Contemporary YA on my TBR!

If there's one genre I tend to avoid, it's YA Contemporary. It's one of those genres I've often found hard to relate to, but last year I fell head over heels in love with Becky Albertalli's Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and while I'm 99.9% certain I'll always prefer speculative fiction to 'realistic' fiction it's made me want to explore more YA Contemporary.

Below are some of the YA Contemporaries I'd like to check out this year!

(Check out my review of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda here!)

If I Stay is another YA Contemporary that I really like which I read back in 2014, and for whatever reason I still haven't read Where She Went despite owning a copy of it. You can check out my review of If I Stay here! Eleanor & Park is another book that's been on my TBR for quite a while, but it's also one I'm slightly hesitant to pick up - in the world of contemporary fiction I know Rainbow Rowell is very popular, but I have yet to be wowed by her. Still, I'd like to give Eleanor & Park a try because it features a heroine who's overweight whose story doesn't have anything to do with going on a diet.

Similarly, Dumplin' is another book I want to check out because it's all about body positivity. In all honestly I didn't realise it was a YA book until I saw Cait @ Paper Fury's review, but that doesn't matter in the slightest - I'm all for books about body positivity! Lisa Williamson's debut, The Art of Being Normal, has really great reviews on Goodreads, and after I read What We Left Behind (reviewed here!) I'd like to read more books which feature trans and gender fluid characters. What I really want is to read a book about a trans character written by a trans writer, but I'm not going to ignore a non-trans writer in the mean time - what's the point in that?

Asking For It by Louise O'Neill, the author of Only Ever Yours, and Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston, author of A Thousand Nights, both deal with sexual assault, and the effect it has on the people who are the victims of it. I own a copy of Asking For It and Exit, Pursued by a Bear is due to be released in March. I think both of these are going to be difficult to read, but I also think it's fantastic that this is an issue which is being discussed in YA; there's too much victim-blaming in our culture. Just too much.

Are any of these books on your TBR? Which of these should I read first?