Author: Danika Ellis

Uplifting Trans YA, Joyful Queer Women Books… and Your Rage Reads of the Day

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date August 11, 2021

Have You Read Sarah Waters Yet?

It has come to my attention that there are queer books fans who have not yet heard the good word about Sarah Waters. Sarah Waters has been my favourite author since I first read Tipping the Velvet as a teenager, and I’ve never looked back. Recently, Jesse from Bowties & Books made a reading vlog for Tipping the Velvet (which is a fun watch!), and when they said they hadn’t heard about this book before, I had to clutch my pearls.

When I was starting BookTube, there were hardly any BookTubers talking about queer books, and the ones that were talked about a handful of titles. It was impossible to be a queer book nerd online in 2010 and not know about Sarah Waters. Now, though, there are so many queer books coming out all the time that I realized some of these classics of LGBTQ lit are no longer getting the love they deserve.

So here’s why you should read Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.

Tipping the Velvet

This is my favourite book of all time. No caveats. The author describes it as a “lesbo Victorian romp.” It follows Nan, an oyster girl from a small town who immediately falls for male impersonator Kitty when she sees her perform. Nan immediately picks up and follows her, turning the show into a double act. It’s no simple romance, though, and the story goes in some expected and steamy directions.

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, but Sarah Waters is a master storyteller, so it doesn’t matter. This is a fun and sexy book with a surprise socialism subplot, but it has a place in my heart for its love story/stories. I don’t want to spoil anything, but when I read this as a teenager, I had a very distinct view of what love and passion looked like. This story helped me to let go of that and celebrate the many beautiful, strange, bittersweet, gentle ways to be in love.

Fingersmith

I can’t recommend just one of hers, because while Tipping the Velvet is my favourite book of all time, I think Fingersmith is the best book I’ve ever read. It follow Sue, a “fingersmith” (pickpocket) who teams up with Gentleman to con a wealthy young woman, Maude, out of her inheritance. All Sue has to do is pose as her maid, convince her to marry Gentleman, and then he’ll have her committed and Sue will get a cut of the money. There’s just one complication: Sue has fallen in love with Maude.

I don’t want to give you any expectation spoilers going in, so I’ll just say that this is expertly plotted and really surprised me. I recommend watching the adaptation The Handmaiden by Park Chan-wook afterwards, which transposes the story to Korea under Japanese colonial rule. Some people say that it’s voyeuristic or demonstrates the male gaze, but I completely disagree and preferred it over the BBC adaptation. Putting the book and The Handmaiden in conversation is fascinating.

All the Links Fit to Click

In rage reads of the day: In New Berlin, WI, people defending queer YA books were booed by protesters insisting the titles be moved the adult section. In Craigshead County, AR, a Pride Month display was debated — the meeting took 3 hours, with many people speaking for and against the display.
Deep breath before looking at this rage read: Hungary has banned LGBTQ books from being available in stores that are within 200 meters of a school or church, and all stores must cover up LGBTQ children’s books.
Pulp Librarian on Twitter explored some of the history of lesbian pulp fiction (a favorite topic of mine!)
For linguistic nerds: why “sapphic” has come back in style.
Here some queer SFF short stories that came out in July!
Zodiac signs as queer books!
Here are some joyful books about queer women.
Carolina de Robertis, author of Cantoras and The President and the Frog, was interviewed about familial homophobia and being disowned.
Becky Albertalli was interviewed at Buzzfeed about her newest books and adaptations.
Crystal Frasier, the author of the F/F trans YA graphic novel Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms, was interviewed at The Seattle Times.
Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin was reviewed at NPR.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is getting a gorgeous new edition for its 10th anniversary!
Tor.com’s free ebook of the month (for signing up for their newsletter) is The Infinite Noise by Laura Shippen.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

8 Queer Books That Explore Place, Nature & The Environment
The Most Popular Ships in Fan Fiction History (unsurprisingly, M/M ships rank pretty high!)

New Releases This Week

The Ophelia Girls by Jane Healey (Lesbian Fiction)

From the author of The Animals of Lockwood Manor (a sapphic historical fiction/gothic novel), this is an atmospheric, haunting story with a lesbian main character that alternates between two summers and two teenage girls — mother and daughter — and explores the “perils and power of being a young woman.” It’s a challenging read that combines beautiful writing and creeping unease. Content warnings for grooming and an adult-minor relationship.

Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms written by Crystal Frasier and illustrated by Val Wise (Trans F/F YA Graphic Novel)

This is a highly anticipated adorable YA graphic novel with a F/F romance that challenges gender norms and examines the difficulties of being an out trans girl in high school. It follows two girls on a high school cheerleader squad — one trans, one cis and an out lesbian — as they mend their friendship…and discover new feelings for reach other. I’ve been hearing buzz about this for so long that I can’t believe it’s only out now! This is a much-needed addition to the fairly small category of uplighting trans YA.

Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity by Darrel McLeod (Two-Spirit Memoir) (Paperback rerelease)

In the follow-up to Mamaskatch, McLeod shows how this childhood led to his life as a young man advocating for Indigenous people in Canada. He’s been a school principal, UN representative, jazz musician, chief treaty negotiator, and now celebrated author. It also follows his journey to embracing both his Cree identity and his queer identity.

