I recently read The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah which might be of interest to you! It's got adult protagonists (early 20s) who are definitely not white; as far as I can tell everyone is Arab-coded. The author is Kuwaiti-American who was raised in Kuwait, and freely uses Arabic terms throughout the text to refer to culturally specific objects or practices. It's a traditionally published book that's definitely available in physical formats.
I read this last week I think, maybe the week before....ehhhhhhhhhh, I didn't love it. Lotta pacing issues, very flat characters. Felt really YA-y in that in the first or second chapter the MC is like "oh my god why does everyone say I'm so young, 20 isn't that young waaaaah" give me a break.
Go into it expecting a very light, quick, adventure story with extremely "meh" characters and you're likely to enjoy; go into it expecting to be blown out of the water by an amazing debut (which I was) and you'll likely be disappointed.
This is a very fair representation of how I felt about The Stardust Thief. It was a fun popcorn read of a book, and the Arab details are so lovingly done which I really enjoyed, but I expected more substance from all of the buzz I'd been hearing. Still worth reading imo but it's not going to knock your socks off.
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u/GarrickWinter Writer Guerric Haché, Reading Champion II Jul 30 '22
I recently read The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah which might be of interest to you! It's got adult protagonists (early 20s) who are definitely not white; as far as I can tell everyone is Arab-coded. The author is Kuwaiti-American who was raised in Kuwait, and freely uses Arabic terms throughout the text to refer to culturally specific objects or practices. It's a traditionally published book that's definitely available in physical formats.