#PrettyBoy Must Die by Kimberly Reid - A CIA prodigy’s cover is blown when he accidentally becomes an internet sensation, inspired by the #Alexfromtarget story.
96 Words of Love by Rachel Roy & Ava Dash - James Patterson Presents a modern retelling of a classic Indian legend, 96 Words for Love is a touching coming-of-age story that reads like Eat, Pray, Love for teens.
500 Words or Less by Juleah del Rosario - To redefine her reputation senior year, Nic Chen begins writing their college admissions essays. But the more essays Nic writes for other people, the less sure she becomes of herself, and whether her moral compass even points north anymore.
After the Shot Drops by Randy Ribar - A powerful novel about friendship, basketball, and one teen’s mission to create a better life for his family in the tradition of Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers.
A Girl Like That by Tanaz Bhathena - When half-Hindu, half-Parsi school troublemaker Zarin Wadia dies in a car crash with a boy named Porus, no one in her South Asian community in Jeddah is surprised—what else would you expect from a girl like that?
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi - After their home in Syria is bombed, Tareq and family seek refuge, first with extended family in Raqqa, a stronghold for the militant group, Daesh, and then abroad.
In the 3rd millennium BCE, Mesopotamian kings recorded and interpreted their dreams on wax tablets. In the years since, we haven’t paused in our quest to understand why we dream. And while we still don’t have any definitive answers, we have some theories. Here are seven reasons we might dream.
1. In the early 1900’s, Sigmund Freud proposed that while all of our dreams, including our nightmares, are a collection of images from our daily conscious lives, they also have symbolic meanings which relate to the fulfillment of our subconscious wishes. Freud theorized that everything we remember when we wake up from a dream is a symbolic representation of our unconscious, primitive thoughts, urges and desires. Freud believed that by analyzing those remembered elements, the unconscious content would be revealed to our conscious mind, and psychological issues stemming from its repression could be addressed and resolved.
2. To increase performance on certain mental tasks, sleep is good, but dreaming while sleeping is better. In 2010, researchers found that subjects were much better at getting through a complex 3D maze if they had napped and dreamed of the maze prior to their second attempt. In fact, they were up to ten times better at it than those who only thought of the maze while awake between attempts, and those who napped but did not dream about the maze. Researchers theorize that certain memory processes can happen only when we are asleep, and our dreams are a signal that these processes are taking place.
3. There are about ten thousand trillion neural connections within the architecture of your brain. They are created by everything you think, and everything you do. A 1983 neurobiological theory of dreaming, called “reverse learning,” holds that while sleeping, and mainly during REM sleep cycles, your neocortex reviews these neural connections and dumps the unnecessary ones. Without this unlearning process, which results in your dreams, your brain could be overrun by useless connections, and parasitic thoughts could disrupt the necessary thinking you need to do while you’re awake.
4. The “Continual Activation Theory” proposes that your dreams result from your brain’s need to constantly consolidate and create long term memories in order to function properly. So when external input falls below a certain level, like when you’re asleep, your brain automatically triggers the generation of data from its memory storages, which appear to you in the form of the thoughts and feelings you experience in your dreams. In other words, your dreams might be a random screensaver your brain turns on so it doesn’t completely shut down.
5. Dreams involving dangerous and threatening situations are very common, and the Primitive Instinct Rehearsal Theory holds that the content of a dream is significant to its purpose. Whether it’s an anxiety filled night of being chased through the woods by a bear, or fighting off a ninja in a dark alley, these dreams allow you to practice your fight or flight instincts and keep them sharp and dependable, in case you’ll need them in real life. But it doesn’t always have to be unpleasant; for instance, dreams about your attractive neighbor could actually give your reproductive instinct some practice too.
6. Stress neurotransmitters in the brain are much less active during the REM stage of sleep, even during dreams of traumatic experiences, leading some researchers to theorize that one purpose of dreaming is to take the edge off painful experiences to allow for psychological healing. Reviewing traumatic events in your dreams with less mental stress may grant you a clearer perspective and an enhanced ability to process them in psychologically healthy ways. People with certain mood disorders and PTSD often have difficulty sleeping, leading some scientists to believe that lack of dreaming may be a contributing factor to their illnesses.