The King of Infinite Space by Lyndsay Faye (M/M Shakespeare Retelling)

Busy Ain’t the Half of It by Frederick Smith and Chaz Lamar Cruz (M/M Fiction)

Kiss the Scars on the Back of My Neck by Joe Okwonko (Gay Short Stories)

The Marriage Masquerade by Toni Logan (F/F Romance)

An Unexpected Kind of Love by Hayden Stone (M/M Romance)

Calumet by Ali Vali (F/F Romance)

Her Countess to Cherish by Jane Walsh (Bigender Historical Romance)

The Sisters of Reckoning (The Good Luck Girls #2) by Charlotte Nicole Davis (Sapphic YA Fantasy)

Work for a Million: The Graphic Novel by Amanda Deiber, Eve Zaremba, and Selena Goulding (Lesbian Mystery Graphic Novel)

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at the Lesbrary as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Let’s Show Queer Bookstores Some Love

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date August 4, 2021

Queer Bookish Resources

Speaking of highlighting queer resources, I wanted to let you know about a handy site, in case you weren’t already aware of it: The Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy Database. It’s run by Sarah, an asexual lesbian SFF reader and book cover designer famous for her tumblr slideshows of queer book recs.

The Queer SFF Database is a curated collection of sci-fi and fantasy books with queer main characters, tagged so that you can search for exactly what you’re looking for. Mix and match the queer identity (trans, bisexual, aromantic, etc), relationship (F/F, M/F, NB/NB, etc), intersecting identity (Jewish, fat, Black, over 40, etc), page length, year published, genre (cyberpunk, portal fantasy, space opera, etc), and miscellaneous tags (no queer characters die, polyamory, no sexual content, etc) you’re looking for, and it will generate the books that match ALL of the criteria.

You can also leave as many blank as you’d like, so if you’re just looking for any queer space opera book, you’d just click space opera and leave the identities section blank. Likewise, if you’re looking for any nonbinary SFF book, you can leave the genre section blank.

Click on the cover and you’ll get the description, what kind of representation the book has, content warnings, and links to reviews from own voices reviewers of at least one of the identities of the main character.

Sarah has also included a ton of links to other queer book reviewers in the sidebar, including book bloggers, Goodreads reviewers, and a few BookTubers. If you’re a fan of queer SFF books, you can’t get much better of a resource than the Queer SFF Database! I used it a ton while researching my post on fantasy novels set in worlds without homophobia or transphobia.

All the Links Fit to Click

Queer bookstores are the gathering place we need. Considering the links below, we need to show them the support they deserve!
Remember the bookstore that got vandalized for having a Pride flag in the window? They’ve been using the publicity to raise money for two local LGBTQ charities.
Here’s another bookstore whose Pride display (a mural painted on the window) was defaced.
More rage reading: people continue to yell about trans and queer kids books existing.
On the other hand, the Mantiwoc community organized a rally to counteract the recent racist and transphobic complaints against the school and library boards (you might remember them from last week). Get involved in your local politics, friends! School boards and library boards are important.
And some good news, speaking of trans kids’ books: slowly, we’re getting more media for preschoolers with nonbinary characters.
Here are some great queer stories getting adapted to the screen soon!
Can queer writers bury their gays?
Here are 8 books about the messiness and beauty of queer life.
The Locked Tomb trilogy has turned into a tetralogy/quartet! TorDotCom announced the upcoming Nona the Ninth coming fall 2022, with Alecto the Ninth following in 2023: “Look forward to meeting Nona, as well as a pack of rabid children, a menacing blue sky-circle, and at least one extremely good dog.”
Margot Robbie says, “I can’t wait to see Harley and Poison Ivy’s relationship in the movies. It would be so much fun. So I’m going to keep harassing them. Don’t worry.”
Comic Watch discussed the depiction of being an immigrant’s child in the lesbian YA graphic novel I am Not Starfire by Mariko Tamaki and Yoshi Yoshitani.
Latino USA interviewed Carmen Maria Machado.
Anthony Veasna So’s posthumous debut Afterparties is getting rave reviews, including from NPR.

Book Riot LGBTQ Posts

New Releases This Week

Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed (Lesbian Fiction)

Seema has made a successful career for herself working as a consultant for Kamala Harris’s attorney general campaign in San Francisco, but she’s still hurting from when her father exiled her from the family because she came out as a lesbian. Now, she has to rely on her religious sister and sickly mother when she finds herself single and pregnant. Told from the point of view of Seema’s unborn son, this follows three generations of a Muslim-Indian family, each a flawed and three dimensional character.

Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So (LGBTQ Short Stories)

A Roxane Gay book club pick, this collection focuses on Cambodian American life as well as queer and immigrant communities. These stories mix together absurdity and tenderness, and they come with rave reviews from Brit Bennet, Bryan Washington, George Saunders, and more.

Fresh by Margot Wood (Bisexual New Adult)

This book singlehandedly pulled me out of a reading slump. It’s very loosely inspired by Emma — if Emma was a bisexual girl with ADHD who went to an artsy college but is mainly interested in getting laid. It’s from a first person point of view, and it sure sounds like a college freshman telling you a story, complete with weird asides in footnotes. This is a much-needed addition to the all-too-small category of queer new adult that will leave older and wiser readers shaking our heads fondly at the rollercoaster of college relationships.

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee (Lesbian YA Fantasy)

One of the most anticipated queer books of the year, this is a sapphic dark academia title set at a boarding school haunted by its rumored history of witchcraft. There’s also own voices representation of depression. This an atmospheric read with a writer main character (always a plus for dark academia) that I can’t wait to curl up with on a crisp Fall evening.

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (Lesbian YA Thriller)

Logan has spent her life on the road, as her dads scouted locations for their ghost-hunting show, ParaTroopers. But now she’s stuck in her dads’ hometown of Snakebite, they’re keeping secrets from her, and teens keep going missing or turning up dead. An out lesbian in a deeply homophobic small town, Logan finds an unlikely partnership in Ashley: they both want to find out the truth about what’s happening. Ashley, in order to find her boyfriend alive, and Logan, in order to clear her dads’ names. This is an atmospheric, creepy read that I loved, and I highly recommend the audiobook version!

