After a two week hiatus, Monday Musings is back. I have a good excuse for the hiatus, though.

It occurs to me that I didn’t post this here. Last week, T and I got married. Just thought I’d share.

A photo posted by Eli (@thebooksupplier) on Sep 13, 2015 at 11:19am PDT

//platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js

And so we’ve been recovering, and I’ve been, for the most part, neglecting social media. But I’m ready to get back in the swing of things, so here’s what interested me around the internet the last few weeks.

I’m always excited to see what diverse books are released each week. I listened to All the Books from Book Riot last week and added Lizard Radio to my TBR — it’s one of those books that challenges notions of gender, and that’s something I’m interested in as a reader. I’m excited to find this one and pick it up. Naturally, I was excited, then, to see Lizard Radio pop up on Diversity in YA’s diverse releases for last week. I’m on the hunt people.

I learned about intersectionality, how different identities intersect and contribute to oppression, from Imani Gandy on This Week in Blackness Prime. Kelly Jensen posted her 3 YA on a theme (that turned into 11) this week on intersectionality in YA literature. I want to get all up in this reading list. It includes books like Aristotle & Dante, as well as Adam Silvera’s debut, More Happy than Not (which I picked up a few weeks ago–I thought Patrick Ness’s new book was out. But it wasn’t).

As a reader who is still exploring personal intersectionalities and having conversations about the challenges I have faced and will face, as well as the challenges Tracie and I will face together, I find novels about others exploring intersectionality to be helpful for my own development. Novels, for me, help me keep things in perspective. They help me remember that my experience is not the only experience, and they help me empathize with others in addition to reminding me that my experiences as a [insert all of my labels here] person are not invalid.

I’ve been in a reading slump for a little while–I’m still reading Afterworlds and it’s taking longer than books usually do. Lists like these, that speak to things I’m processing, make me excited to be a reader again. And maybe that means I put Afterworlds down for a little while and come back to it later.

That’s okay. I give myself permission.

I hope things are well with you, dear readers. If you feel like sharing, let me know what’s happening in your worlds, reading or not. I’d love to hear from you.

Happy reading, and don’t forget to be awesome.