Joining the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge #YARC2019 // You can never read too many Asian books

Hey everyone!! ✨

I’m incredibly excited to announce that I’ll be joining my very first reading challenge: the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge (#YARC2019)!! The purpose of this challenge is to read as many books by Asian authors as you can, which is such a great goal. 😍

This challenge is hosted by four of the most wonderful bloggers ever: Shealea @ Shut Up Shealea, CW @ The Quiet Pond, Lily @ Sprinkles of Dreams, and Vicky @ Vicky Who Reads. (Click on their names to visit their respective posts and learn more about YARC, as well as sign up for this challenge!) And don’t forget to follow the YARC Twitter!!

Reading challenges haven’t usually appealed to me because I’m the biggest mood reader ever, haha; I honestly cannot stick to structured TBRs for the life of me. 😩 But since YARC is so flexible (as it will be going on throughout all of 2019), I decided to join! Plus, as an Asian American, I love reading Asian books that represent and celebrate my culture. ❤️

There are six challenge levels, ranging from the Philippine tarsier to the Bengali tiger. I decided to aim for the Philippine tarsier level (1 to 10 books), as I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. Of course, I’ll still try to read more than 10 Asian books this year! My #YARC2019 Goodreads shelf already has way more than ten books lol

CW drew all the badges for YARC, and they’re honestly so cute. Look how adorable this Philippine tarsier is! 💖

Now, without further ado, let’s get into my (ever-growing) TBR for this challenge! 🌟

 

Summer Bird Blue: As you all should know by now, I absolutely adored Akemi Dawn Bowman’s debut Starfish, and I won’t be surprised if I fell in love with her sophomore novel too. I’ve heard this book is extremely emotional and tear-inducing, and I’m so (not) ready. 🌊💙

The Astonishing Color of After: I’ve never properly read magical realism before, but I’m excited to dive into the genre with The Astonishing Color of After. I’ve heard it’s a beautifully written debut about depression, grief, and loss, and I can’t wait to fall in love with this. 🕊💗

Legend: After reading Warcross and The Young Elites trilogy by Marie Lu, I’m so excited to read this sci-fi series! Marie Lu’s books are always so action-packed and intriguing, and I hope Legend is the same. Also, Legend is one of the few books that my friends in real life have actually read and loved. i was so shook when they told me lmao, because my friends don’t usually like to read 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyway, I’m trying to read more SFF this year and Marie Lu has definitely been helping me out with this goal. ☀️💛

Little Fires Everywhere: Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You completely blew me away and literally brought tears into my eyes. 😭 It explored racism against Asian Americans and misogyny in the 1960-70s, and so much more. Her writing is so quietly beautiful and exquisite, and I’m very much looking forward to reading more of it in Little Fires Everywhere. 🎇💙

 

Emergency Contact: I actually just started Emergency Contact a few days ago, and one of the main reasons I picked it up was because of Marie‘s love for this book. We both adore so many of the same fluffy contemporaries, since we’re both marshmallows, hehe. So I’m really excited to fall in love with this contemporary as well! 📞💓

Want: I’ve seen so much love for this book lately, especially since the sequel, Ruse, is coming out in March! Want is set in a futuristic Taipei that is suffering under the effects of climate change and pollution. It sounds so fascinating and terrifyingly real, since global warming is such an urgent and prominent issue today. And may I just add, that cover is absolutely amazing 😍🏙

Darius the Great Is Not Okay: I love the title of this book so much, and I’m sure I’ll love this book too, since so many of my friends and fellow bloggers did. This book has Persian and depression rep, family, and friendship, and ahhh it sounds so good already. 🍵❤️

Spin the Dawn: So many incredible Asian books are coming out this year, and this is one of them. This Chinese-inspired fantasy has been marketed as Project Runway meets Mulan, which sounds so interesting (even though I haven’t watched Project Runway, haha). And the cover is absolutely gorgeous, oh my gosh!! 😍 Very excited for this one. 👗💙

Aaaand here are a few more books that are on my #YARC2019 Goodreads shelf!! which you should check out, btw 😉

 

I’m so excited to read all (or most) of these amazing books this year!! I hope y’all enjoyed this post, and hopefully I convinced you to add one (or two, or three) Asian books to your TBR (since you can never have enough Asian books). 😌💓

Have you signed up for YARC 2019? Are you participating in this challenge too? (You totally should!!)

What Asian books have you read and loved? What’s on your TBR for this challenge? Do we have any books in common? What Asian books are you SUPER excited to read?

Feel free to leave some Asian book recs in the comments!!

 

Let’s be friends!

Background image for featured image from Unsplash