Burly Tales edited by Steve Berman (M/M Short Stories)

All Are Welcome by Liz Parker (Sapphic Fiction)

The Perfume Thief by Timothy Schaffert (Queer Women Historical Fiction)

I Kissed a Girl by Jennet Alexander (F/F Romance)

Fake It by Lily Seabrooke (Trans main character, F/F Romance)

The Desert Prince (Nightfall Saga #1) by Peter V. Brett (Intersex Fantasy)

Court of Lions (Mirage #2) by Somaiya Daud (F/F YA Fantasy) — Paperback release

Like Other Girls by Britta Lundin (Lesbian YA)

The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad (Lesbian YA Fantasy)

Julie and the Phantoms: Whatever Happens (Julie and the Phantoms #1) by Candace Buford (Gay Middle Grade)

Black Boy Joy by Kwame Mbalia (LGBTQ-inclusive Middle Grade Short Stories)

Oh, What a Lovely Century by Roderic Fenwick Owen (Gay Memoir)

The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg (Queer Memoir) — Paperback release

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Messy Sapphic New Adult, Queer Horror YA, and a Bisexual Non-Superhero

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date July 27, 2021

Sponsored by Dundurn Press, publisher of The Boi of Feather and Steel

Welcome to a wicked cool fantasy world of witches and their assassins where a group of renegades join together to overthrow the world-eating Coven. The Boi of Feather and Steel “explores the queer potential of witches to evoke themes of difference, chosen families, and becoming one’s true self in worlds both magical and mundane… Jerreat-Poole’s fantasy world is chaotic but voluminous, and readers who love the stuff of magic will find plenty to spark the imagination.” — Quill & Quire … With blood and magic spilled, who will survive?

Hi friends! Since I wrote you last, I have gotten my second shot, and other than a day of blahs, it went well! I’m so excited to start seeing friends and book shopping again soon — once my two weeks are up, of course. I edited a video for the bookstore I used to work for and got a big store credit in exchange, so I am ready to stock up!

Queer Book Ramblings

I think I’m finally done with 3 star queer books.

When I first started the Lesbrary, I was reading every sapphic book I could get my hands on. Any ebook I was sent for review, I read. Any lesbian book gathering dust on a library shelf, I consumed. Whether it was 80s F/F romance, a tragic lesbian novel from the 20s, or the latest queer YA, I was there for it.

After a while, though, I realized that the world of queer literature was a lot bigger than I had been led to imagine. There was more out there than I could possibly ever read. I didn’t have to settle for poorly-edited books or premises I wasn’t interested in. I quickly relinquished reading books that in the past I would have finished and rated 1 or 2 stars. I also began to better understand my own taste in books, including sapphic ones. I got better at picking out books, and I managed to cut out the books I disliked almost entirely from my reading.

And that’s where I’ve been for many years. Meanwhile, the queer book world continued to grow, offering up possibilities I’d never thought were possible: intersectional identities, a multitude of genres and subgenres, even flawed and multi-dimensional characters that didn’t have to be role models! It was true 10 years ago that there were more great queer books out there than I could read in a lifetime, but now that’s grown exponentially.

Recently, I was reading an F/F romance — I’ll spare the name — and it was fine. There were flaws, but there were also elements that I liked. It wasn’t bad, so I figured it was worth reading and reviewing. The problem is that reading that short romance took me about 3 weeks. Generally, I read 1-2 books a week. “My reading slump continues,” I thought. But when I finally finished that book, I picked up Fresh by Margot Wood, and I flew through it. It’s a book starring a messy, flawed, endearing bisexual main character stumbling her way through her first year of university, and I loved it. I read it in 2 days.

That’s when I had to face it: I’m not in a reading slump. I just read slowly when I’m not interested in the book. It’s not enough for a book to be not bad. I don’t have to settle for that in queer lit. There are so many amazing LGBTQ books out there, and I’m wasting time on one that’s not clicking for me.

From now on, I’ve decided, if a book feels like it’s probably going to be a 3 star read a chapter or two in, I’m abandoning it. We’re living in an era of abundance for queer books: it’s time to stop acting like there’s scarcity! I plan to DNF a lot more books so I can find the ones I truly love. I can’t wait to see what I discover!

All the Links Fit to Click

Hungary’s LGBTQ community continues to suffer under new legislation, including censorship of books and bookstores. Thousands marched in opposition to the law.
New York bookstore The Dog Eared Book made a TikTok calling out customers who turn around LGBTQ books to hide their covers.
Good news/bad news: The Macon County Public Library’s children’s Pride display attracted parent complaints (I recommend not reading them), but they got more positive comments than negative ones, and their local and regional library boards supported the display.
Sally Miller Gearhart, lesbian activist and author of The Wanderground, has passed away at 90.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

8 Notable Queer Contemporary Fiction Books By Asian Writers

New Releases This Week

Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton (Trans Fiction)

Gala is a young trans woman obsessed with the 1960s California band The Get Happies, and especially with their lead singer, B—. Gala writes B— letters, trying to puzzle out why The Get Happies stopped making music and never released their album Summer Fun. This a non-linear epistolary exploration of a friendship between two trans women who came out at very different times and the ways they’ve found to survive in a world that is often hostile to them. It explores creativity, fandom, and trans identity.

The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters (F/F YA Fantasy/Horror)

When Natasha’s sister is the latest girl to go missing in the woods, she turns to Della, who’s rumored to be a witch. Della is willing to help — but she’s secretly convinced that the monster taking girls is her own mother, transformed by magic gone wrong. This is supposed to be “lush and chilling,” about two girls fighting back against a violent world. This is from the author of Ghost Wood Song, and it’s being compared to Wilder Girls and Bone Gap.

