People praise the hell out of fucking John Green for his “empowering, diverse, groundbreaking” YA novels, when they SHOULD be praising Michael Grant for the Gone Series.
The premise of Gone: one day, out of the blue, everybody age 15 and over in a small beach town poofs out of existence. The remaining kids and teens are trapped by an “electric” alien bubble and must survive while dealing with disaster, death, disease, starvation, and new mysterious powers.
You want LGBT+ representation? At least four characters are, three explicitly so. One or two are hinted at being possibly bisexual, with one being confirmed in all but name.
You want racial diversity? Over half, closer to ¾, of the named characters are POC. Hell, probably the biggest heroes are Edilio, who’s Latino, and Albert, who’s black.
Mental illness, including eating disorders? You got it, babe. There’s also an autistic character if that interests you.
Fully developed characters? Nearly every named character has a full character arc distinct from the two arguably main characters, Sam and Caine. And guess what? Some don’t get redemption, some go full evil and stay that way, but that’s life.
Strong girls? Literally everyone in this book would be dead without them. Some are warriors, some are engineering/civics types, some are healers, some take care of children, but they are all vital parts of the story with their own narrative arcs. There are even several terrifying female villains who aren’t sexualized (because they’re maybe fourteen or fifteen, c’mon) but are just scary.
Realistic teenagers with realistic dialogue? You won’t find these teens monologuing at each other, that’s for sure. Yes, they use slang (they don’t swear much, but that’s just because it’s YA). They also have to deal with teen issues like love, loss, and doubt in the midst of a hellscape.
Characters that are morally gray? Everybody but Edilio and Drake are neither purely good nor purely bad
Racial issues? After the first book, our racial issues are sort of looked past as the teens split into two New Races: “Freaks” and “Normals”. “Freaks,” kids with superpowers, are attacked regularly.
The greatest dystopia set-up ever? Oh, HELL yes! No spoilers here, because every page is a surprise that shouldn’t be ruined.