Pride month snuck up on me this year. I usually try to make at least one recommendation post. Books can be such an important part of understanding other people. And identifying with a character in a story can be such an impactful experience. I hope these stories can reach the right person out there at the right time.
I tried to pick things published within the last few years. I’ve read many of them, but a few were things I stumbled upon in the catalog or saw recommended elsewhere. If you want help finding a particular kind of book that you don’t see on the list, leave your email below (there isn’t a reply function on the blog comments) and I will get in touch with you.
*things I read/viewed myself.
Books available online (mostly on Overdrive):
*Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo. Audiobook. “Queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by a hungry ghost.” I really loved this book. The characters were complex and it wasn't too creepy.
*Boys Come First by Aaron Foley. Contemporary fiction. “Three Black gay millennial men looking for love, friendship, and professional success in the Motor City.”
Rainbow Rainbow by Lydia Conklin. Short stories. “elebrate the humor, darkness, and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that's not typically represented”
All That’s Left in the World by Erik J. Brown. “Postapocalyptic, queer young adult, adventure, romance.”
*Icebreaker by A.L. Graziadei. Audiobook. Contemporary young adult romance. College hockey rivals fall for each other.
The Third Person by Emma Grove. Graphic Novel Memoir. Trans woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder and her struggles with therapy.
*The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun. Contemporary Adult Romantic Comedy. A producer on a dating reality show tries to help the star open up and ends up falling for him. Very cute!
*The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar. Contemporary fiction. “Five years after a suspicious fire killed his mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one.”
I'm cheating a little by including the tag for LGBTQIA+ Category on Overdrive, so you can browse even more books.
Physical Books:
*The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer. Space adventure, young adult, gay romance.
*The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta. Biracial gay boy explores his identity in verse.
Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff. Middle grade fiction with a transgender main character. “A ghost is haunting Bug's eerie old house in rural Vermont...and maybe haunting Bug in particular.”
*Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo. Historical young adult novel set in the 1950s. A Chinese American girl navigates deportation scares and falls for a girl in San Francisco during the Red Scare. This book is lovely.
A Door Behind a Door by Yelena Moskovich. Psychological thriller with a lesbian protagonist.
*Felix Ever After by Kacen Callendar. Contemporary young adult novel about a transgender boy wishing for love.
*The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. "Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life.”
*The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. A Great Gatsby retelling from Jordan Baker’s perspective if she were a queer Vietnamese adoptee. Lovely prose.