Underrated Books Part 2

I promised you a long time ago I would make a part 2! Here are other underrated books I have read in the last few years that I recommend you read as well.

1. Sleeping Around by Morgan Vega

This is a YA novel about 18-year old violinist Coralee Reed who grew up in the foster care system (and gets extended foster care in the beginning of the book) and is starting her first year of college. Due to a miscommunication, she is unable to get into the dorm that is associated with the music program of her college, and has to share a room with two other girls until she gets a permanent solution. While Corey (her nickname) is navigating her new life at college, she wonders if she will ever find her place in the world, especially after having grown up going around from foster home to foster home and not having a stable group of friends at her many schools. Additionally, a formerly rocky relationship she had with another violinist named Dylan is starting to change for the better.

You can check out my full review here. If you're in the mood for a found family book and a YA novel taking place in college, check this book out!

Also there is LGBT rep (Dylan is bi), if you're looking for that, too. 

2. Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley

This is an adult romance book about two people: Jubilee who was born with a rare allergy where she is allergic to other people's skin, and Eric, a recent divorcé who is struggling to raise his new adoptive son, Aja. 

After a life threatening incident that happened in her senior year of high school, Jubilee has lived in insolation for the last 10 years. The one day her stepfather calls her to tell her that her mother died, and so Jubilee has to go find a job. With the help of an acquaintance from high school, she gets a job at the local library, where she won't have to worry about coming in contact with anyone. That's where she meets and befriends Eric, and she gets to know about his recent divorce and how he is still trying to have a connection with his birth daughter Ellie, and how he struggles to connect with Aja, who is still coping with the death of his birth parents, who were two coworkers Eric was really good friends with.

Jubilee and Eric become really close and help each other a lot with their problems, and they both give each other a lot of hope.

This was such a sweet book! It made me tear up so much (sad and happy tears at many parts). Colleen Oakley is a great writer and I plan to read more from her. Close Enough to Touch was also the very first adult romance novel I read back in 2019. I highly recommend this book!

3. Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Johanneau

A YA romance novel about an American girl named Mia Jenrow who is accepted to go to a summer long ballet program in Paris, France. Mia is excited to go because she thinks it will increase her chances to enter the American Ballet Theatre. While she is there, she meets and falls in love with a guy named Louis, and it turns out Louis is the son of her ballet teacher there at the ballet program! Mia then has a dilemma of being dedicated to improving her ballet skills but also finding enough time to hang out with Louis. 

There are also some smaller subplots in the story. One with Mia and her long time rival, Audrey, perfecting their roles as Odile and Odette in Swan Lake (that's the the performance the program will put on at the end of the summer for some judges to see) as well as their overall rivalry. Then Mia tries to connect with some French relatives of hers who also did ballet when they were younger. Then another subplot is Mia trying to find the exact painting by historical painter Edgar Degas that supposedly has one of her ballerina family descendants in it. 

Have you ever felt that a book was written specifically for you? Because this is what this felt like to me. This book was so cute and uplifting. It does get a tad serious and emotional towards the end, but then it has a happy ending. The book also gave me so many feelings of nostalgia because I used to also do ballet when I was younger. 

If you want a cute romance book that also involves ballet in Paris, check this book out!

4. A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger

An urban fantasy book that is also about the awareness of climate change. The story is a dual POV (but told in 3rd person) of two characters. The first is Nina, a Lipan Apache teenage girl who has a hobby of sharing stories from her culture to her many followers on a storytelling app. She is also preparing to evacuate from a hurricane that's approaching the area where she lives. The second character in Oli, and he is from a magical world that parallels Earth, and he is a shapeshifter. His true from is that of a cottonmouth snake. When Oli becomes old enough to leave home for the first time, he befriends a little frog named Ami, but Ami falls ill and Oli finds out it's because on Earth, his species of frog is endangered, and so Oli and his new friends (the coyote sisters Risk and Reign, and a hawk named Brightest, also shapeshifters) have to go to Earth via the sun to get help. When they arrive on Earth, they meet Nina, and they all help each other out with their problems (Nina helps Oli with Ami, and Oli and his friends help Nina and her family evacuate from the impeding hurricane). 

Very fascinating book! You can read my full review of it right here. Darcie Little Badger did a great job of capturing two storytelling feelings at once: the contemporary modern feeling with Nina and the fantasy feeling with Oli. It's also the very first book I ever read with Lipan Apache representation, and I'd love to read more!

Also Nina is aroace, just like me! So this is a great book with aroace rep too. 

...

So which of these books will you be adding to your TBR?