Welcome to the new Our Queerest Shelves format! You won’t find a lot that’s different, but some things have been shuffled around. One notable addition is Bookish Goods, where I tempt you with a queer bookish Etsy item every week. I’m sorry/you’re welcome.
Book Riot is hiring an Editorial Operations Associate! If you love checklists and making sure things are running smoothly, we want to work with you. We are committed to building an inclusive workforce and strongly encourage applications from women, individuals with disabilities, and people of color. Check out all the details here, including work from home jurisdictions and salary.
Usually here is where I highlight a nonprofit to support, but instead I’d like to do a call to action: please call or email your legislator and let them know you support libraries and oppose book bans. Contact your local school board and library board and let them know you support Pride displays and carrying LGBTQ books. Librarians could use your help!
Bookish Goods
Libraries are for Everyone Magnet by GoodGoodCat
In light of some of the news pieces you’ll find linked below, it’s a good time to remind all who can see your fridge (or other metallic surface) that libraries are for everyone! $3
New Releases
They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe (Lesbian Horror)
I have it on good authority that this lesbian gothic is one of the best books of the year. Whose authority? Why, Book Riot’s Liberty Hardy, who reads 600+ books a year. Also, Autostraddle reviewed this with the title “This Gay Ocean Horror Book Is So Good I Want To Scream.” After Meredith broke up with her wife, she moved back to her hometown to care for her daughter and mother. But her mother, in early stages of Alzheimer’s, keeps warning her that all three women are in danger of being pulled under the water.
If You’re A Kid Like Gavin by Gavin Grimm and Kyle Lukoff, Illustrated by J Yang (Trans Guy Picture Book)
When Gavin Grimm’s school denied him the right to use the boy’s washroom because he’s trans, he took the battle all the way to the Supreme Court — and won. This picture book is his story, co-written by Kyle Lukoff, who was written queer kids’ books including When Aidan Became a Brother and Call Me Max. This story teaches kids how to advocate for themselves and others.
Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!
Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress (Sapphic Fiction)
Other Names for Love by Taymour Soomro (Queer Guy Fiction)
Gods of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang (Sapphic Short Stories)
The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (F/F Romance)
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (Nonbinary Horror)
August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White (Queer Sci Fi)
The Taking of Jake Livingston (Gay YA Horror) (Paperback rerelease)
Pretty Baby by Chris Belcher (Lesbian Memoir)
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter!
Queer YA To Read for Disability Pride Month
It’s Disability Pride Month, and that means I have a good excuse to talk about some of my favorite queer books with disability representation! This week, I want to recommend some realistic YA with disabled or chronically ill main characters.
The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath
Have I recommended this book before in Our Queerest Shelves? Yes, because I will take any excuse to talk about it. It’s set in 1904 Norway and follows a queer teen found family group: Aster, who is asexual, has Waardenburg Syndrome, and is deaf in one ear; Gunnar, who is an amputee, is non-ambulatory, and experiences chronic pain; and Erland, who has anxiety. Gunnar and Erland are in a romantic relationship, and the three of them are rejected from their community for not following norms, forcing them to find a way to survive together. Plus, there’s a horse race to save the family farm. This is a beautiful and immersive story I need more people to read ASAP.
Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett
Simone is a teenager who’s been HIV positive since birth. It’s managed well with medication, but she faced so much stigma in her last school that she had to change schools and hide her diagnosis. Now, just as everything seems to be going well and the boy she’s crushing on might be crushing on her too, she starts getting blackmail notes threatening to out her as HIV positive.
Simone is bisexual, and she spends part of the book coming to terms with this: she has two queer best friends, and she feels like she can’t “claim” the label of bisexual because she’s more often attracted to guys. This is something I haven’t seen a lot in books, and it’s handled so well. She also has two dads, so there’s plenty of queer rep!
All the Links Fit To Click
Librarians caught up in vicious anti-LGBTQ cultural book bans are quitting
What Should a Queer Children’s Book Do?
12 Self-Published LGBTQ Books To Bring to the Beach This Summer
LGBTQ Reads has recommendations of queer books to read for Disability Pride Month!
That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at my sapphic book blog, the Lesbrary, as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books or you can read my Book Riot posts.
Happy reading!
Danika