8 Modern AP Lit Books That Diversify the “Canon”

Ifemelu and Obinze fell in love in Nigeria, and like many of their classmates, they longed for life in America. When a series of strikes disrupts their college education, Ifemelu applies for college in America and begins a new life there, one that is harder than she expected. 

While Ifemelu learns what it means to be Black in America, writing a blog about race, class, and the difference between American and Non-American Blacks, Obinze, unable to get a visa to visit America, moves to England and tries to find work and establish a life without official documentation.

As the book opens, Ifemelu is about to return to Nigeria after over a decade in America, away from Obinze; the middle of the novel goes back and catches us up to the current moment, and in the book’s final part, we see Ifemelu’s return and reunion with Obinze.

The rich characterization of Ifemelu and Obinze and the exploration of both the complexities of race in America and the challenges of the immigrant experience offer a lot to discuss as well as a fresh, modern perspective. Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has been part of the traditional AP Lit canon for some time, but Adichie’s Nigeria looks significantly different.

Adichie’s TEDTalk “The dangers of a single story” is a popular resource in many classrooms, and her other novels, Half of a Yellow Sun and Purple Hibiscus, have been listed as options on the AP Lit exam. This novel begins with experiences students will easily relate to but moves to adult experiences of discontent—in different countries, in marriages—that not all students have the life experience to relate to. If you have a classroom full of old souls, you’ll have better success than if your students are still clinging to their beloved middle school favorites.

Be aware that the novel includes quite a few sexual references (and mild profanity), which are handled briefly and matter-of-factly but won’t work for all classes.

Ng’s compelling story would be highly engaging for students, and while it has yet to appear on the College Board’s list of titles, they referenced Ng’s other novel, Little Fires Everywhere, in 2023 (which we recommended in an earlier post).

The novel begins, “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” Lydia is the 16-year-old daughter of Marilyn, who is white, and James, who is Chinese, sister to Nathan and Hannah, in an Ohio suburb in the 1970s.

The opening chapter details the morning her family discovers her missing, and as the novel continues, we begin to piece together what happened to Lydia while also learning the family history that led up to her disappearance: Marilyn’s discontent as a suburban mother who once dreamed of earning a science degree; James’s efforts to fit into a world that frequently points out how different he is because of his race; Nathan’s longing to be a rocket scientist; Lydia’s burden as the beloved daughter who carries her family’s hopes and dreams; Hannah’s desire for someone, anyone, to notice her.

Much of the novel is told from the perspective of the teenage children, and many students will relate to the feeling of having parents work out their issues through you, but the narrative also presents the parents’ perspective, allowing us to more fully understand the complexity of family dynamics. At its heart, the novel, with its omniscient point of view, highlights our inability to ever fully know and understand another person, no matter how much we love them.

The novel does include a few scenes describing the father’s affair, but this is a book that would work well in most classrooms.

While we enjoyed all eight of the titles on our list, Hamid’s novel would be our first priority to work into our curriculum.

Nadia and Saeed live in an unspecified country on the brink of civil war when they meet. Saeed is drawn to the mysterious woman covered head to toe in a flowing black robe, and when he finally works up the nerve to speak to her after class, she blows him off. Saeed persists, however, and the two begin a secret relationship, fearful of the trouble it would cause for a young man to be seen entering a single woman’s apartment.

As civil war breaks out, Saeed and Nadia find themselves, out of necessity, thrown into a suddenly serious relationship, and they begin hearing of a mysterious collection of doors that enable passage into other, safer places in the world. When they take their chances with the doors, they begin a journey through refugee camps, ultimately winding up in a refugee neighborhood in Britain that teeters into unrest. Their relationship must withstand not only the physical upheaval but the imbalance that arises as they both change and adapt to their new lives.