7. Unconstrained by reality and the rules of conventional logic, in your dreams your mind can create limitless scenarios to help you grasp problems and formulate solutions that you may not consider while awake. John Steinbeck called it “the Committee of Sleep” and research has demonstrated the effectiveness of dreaming on problem solving. It’s also how renowned chemist August Kekule discovered the structure of the benzene molecule, and it’s the reason that sometimes the best solution for a problem is to “sleep on it”.
And those are just a few of the more prominent theories. As technology increases our capability for understanding the brain, it’s possible that one day we will discover the definitive reason for them; but until that time arrives, we’ll just have to keep on dreaming.
I often see people talking about how they would like to read more lgbt+ books/series but do not know where to find them. SO I’ve made this list to give people somewhere to start !
PLEASE NOTE; I’ve written which stories are #ownvoices that I know of, some of them that I didn’t mention may be - sometimes it is hard to know, especially since it’s not something all authors write in bio’s ect. :) Please forgive and correct if you know some are #ownvoices that I have not mentioned.
f/f
counting to zero - a.j quinn (#ownvoices)
everything leads to you - nina lacour
of fire and stars - audrey coulthurst
not your sidekick - c.b lee (poc)
the long way to a small, angry planet - becky chambers (#ownvoices)
a closed and common orbit - becky chambers (#ownvoices)
ice massacre - tiana warner
axiom: the last hope - marie rachel pearcy (#ownvoices)
get it together, delilah ! - erin gough
empress of the world - sara ryan
the upside down of unrequited - becky albertalli
girls man up - m-e girard
tell me again how a crush should feel - sara farizan
juliet takes a breath - gabby rivera
m/m
the foxhole court - nora sakavic (also poc)
the raven cycle - maggie stiefvater
six of crows duology - leigh bardugo (also poc)
aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe - benjamin alire saez (ft. poc characters) (#ownvoices)
will grayson, will grayson - john green and david levithan (semi #ownvoices)
we are the ants - shaun david hutchinson (#ownvoices)
the five stages of andrew brawley - shaun david hutchinson (#ownvoices)
the mortal instruments - cassandra clare (also bi rep, poc)
the dark artifices - cassandra clare (also bi rep)
the love interest - cale dietrich
captive prince series - c.s pacat
the song of achilles - medeline miller
whatever. or how junior year became totally fucked - s.j goslee
grasshopper jungle - andrew smith
ill give you the sun - jandy nelson
simon vs the homosapiens agenda - becky albertalli
carry on - rainbow rowell
boy meets boy - david levithan (#ownvoices)
two boys kissing - david levithan (#ownvoices)
the perks of being a wallflower - stephen chbosky
the gone series - michael grant (also, lesbian character. However, both side characters (though major ones), and not explored until later books. both poc )
trans
a kind of justice - renee james (#ownvoices)
if i was your girl - meredith russo (#ownvoices)
the art of being normal - lisa williamson
george - alex gino (#ownvoices)
every heart a doorway - seanan mcguire (asexual character)
coffee boy - austin chant
when the moon was ours - anna-marie mclemore
roller girl - vanessa north (also f/f couple)
bi
adaptation - malinda lo (#ownvoices)
ash - malinda lo (#ownvoices)
radio silence - alice oseman
other lgbt:
magnus chase and the gods of asgard - rick riordan (genderfluid character)
every heart a doorway - seanan mcguire (asexual character)
the long way to a small, angry planet - becky chambers (gender fluid and non-binary characters - NOTE: this is a space opera and features aliens who are non-binary/gender fluid not humans. however, the main character who is human is lgbt - this is a very socially aware book and I recommend it even if it’s non-human characters)
FINAL NOTE: I have not read all these books and cannot comment on the representation in all of them, but I have only included books I’ve heard good reception about.
feel free to add on !! or check my READING LIST for more
