | Maurene Goo – I LOVED Maurene Goo’s second book, I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE, and still have such high hopes for this book even though I didn’t love her last one, THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL. Plus, this book is about a K-Pop star and romance and have I mentioned how much I ADORE celeb teen romances???

We Hunt the Flame | Hafsah Faizal – I would read anything Hafsah writes (even though I didn’t love her space debut) because I loved her blog, Icey Books, so so much. Plus, I am very in the mood for either fluffy books or fantasies lately, so I need this diverse fantasy in my life, like, yesterday.

• Descendant of the Crane | Joan He – Everyone has been raving about this book, which convinced me to request an eARC of it and I was approved, YAY!! This book has tyrants and soothsayers and forbidden magic, so how could it possibly NOT be good? My expectations for this book are RIDICULOUSLY high.
• Blood Heir | Amelie Wen Zhao – Can I just say how thrilled I was that the publisher approved my request for an ARC of this book even though they were apparently low on ARCs?? SO thrilled. I mean, with a first line of the summary including FUGITIVE PRINCESSES and the power to CONTROL BLOOD, how could this NOT be on my TBR??
• The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali | Sabina Khan – I am very excited for this book to the point where I had a dream about it. Yet somehow I have not preordered? What is wrong with me?? Anyway, TL&LORA is about a queer Muslim girl struggling to live up to her parents’ expectations and how she’s sent to Bangladesh when she’s caught kissing her girlfriend.