The content of the story alone makes it a valuable addition to modern AP Lit classrooms: it raises significant and timely questions about migration and the tension that arises between refugees and their new countries, a tension complicated by a history of colonialism. Many students will relate to Saeed and Nadia as they wrestle with both the desire to hold onto their home country and to let go of it, and the painful experience of growing apart in a relationship is highly relatable.

As an AP Lit teacher, the novel also offers excellent opportunities to analyze artistry. The prose is gorgeous, the doors are clear symbols, and Hamid’s choice to be vague about Nadia and Saeed’s country and religion lends an element of universality to the story, underscored by scenes interwoven through the narrative about unnamed migrants exiting doors into a variety of other countries.

Written for adults, the novel does include a few descriptions of sex and marijuana use, but we’d feel comfortable assigning it to students enrolled in a college-level literature course.

Highly praised by quite a few AP Lit teachers (and referenced on the exam in 2018 and 2021), Gyasi’s gorgeous novel traces a single family through seven generations of Ghanaian, British, and American history. Effia and Esi are half-sisters, though they don’t know it, and their paths diverge sharply. Effia is married off to a British man, James Collins, who holds a prominent position at the Cape Coast Castle, one of the slave castles on the Gold Coast of Africa from which enslaved Africans were loaded onto ships to be sold as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Esi is captured and held in the basement of the castle, eventually shipped to America and sold as a slave.

Each chapter of the novel tells the story of a new generation in the women’s family, alternating between Essia’s line and Esi’s line, and despite the constantly changing perspectives, we feel connected to each new character, richly characterized so we feel as if we know and understand them despite the relatively short time we are with them. The novel traces the history of Ghana under, and eventually after, colonialism as well as American history from slavery through modern-day Palo Alto, California.

The novel allows for discussions of colonialism, slavery (from the African, British, and American perspectives), generational trauma, and endurance as we trace how the events of history shape individuals and future generations.

There is definitely mature content, including rape, to be aware of, but the inclusion of sexual content is not gratuitous and matters to the story.

We’re admittedly pushing the “modern” descriptor a little bit with this one, but there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in recent years in Octavia Butler’s writing. She is one of the first Black and female science fiction writers, and the College Board included Kindred on exam lists in 2018, 2021, and 2023.

In Kindred, Dana, a young Black woman living with her white husband Kevin in Los Angeles, CA, in 1976, suddenly begins time traveling to a 19th century plantation in Maryland, seemingly “called” by Rufus, the son of the plantation owner, whenever his life is in danger. 

She quickly realizes that Rufus is her ancestor and that she must keep him alive long enough to ensure her ancestor Hagar is born, and over the course of a few days in 1976 that she experiences as decades in the 19th century, she is transported to Maryland six different times to save Rufus. In Maryland, she must live as a slave on the plantation, and her life is increasingly endangered each time she goes back, ultimately resulting in the loss of an arm, which we know about from the novel’s prologue.

Purely from a storytelling perspective, this is an engaging novel with lots of action, and we think the time travel element will appeal to modern readers. But it also raises rich opportunities for discussion. As a modern Black woman, Dana is in a position of privilege compared to the slaves she comes to know, and this creates tension as she realizes how little she understands about the helplessness and beaten-down-ness that motivates them to submit to their owners in ways that initially appear unthinkable to her. 

She’s also in the uncomfortable position of caring for Rufus and hating him for the way he treats her and his slaves, particularly as he grows from a child into a young man. These tensions are exacerbated by the fact that we’re reading the novel 45 years later, when the ideas of privilege and systemic racism are at the forefront of cultural conversations (note that this means there are a few instances of language we now view as unacceptable).

As a slave narrative, Kindred does contain violent content, including rape, but its rich examination of slavery in America makes it worth considering as part of your AP Lit curriculum.

While this particular novel has not yet been referenced on the AP exam, Ishiguro is a regular presence, with Never Let Me Go and Remains of the Day making the list nine times. His most recent novel pops up frequently in discussions about AP Lit curriculum, and we think it would make a great addition to your classroom lineup.

