This truly spoke to me. I never read YA books growing up because I had this feeling that they weren’t written for Black girls in mind. I knew I couldn’t relate because of that one BIG difference. And as a Black girl who grew up in extremely White spaces, I wanted there to be a moment when I wasn’t always surrounded by Whiteness. That’s why I delve into the world of fanfiction during my teen years. Because in that space, I could actually see myself. I read and wrote a TON of B2K (embarrassingly…) fanfiction. To me it was written for and by us. When I read those stories now, I’m like “this is how we thought about relationships. Gross.” LOL but I knew I wasn’t alone.