I am Not Starfire by Mariko Tamaki and Yoshi Yoshitani (F/F YA Graphic Novel)

Teenage Mandy is nothing like her sparkly superhero mom, Starfire. Mandy dies her hair black and avoids people whenever possible — except her best friend, Lincoln, and the girl she has a crush on, Claire (not that she’d admit to that!) She hasn’t even told her mom that she walked out the SATs and plans to run off to France instead of going to college. When Starfire is in danger, though, Mandy has to decide whether to keep running or stand and fight. This is a new YA graphic novel from Mariko Tamaki, New York Times bestselling author of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me. It’s an AU graphic novel that is sure to bring some new teenage fans in, just like Tamaki’s earlier title, Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass. Check out the trailer for it on YouTube! Also, it has gotten hit with a ton of misogynistic and homophobic 1 star reviews on Goodreads before its publication date, so feel free to show it some love!

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me on at the Lesbrary and on Twitter @Lesbrary. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Queer Pulp Fiction, LGBTQ BookTok, and Your Rage Reads of the Week

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date July 20, 2021

Queer Bookish Musings of the Week

Here’s a question: Why is Amazon so bad at recommending lesbian books? Last month, I wrote a post called If You Think There are No Good Lesbian Books, You’re Bad at Picking Books. In it, I talk about how ridiculous the idea is that there are no good lesbian books. The only way I can understand it is if you only discover books through Amazon.

if you Google “lesbian books,” you’ll get a helpful bar of titles. They’re all classics of lesbian literature. Nothing too innovative, but it’s a good place to start: Annie On My Mind, Fingersmith, Zami: these are all great reads. Scroll down and you’ll see lots of lists: some of them are better than others, but they’re pretty solid, overall. The bottom has another helpful bar of 2021 lesbian books, including Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Honey Girl, and Perfect On Paper (which is very much about being bisexual and not a lesbian, but there we are).

Search Goodreads lists for “lesbian books” and you’ll find a selection from Autostraddle with some great sapphic reads. Even YouTube will offer up quality recommendations, many from sapphic BookTubers.

Search Amazon for lesbian books, though, and none of those titles appear. In fact, you’ll get a lot of books that are by no definition “lesbian:” The Song of Achilles, a transphobic nonfiction title, and a journalism book, to name a few. M/M books regularly outrank sapphic books, though the top kindle results for both “lesbian fiction” and “lesbian romance” have bisexual women main characters. Other keywords will dredge up truly cringeworthy erotica titles that, interestingly enough, bear a striking resemblance to those 1950s pulp covers I was talking about.

It is possible to find lesbian books on Amazon, but it sure isn’t easy. Anyone wading through those selections would think there isn’t a lot of good quality lesbian literature out there. While I would like to lay the blame for the myth of lesbian books as low quality at Amazon’s feet, I do have to advise more generally: don’t use Amazon for book recommendations. Use book blogs, Google — even Goodreads or, Sappho forbid, twitter. But don’t let Amazon pick your queer TBR. (Stay tuned for another reason why in the links below!)

All the Links Fit to Click

Buckle up, because we’ve got some rough news stories to get through.

Some good news to start with! Fresno elementary schools are getting 1,000 LGBTQ-affirming books thanks to nonprofit Gender Nation.
On the other hand, 2 LGBTQ nonfiction books were removed from Elmbrook middle schools after a parent complaint.
More bad news: the American Bookseller Association sent out promotional material to drive sales of an extremely anti-trans book. They’ve since apologized.
This same title has caused Amazon workers to petition against it and two to quit after the company broke earlier promises to not carry books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.
And even worse news: a trans magician scheduled to perform at Wyoming libraries had to cancel her event for safety concerns after receiving death threats. (To be clear: this was just because someone found out she is trans. It’s a magic show. It had nothing to do with gender or queerness. -screams into the void-)
Speaking of libraries, on a brighter note, read about the history of Vancouver’s 40-year-old queer library, Out On the Shelves!
Here are some LGBTQ YA books coming out in the second half of 2021 to watch for.
Check out these 28 new LGBTQ+ YA novels that’ll add sunshine to your summer!
Here are some non-binary books for every age category!
And here’s some queer Muslim fiction.
Marvel’s Loki is canonically bisexual, but The Gamer argues the show is also proof that it’s time to stop looking to Marvel for queer representation.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

How Falling In Love With a Queer Indie Press Changed Me as a Reader
Real and Fictional Librarians Leading Resistance Against Anti-LGBTQ Authoritarianism
15 LGBTQ Reads for Mid and Late 2021
8 Spectacular Books by Nonbinary Authors
9 LGBTQ+ Comic Book Characters That Give Us Hope for More Representation
New and Upcoming Comics & Graphic Memoirs That Embody Queer Joy
“It’s Gay and It Slaps:” TikTok’s Favorite LGBTQ Books: I wrote this one! I looked at the top 50 queer BookToks and kept track of the most popular titles. Plus: fun stats and graphs!
9 LGBTQ+ Memoirs To Read This Summer
And just in case you haven’t had enough rage reads this week: Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) Under Fire by Christian Right Group in Irving, Texas

New Releases This Week

I guess publishers pushed all their queer books in June, because I only have two books for you this week! Luckily, they both look great.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (Non-Binary Fantasy)

This is being pitched as Mulan meets The Song of Achilles. It’s a feminist historical epic fantasy that grapples with the concept of destiny. It also has two genderqueer main characters! It’s about a set of siblings in an impoverished village who are given very different destinies: the son, greatness; the daughter, nothingness. When her brother dies, though, Zhu takes on his identity to secure a new future for herself. Be prepared for a brutal war story, but one that focuses on resilience and the main character’s defiance of the role she’s been placed in.

The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor by Shaenon K. Garrity and Christopher Baldwin (F/F YA Graphic Novel)

This is a YA graphic novel about a teenger pulled into another universe that looks suspiciously similar to the gothic romances she loves reading! She must save it from evil to be able to get home, or else both their worlds will be in danger. It’s a satirical take on gothic romance tropes that includes queer and disability representation (one of the characters uses forearm crutches).