Klara is an AF, an Artificial Friend, and we meet her in the shop where she and the other Artificial Friends spend their days and nights, waiting for their turn in the window and longing to be chosen by a family. Klara, compared to other AFs, is unusually perceptive, particularly when it comes to emotions, genuinely trying to understand the humans who come through the store and walk past it each day.

One day, when Klara is in the window, a young girl named Josie with a serious illness spots her and becomes attached, returning several times to visit Klara before finally convincing her mother that Klara is the AF she wants. Klara goes home with Josie and her family and begins her new life as Josie’s AF, and it’s not long before she (and the reader) starts to sense there’s something dark lurking beneath the surface of the family interactions. As Klara grows closer to Josie, she is determined to save Josie from the illness that threatens her, convinced that the sun will help her to do so.

We think this science fiction story will appeal to many students. It’s easy to read, and there’s a mild eeriness beneath the surface that propels the story forward as we want to know what exactly is going on in Josie’s family. The presence of these AI companions feels particularly fresh and modern (and all too believable), and yet this is ultimately a story of friendship that explores what love looks like in all its different forms.

Steph read this one several years ago and revisited it for this post after hearing that a number of her AP exam review students had been assigned the novel in AP Lit.

The novel begins in a small fishing village in Korea in 1883, where Hoonie is the only surviving son of a poor fisherman and his wife, unmarriageable because of his cleft lip and deformed foot. Japan annexes Korea in 1910, beginning a decades-long history of struggle for Koreans, who face poverty and discrimination at the hands of the Japanese. Amidst the poverty that sweeps through the nation, a matchmaker finds Yangjin, the daughter of poor farmers, as a wife for Hoonie, and the novel tells the multi-generational story of their descendants.

Yangjin and Hoonie have a daughter, Sunja, who is taken advantage of by a wealthy man named Koh Hansu and becomes pregnant. She refuses to become his mistress (he has another family, after all), and a Christian minister staying in Yangjin and Sunja’s boarding house, Baek Isak, offers to marry Sunja and become the child’s father.

The majority of the novel details the complicated lives of Sunja and her children Noa (by Koh Hansu) and Mozasu (with Baek Isak), living as oppressed minorities in Osaka, Japan. In an interview, the author refers to them as ordinary people trying to make it through life amidst the global chaos of the 20th century, bounced around like balls in a pachinko machine, and this perfectly encapsulates the story. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, and highly engaging, and we’re rooting for the characters despite the messes they sometimes make of their own lives.

There’s so much of value in the novel, particularly its presentation of the minor voices that are often left out of history. We learned quite a bit about Japanese colonialism in Korea, the experience of being an immigrant, and the painful impacts of generational trauma.

This is an engaging novel that will prepare students for the AP exam, but if you work in a community where challenges to books are common, be aware that the second half of the novel includes quite a bit of sex and profanity.

Orange tells the interwoven story of 13 different characters, connected in often surprising ways, who come together at the end of the novel for a community powwow in Oakland, California, that is interrupted by violence.

This novel stands out for its presentation of the Urban Indian experience, distinctly different from the reservation experience more commonly represented in literature about Native Americans. The characters wrestle with alcoholism, depression, poverty, family, and identity, and their stories are interlaced with both hope and pain. 

Orange weaves reflections on the history of Native Americans in America throughout the narrative, and we see the reverberations of violence echoing throughout the entire history and narrative. The narrative feels modern, and we think the Urban Indian experience will resonate with other minority communities. In an age where students participate in active shooter drills, the mass shooting at the powwow also feels timely.

It’s tough, however, to determine how best to use this novel in an AP Lit classroom. It’s full of profanity, violence, and drug and alcohol use; however, what Orange is doing with the novel is valuable, and there is much to analyze and discuss; the College Board lists the novel on the 2023 exam. Ultimately, this is an excellent novel, but you’ll want to be very aware of your community when deciding how best to use it in your classroom.