As a student, I read many books in my English classes. I read Chaucer and Shakespeare and Hemingway and even some Bukowski. I love to read anything that I can get my hands on, so I readily accepted these books, but after a while, it seemed that most of them were written by dead white guys. These books lacked strong woman characters and filled their diversity quota with one black friend who makes a sassy remark here and there, but who is ultimately flat and underdeveloped. As a teenager who was just exploring the possibility of really disappointing my extended family and majoring in English, this was discouraging. I felt that to write something that qualifies as “great,” you would need to be a man over the age of 40 with a distaste for women. However, with the guidance of my parents and a handful of fantastic teachers, I soon learned that a straight white male is not the default of everyone’s story and that to be a great writer takes a lot more than a lack of melanin and five o’clock shadow.

Here are my picks for eight brilliant pieces of writing that were not written by dead white guys:

1. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker

This list would not be complete without Alice Walker’s brilliant novel (also adapted into an equally brilliant musical) "The Color Purple." I cannot believe that I put off reading this until my senior year of high school, but I’m so glad that I read it. A touching story about a young girl named Celie who reclaims her life and dignity through the help of Shug Avery, it’s fantastic, it’s touching, and it’s hella gay.

2. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

Thank you, high school lit teacher, for making us read this, regardless of whether or not it was in the original curriculum. "Things Fall Apart" is brilliantly written, especially since it’s so stylized and not at all your typical book. It reads like a folktale, with simple sentences and short descriptions, which, despite a lack of detail, draws the reader in even more to the Igbo culture of oral tradition and storytelling. It focuses on toxic masculinity and colonialism within the context of 20th century Africa, and is impossible to put down.

3. "This Is How You Lose Her" by Junot Diaz

Maybe I’m biased because I’m from New Jersey, and this book is littered with references to my hometown and places I spent the majority of my rebellious tween years, but I adore this book. A brutally honest novel told in vignettes about sex, love, cheating, and abandonment, this book is not your typical “white straight boy meets white straight girl and they live happily ever after once she becomes a vampire” kind of book. "This Is How You Lose Her" reads almost like poetry and leaves the reader wanting more on each page.

4. "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison

Of course, Toni Morrison made this list. How could she not? "Song of Solomon" is a book that really can’t be described in less than a five-paragraph essay, so you'll have to read it yourself to understand its brilliance. It’s a story of toxic masculinity, badass femininity, racial tensions, identity, sexuality, love, friendship, revenge, and more. Someone fucks a dead body, someone else becomes a domestic terrorist, someone else falls in love with their cousin, then tries to kill them. It’s a whirlwind, start to finish.

5. "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel

A book I didn’t think that I would like nearly as much as I did, "Like Water for Chocolate" is a simple story about a young girl named Tita and her love for Pedro and cooking. It talks about sexuality, love, coming of age, and gives a recipe at the start of each chapter. I’m doing a horrible job selling this book because it is something that you have to read to discover the awesomeness that is Esquivel’s first novel.

6. "Une Si Longue Lettre/So Long a Letter" by Mariama Bâ

Never would I have thought a book I struggled so much to read would be on a “must-read” list, yet here we are. I read this book in my 11th grade French class, and I struggled through every paragraph, but when I reread it in English the summer after, I adored it. It’s a novel in letters, and it talks about gender roles and the status of women in Senegal in the 20th century. Aissatu is a total badass, and Rama is a heartbreakingly truthful narrator. Two fantastic female characters, one awesome novel. What more could you want?

7. "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

If you haven’t read this by now, what are you doing with your life? A classic in every sense of the word, it has remained a staple on reading lists, even in 2016. A beautiful coming of age story that not only talks about love, family, and friendship but race, justice and inequality, it is a book that will forever be relevant and important and that I think everyone should read.

8. "Mouthful of Forevers" by Clementine von Radics

If you are anything like me and you spend your free time watching "Button Poetry" on YouTube, this is the collection for you. Touching, emotional, poignant; these are the kind of poems that people read as their wedding vows (no, really, someone did), but they’re also poems to write on bathroom mirrors or leave pinned to a locker.