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me on Twitter and on my book blog, the Lesbrary. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Beyond the Straight Gaze

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date July 13, 2021

All the Links Fit to Click

A bookstore in Kalispell had a window displaying a pride flag broken and the flag thrown into the store, but the community raised money to fix it, and the flag is staying as a permanent fixture.
You’ll want to learn about Eve Adams, “the Most Incredible Lesbian Writer You’ve Never Heard Of,” who published a book called Lesbian Love in 1925.
Here are all the LGBTQ characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, though Marvel says more are coming. (I’m not holding my breath, personally.)
In these M/F romances, both the main character and love interest are bisexual!
Here are 9 novels about being a queer person of colour in the UK!
Your zodiac sign as lesbian pulp covers!
Watch a documentary about the making of the first glossy magazine for lesbians, Curve.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (Non-Binary Sci-fi)

It’s been centuries since the robots left. They wandered into the wilderness, leaving behind their tools, never to be seen again — except that one just showed up, asking a tea monk what humans need. The robot can’t leave without an answer to that question, but the monk and robot quickly find this isn’t an easy task. This is a new novella series from the author of the Wayfarers books! (Don’t fear: I’m not counting the robot as non-binary rep! The monk is non-binary/agender.)

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (M/M YA Horror)

Jake Livingston has it hard enough being one of the only Black students St. Clair Prep, dealing with racist teachers. Things seem to be looking up when another Black student, the handsome Allister, arrives — and there’s even the glimmer of romance in the future. There’s just one thing that always gets in the way: Jake sees dead people living their last moments on a loop. While that’s never easy, school shooter Sawyer Doon is a ghost like no other, and his haunting has serious consequences for Jake. (Make sure to look up content warnings before getting into this one, because this social thriller deals with dark subjects and has some skin-crawling horror scenes.)

The Rebellious Tide by Eddy Boudel Tan (M/M Fiction)

The Calyx Charm by May Peterson (Trans Woman Fantasy)

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green (Bisexual F/F Science Fiction) (Paperback rerelease)

The Mythic Koda Rose by Jennifer Nissley (Sapphic Contemporary YA)

Being You: A First Conversation about Gender by Megan Madison and Jessica Ralli, illustrated by Anne/Andy Passchier (Children’s Nonfiction)

That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me on Twitter @Lesbrary. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I sneak in as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Gay Teens in Trucks, Sam and Frodo are Queer, and New LGBTQ Books OUT This Week

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date July 6, 2021

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Let’s start with the obvious. I mean, the iconic red truck is right there on the cover. As the cover crowded with award stickers indicates, this is a beautiful and unforgettable book–and the sequel is coming out soon! It’s about the unlikely friendship between Ari and Dante and how it evolves over the years, and it’s also about everything Ari is hiding from the world.

While I love this book, I think it’s often recommended without the proper context, so do be prepared going in for violently homophobic and transphobic scenes.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth

I’m not usually one to choose a movie cover, but I couldn’t resist using the version with them sitting in a truck bed. There’s a kind of book end effect here: the image on the cover is one of the last scenes of the movie, while the book begins with Cam kissing her best friend in the bed of Coley’s truck. It’s a symbol of freedom for these queer teens, but it’s also just a tiny oasis against an often homophobic world. This is my favorite YA book of all time, and it has a similar mix of melancholy and hope as Aristotle and Dante. Content warning for conversion camp.

Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

I can’t believe I didn’t realize until adding the covers to this newsletter that all of these titles have the trucks prominently displayed on them. I am clueless. Lisa Jenn Bigelow’s Starting From Here broke my heart and put it back together again, and it’s another one of my favourite queer YA books. Oddly enough, it’s also about heartbreak and hope–but this one has a dog, so that’s an immediate plus. I deeply want fan art of Ari & Dante, Cam, and Colby all laying in truck beds looking at the stars together. Someone artsy get on that, please.

All the Links Fit to Click

Clear your schedule: you’re going to want to read Queer Readings of The Lord of the Rings Are Not Accidents by Molly Ostertag, including illustrations, right now.
Read some queer Latinx books.
Get some queer reading recs for a “hot hot summer” while gazing on celebrities photoshopped holding queer books. (Warning: this may be too steamy to read at work.)
Looking for more of the sapphic fantastic? Check out these 10 Recent Sapphic SFF Book Releases You Will Love.
Here the best F/F superhero couples in comics (and the only F/F superhero couple in the movies).
I’m watching the second season of Love, Victor right now and really enjoying it. If you are also a fan, you’ll probably like these books.
Book Riot’s own Adiba Jaigirdar was interviewed in The Irish Times and discussed writing queer stories for her younger self (plus queer book recommendations!)
More than a review, this Tor.com post discusses The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (which I highly recommend) by diving into the history of papercutting.
Now that Loki’s out on screen, here are some other canon LGBTQ superheroes who deserve the same treatment.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

6 SFF Books With Genderfluid Characters
4 Great LGBTQ+ Nonfiction Books for Pride
18 of the Best Trans Fantasy and Sci-fi Books
In Defense of Messy Queer Books: Because “Good Representation” is Exhausting (I wrote this one!)
Who Was Virginia Woolf? (If you only click on two links today, make it this one. And the LOTR one.)

New Releases This Week

Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily R. Austin (Lesbian Fiction)

Gilda is a “twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian” overwhelmed with anxiety and depression. She goes to a church for free counseling, but they mistake her for a job applicant, and she’s too embarrassed to correct them. Now she’s a church receptionist, and she soon finds herself pretending to be Grace–the late receptionist–over email, because she doesn’t want to be the one who has to break the news that she died. Then the police start investigating Grace’s death, and Gilda “may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.” This is a funny and touching comedy of errors.

Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson (F/F YA Contemporary)

This is the newest book from the author of You Should See Me In a Crown, and it’s another Black sapphic YA novel that should appeal to fans of her previous book–but I read this first, and I loved it! In some ways, it’s a perfect summer read: it takes place at a music festival and has a swoon-worthy romance–but it also tackles gun violence, grief, and sexual harassment. It’s about Olivia, a hopeless romantic fresh off the worst of a string of disastrous breakups, who’s running from the thought of having to face a judiciary hearing of her ex. She does this by convincing her best friend to go to a music festival with her–and this time, she promises, it will be just them: no romances. There, she bumps into Toni, who’s dreading starting university and mourning her father, who died from gun violence. They fall for each other, but it’s not long before things between them and their friends become very complicated.

The Very Nice Box by Yves Gleichman and Laura Blackett (Bisexual/Queer Fiction)

Summer in the City of Roses by Michelle Ruiz Keil (Queer YA Historical Fantasy)

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell (M/M YA Fantasy)

It Ends in Fire by Andrew Shvarts (Bisexual YA Fantasy)

Our Queerest Shelves

3 Illustrated LGBTQ Primers, 56 Queer-Owned Bookstores, and 100 Trans Book Recs

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date June 28, 2021

Beyond the Gender Binary (Pocket Change Collective) by Alok Vaid-Menon

I love the Pocket Change Collective for tackling big subjects in tiny, accessible packaging. These really are small enough to fit into your back pocket, but give enough depth to not be simplistic. Pair this one with Continuum for two different perspectives of non-binary genders and gender non-conformity. These are great for starting conversations.

Sexuality: A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker

Don’t be fooled by the eye-catching illustrations: this and Queer: A Graphic History don’t shy away from big ideas and philosophical concepts, but the accompanying comics help to make it feel more manageable. These aren’t 101 definitions of terms, but instead look at the theory and history behind these topics. This is a great way to get a little bit more depth in your understanding of queer identities and sexuality.

A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities by Mady G and J.R. Zuckerberg

This one is the most accessible book on this list to someone who really doesn’t know anything about queer and trans identities. The illustrations (snails!) are friendly, and the text assumes very little background. It’s a balance between being aimed at cis/allo/het, questioning, and newly-out readers. Also relevant to your interests: A Quick & Easy Guide to They/Them Pronouns.

All the Links Fit to Click

Support these 56 queer-owned bookstores!
Gay’s the Word bookstore has seen a lot of support from its community during the pandemic! Also, they have secret celebrity customers.
An inclusive comics shop with a focus on BIPOC and LGBTQIAA+ stories is coming to Baltimore in August!
Adapt these LGBTQ books into TV shows or movies, please.
A bunch of book bloggers collaborated to recommend 100 books by trans and non-binary authors!
These are some good book on sexual orientation and gender identity for tweens figuring things out.
Here are some bisexual books.
CBC recommends these Canadian books for Pride month.
Reads Rainbow is continuing their intersectionality series with Neurodiversity and Disability in LGBT Lit, LGBT Lit and Faith, and Indigenous LGBTQ2S Lit.
The Loki TV show has made queer Loki canon–the MCU’s first canon major queer character. But they’re way behind lots of other superhero comics and TV shows.
Here is some amazing queer manga from the past 10 years.
If you’re a fan of yuri manga, take this Kahoot quiz!
Speaking of yuri, Sailor Moon Crystal is streaming on Netflix now! Uranus/Neptune is the ship of my heart.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Stranger Things: Rebel Robin by A.R. Capetta (Lesbian YA Fantasy)

If you are a Stranger Things fan, you’re probably ordering this as we speak, because obviously Robin was the stand-out character of the series. This is a prequel story, where she’s trying to sneak off to Europe for the summer to live her full (lesbian) life: Operation Croissant. It also has an accompanying podcast voiced by the actor! I love A.R. Capetta’s previous YA books, like Once & Future and The Lost Coast (both VERY queer–big queer casts with trans, non-binary, asexual, gay, lesbian, bi, etc characters), so this one is sure to be a hit.

Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta (Sapphic YA Science Fiction)

Think Pacific Rim with an F/F enemies-to-lovers romance between two Asian teenage girls who give each other tattoos as a form of affection. It’s about a dystopian world dominated by Godolia overlords, who enact their will using giant mechanized weapons called Windups. Eris is a Gearbreaker, a rebel who destroys them from within. When she’s caught, she meets Sona, a Windups pilot who’s secretly on the rebels’ side. If you liked Crier’s War, this should be at the top of your TBR.

Bone House by K-Ming Chang (Queer Micropress/Chapbook Wuthering Heights Retelling)

Storm Bound (Cedarwood Beach #4) by Rhys Everly (M/M Romance)

Warn Me When It’s Time (A Charlie Mack Motown Mystery #6) by Cheryl A. Head (Lesbian Mystery)

Cinders of Yesterday by Jen Karner (F/F Fantasy)

A War of Swallowed Stars (Celestial Trilogy Book 3) by Sangu Mandanna (Sapphic YA Science Fiction)

How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood by Trystan Reese (Trans Memoir)

Our Queerest Shelves

Queer Summer Reads, a JONNY APPLESEED Movie Adaptation, and LGBTQ Books OUT This Week!

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date June 22, 2021

Peter Darling by Austin Chant

After some sad years of being caught in limbo, this is finally back in print (with a brand new cover)! It’s a Peter Pan retelling where Wendy Darling and Peter Pan are the same person. Not only is this a trans Peter Pan story, but he’s also–of course–in love with Captain Hook. I can never resist a queer classics retelling, and this one has been sorely missed in its time out of print.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Of course, I couldn’t resist adding this one, which exudes queer Black joy just from the cover itself! Liz has to win prom queen in order to secure a scholarship that is her only hope of attending her dream school. Now not only does Liz have to be in a popularity contest that she feels she’s “too black, too poor, too awkward” to win–she also has to compete against Mack, the smart and funny girl she’s crushing on.

How Do We Relationship? series by Tamifull

I find manga to be the most compulsively readable format there is, which makes it perfect for beach reading. This is a lesbian manga series that follows adult main characters, which is rare! It’s about two lesbians who bump into each other at college and say, “Hey, what are the chances we’re going to find any other queer women to date? Let’s give this relationship thing a try.” I love the frank discussions about navigating romantic and sexual relationships.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

I’m showing my age a little with this one, but I can’t help but think of Boy Meets Boy fondly. It showed a kind of gay utopian high school when that was unthinkable in YA. The quarterback was also a drag queen (who won prom queen). The cheerleaders ride out on motorcycles. This is a delightful YA M/M romance that bursts with positivity–but with the acknowledgement that things aren’t always this easy. It’s also a short read, perfect for finishing in a day on the beach!

All the Links Fit to Click

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead, the Canada Reads-winning Two-Spirit Indigiqueer novel is being adapted into a movie by Indigenous producer Stories First!
Oprah’s new book club pick is The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris.
LGBTQ authors like Charlie Jane Anders, Sarah Gailey, Casey McQuiston, and Brandon Taylor recommend some of their favorite LGBTQ books.
The New York Public Library has lists of over 100 transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming books, separated into For Adults, For Teens, and For Kids.
Reads Rainbow has been killing it with intersectional LGBTQ book lists! Check out West Asian LGBTQ Lit, South Asian LGBTQ Lit, Southeast Asian LGBTQ Lit, and Latine LGBTQ Lit.
The New York Times has an article about the reparative power of reading positive queer YA as an adult whose queer adolescence was much more limited. (Sadly, it’s behind a paywall.)
If you like queer crime novels, here are some recs for every month of the year.
Read this queer manga and these comics with great LGBTQ representation.
Casey McQuiston was interviewed at Bustle about their queer romance books.
Jamal Jordan talks about his photography book, Queer Love In Color. (This includes some of the photos!)
For your rage read of the day, Hungary has passed a law banning teaching “homosexuality or gender change” to under-18 students, including in literature like Shakespeare’s cross-dressing plays or Sappho’s poems.
I lied: I have another rage read. Tess Sharpe, author of sapphic books Far From You and The Girls I’ve Been, is being harassed and threatened on twitter by so-called fans. You know what? Don’t read this. It is horrible. Do read The Girls I’ve Been if you’re a thriller fan, though! It’s amazing. The result, though, is that Sharpe is no longer going to be speaking about Far From You publicly and will not be allowing the book to be adapted in the future.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

My Dream Queer Short Story Anthology
Be LGBTQ+, Do Other Stuff: 4 Anticipated Queer Fantasy Novels
If You Say There are No Good Lesbian Books, You’re Bad at Picking Books (by yours truly)
50+ Years of Pride: The Best Queer Books From Every Decade 1970-2020 (I cannot overstate how good this post is. If you’re going to click any links this week, click this one.)
21 of Our Favorite New LBGTQ Books
5 of the Best LGBTQ+ Horror Books for Pride

New Releases This Week

Star Eater by Kerstin Hall (Bisexual Woman Fantasy)

I first heard of this as a bisexual fantasy novel with cannibal nuns, and I’ve since heard that might be a little off, but it’s also not NOT about cannibal nuns. Elfreda is part of the Sisterhood of Aytrium, but she can’t stomach what it takes to preserve their magical bloodline, so she takes the first out she can find, which leads her to becoming a spy in the highest reaches of the Sisterhood, where she is surrounded by glittering parties and ritual bloodshed.

Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie (Lesbian Fiction)

Mia McKenzie’s previous novel, The Summer We Got Free, is one of my favorite books–which also happens to be sapphic–so I can’t wait to get my hands on this one. It follows Skye, a queer Black woman in her late 30s living day-to-day, when a 12-year-old shows up on her doorstep, the product of one Skye’s eggs that she sold many years ago and hasn’t thought much about since. Her life has just gotten a lot more complicated.

All the Water I’ve Seen Is Running by Elias Rodriques (Queer Man Fiction)

Daniel and Aubrey were best friends during their youth in North Florida, despite their differences. Now, Daniel has escaped the stifling small town life for the freedom of New York, where he has embraced his queerness. When he hears about Aubrey’s death, though, he’s drawn back to his childhood home and has to grapple with the legacy of his and Aubrey’s friendship as well as his family’s history, both in Florida and Jamaica.

Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (Gay Fiction)

You might remember Brandon Taylor from his debut, Real Life. Now he’s back with a series of interconnected short stories following a group of young artists in the American Midwest, including a young man who finds himself involved in “emotionally fraught encounters” with dancers in an open relationship as well as a babysitter being driven to the brink by an out-of-control child. Brandon Taylor is a name to watch.

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (Gay Fantasy)

The Bone Way by Holly J. Underhill (F/F Fantasy)

Catalyst Gate (The Protectorate #3) by Megan O’Keefe (Bisexual Woman Sci Fi)

Transmutation by Alex DiFrancesco (Trans Characters, Horror/Fantasy Short Stories)

Blackout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon (LGBTQ stories, YA Anthology)

The Papercutter by Cindy Rizzo (F/F Dystopian YA)

Violet Ghosts by Leah Thomas (Trans Man YA Contemporary)

Bear Boy: The True Story of a Boy, Two Bears, and the Fight to Be Free by Justin Barker (Queer Memoir)

Antiman: A Hybrid Memoi r by Rajiv Mohabir (Queer Memoir)

We Should Meet in Air: A Graphic Memoir on Reading Sylvia Plath by Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg (Graphic Memoir)

Transitions: Our Stories of Being Trans by Den Casey, Kole Fulmine, et al. (Trans Nonfiction Anthology)

That’s all for this week! Until next time, you can find me on Twitter @Lesbrary. You can also hear me on All the Books on the first Tuesday of the month, and I post weekly New Releases videos on the Book Riot Youtube channel. You can bet I add as many queer titles as I can.

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

The Queer Legacy of Harriet the Spy, Rainbow Little Free Libraries, and a Gay Bathhouse Thriller

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date June 16, 2021

All the Links Fit to Click

It’s Pride Book Fest on YouTube! This features 90+ queer creators talking about queer books!
In heartwarming news, this California community group funded 10 “Rainbow Little Free Libraries” stocked with 500 LBGTQ children’s books!
Read this three-part history of LGBTQ publishing!
Here is what Cosmo thinks are the best LGBTQ books. (My elder queer status is that I remember when that would be a nonsensical sentence.)
These books by trans authors are changing literature.
Find more trans and non-binary lit on this list.
Read these SFF YA books with asexual main characters.

LGBTQ Book Riot Posts

New Releases This Week

Bath Haus by P. J. Vernon (Gay Thriller)

Oliver finally has the life he imagined for himself. He’s sober and he has a loving (and wealthy) partner in Nathan. There’s no reason he should be visiting a gay bathhouse–but he does. There, he has a frightening encounter he barely escapes from with his life. Caught between the fear of losing his relationship and the threat of the man who left a hand-shaped bruise on his neck, Oliver lies to cover it up–and that choice soon comes to haunt him.

The Hellion’s Waltz (Feminine Pursuits #3) by Olivia Waite (F/F Historical Romance)

F/F romance readers will have been ancipating this one, the final book in the sapphic historical fiction Feminine Pursuits trilogy. In this one, Maddie is trying to pull off a heist with a greedy draper as her mark in order to fund her weavers’ union. She has a team of weavers, tailors, and merchants behind her–but the plan is put into danger by Sophie, a piano teacher who has a personal vendetta against swindlers. Her family lost their London piano shop to a con artist and moved to start over. Now, Maddie has to seduce Sophie to the cause or risk losing everything.

Indestructible Object by Mary McCoy (Bisexual Contemporary YA)

I’m in the middle of this one right now and really enjoying it! Lee is devoted to Artists in Love, the podcast she co-hosts with her boyfriend–until he breaks up with her on air. She distracts herself by researching the mystery of her parents’ doomed marriage. They’re separating, and she’s found a passport and book of poetry that suggests they never should have gotten together. With two friends, she starts a new podcast to unravel the mystery: Objects of Destruction. Bonus: this has a polyamorous relationship!

The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor (Sapphic Middle Grade Historical Graphic Novel)

Mei is a 13-year-old Chinese girl working at a logging camp in 1885. The Chinese Exclusion Act has brought with it even more racism against her and her family, but she’s determined to focus on the work–and her crush on the foreman’s daughter. To keep her spirits up, she tells stories of Po Pan Yin: a reimagining of Paul Bunyan as an elderly Chinese matriarch.

More LGBTQ new releases:

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris (Gay M/M Historical Fiction)

The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee (Gay Historical Fiction)

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury (Trans Love Interest YA Fantasy)

Blue Flag, Volume 8 by KAITO (Bisexual M/M Manga)

The Queer Bible edited by Jack Guinness (LGBTQ Essays)

Sexuality: A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele (Graphic Nonfiction)

The Natural Mother of the Child by Krys Malcolm Belc (Non-Binary Memoir)

Nonbinary: A Memoir by Genesis P-Orridge (Non-Binary Memoir)

Disrupting Dignity by Stephen M. Engel & Timothy S. Lyle (LGBTQ Nonfiction)

Happy reading!

Danika

Our Queerest Shelves

Queer Fake Dating YA, LGBTQ Book Links, and New Releases OUT This Week!

Post author By Danika Ellis
Post date June 9, 2021

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar

This one is by a Book Riot contributor! It follows two very different Bengali teenagers living in Ireland. When Humaira (“Hani”) comes out to her friends as bisexual, they insist that she can’t really know that unless she’s dated a girl. She blurts out that she is dating a girl: the prickly and ambitious Ishita (“Ishu”). Ishita reluctantly agrees to go along with this plan, as long as Humaira helps her to get elected head girl, which would look good on her college applications. But will they develop real feelings?? It’s a fake dating romance, so you can probably guess that part, but it’s a great ride.

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee

Noah runs a popular blog called the Meet Cute Diary, where he collects stories of trans people’s picture-perfect meet cutes… except they’re all fake: he writes them himself. When he gets called out, he decides the only way to save his blog is to prove they’re real by saying that one of the meet cutes is his and faking a relationship worthy of Instagram. But Noah soon learns that scripted romance is a little different from the real thing.

I loved how flawed and realistic Noah was as a main character. He has a lot to learn, but I was rooting for him the whole time. There’s also a side character who is trying out different pronouns who steals the show.

Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Sugiura

Nozomi is spending the summer in San Francisco when she meets Willow and immediately starts crushing on her. Willow is still mourning her last relationship, though, so they plan to fake date to make her ex jealous. Meanwhile, Nozomi has a plan to prove to Willow that she’s a perfect match for real–but her lies are starting to spin out of control…

This one is high on my TBR, not least because of that adorable cover!

All the Links Fit to Click

Pride month has begun in earnest, which means that it’s hard to sift through all the queer book news. On the one hand, hooray! On the other hand, about 90% of it is the same titles rehashed over and over again in various “books to read for Pride” lists. I did manage to find some good ones in the haystack, though, and here they are!