Happy pride! Following on from my very prideful bookish discussion, I have arrived with a promised list of book recommendations. All of these stories feature LGBTQIA+ main characters and/or central LGBTQIA+ storylines. Some of them are picked for enjoyment, and some of them I picked because I think they’re important stories.
Most of these recommendations will be for adult books (not in an explicit sense, just thematically/target audience-wise) since that is what I typically review on this site. However, I decided to include one YA recommendation for each subsection, since it’s important that LGBTQIA+ topics aren’t limited to adult fiction and that teens are given an opportunity to see themselves in fiction, and also read about other people with different identities than themselves.
A brief note: Where an author has publicly stated their sexual or gender identity/identification with a LGTBQIA+ label, then I have provided this information as I know many like to support own voices authors or LGBTQIA+ voices generally during this month. However, I where authors have not made this information publicly available I would also like to remind everyone that no one owes you their personal information – including their sexuality or gender identity – and we can’t require authors to come out without creating a double standard (we don’t expect straight authors to declare their straightness)! This goes doubly for authors from countries where LGBTQIA+ identities are less accepted.
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Sapphic and lesbian stories
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
If you love magic schools but find yourself more interested in the stories of the adults than their students, look no further than this fantasy novel set in an alternative present day England where magic is common and part of the A-Level syllabus.
This book features a sapphic relationship and the main character is bisexual, as is the author.
Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin (Translated by Jamie Chang)
This is a Korean novel about an older woman who works as a caregiver for the elderly. Her daughter is lesbian and moves back home along with her girlfriend. The story follows the mother’s (tumultuous) journey accepting her daughter’s identity and life choices (beyond her sexual identity) and also has really important things to say about how we treat elderly people and caregivers in society.
This doesn’t contain a romance and the focus is more about the society and family surrounding a lesbian couple in contemporary South Korea.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Two secret agents on opposite sides of a time war leave each other secret messages hidden through time and fall in love.
I will note that it appears males don’t exist in this sci-fi world – some people have noted this makes this book more interesting on a gender level than a sexuality level, since their is no ‘male’ option. Amal El-Mohtar identifies as bisexual.
And now for my YA pick!
Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
Emi is a young set designer trying to make it in the competitive Hollywood film world but her personal life is a bit of a mess. Eventually, a mysterious letter leads Emi to Ava. Mysterious and unconventional, Ava expands Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance and love.
A YA contemporary about two girls who are comfortable in their lesbian-ness but still face all the other drama of being 18. Nina LaCour is married to a woman (I couldn’t find what she specifically identifies as).
Stories about gay men
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
Kadou, brother of the Queen, finds himself in a tricky political situation and must investigate a recent break-in to prove his loyalty – with the help of his new, coldly handsome bodyguard. The Goblin Emperor vibes.
This fantasy world features a queernorm setting (no homophobia, yay!), three socially recognised genders, and a central m/m romance, alongside badass women (we like when gay stories come without a side of sexism). The author (they/them) is nonbinary.
(Bonus, they also claim to be the origin of the term ‘hopepunk’, which I love.)
Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
A sometimes dark, sometimes heartwarming story following a gay university student and his female best friend through their 20s. Eventually, Jaehee leaves Young to settle down and Young is left caring for his ailing mother and trying to find companionship in his relationships with a series of men.
The main character is a gay Korean man. From what I can tell (reading the Korean news), Park has not publicly stated his sexuality (there are very few out authors in Korea). However, he consistently writes about gay and queer experiences, with feminist intersectionality. He is also friends with one of the few openly gay authors in South Korea and the two are often discussed together. (Source.)
One Last Song by Nathan Evans
Colourful and flamboyant, Joan shows up at the care home and Jim doesn’t know what’s hit him. Jim finds Joan endlessly annoying, and yet maybe there’s something brewing beneath their bickering.
This isn’t one of my favourite books. However, it is enjoyable and it’s so important to show that LGBTQIA+ people exist in all generations and at all ages: hands up for gay people in an old people’s home! The author is an older gay man (couldn’t find his exact age, but he was a young man during the AIDS crisis).
Finally, a YA pick!
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Jude and Noah, twins, are inseparable even if Jude is a daredevil and Noah draws quietly (whilst falling for the charismatic boy next door). Years later, they are barely speaking.
This might be my favourite (or at least one of my favourite) YA contemporary novels to this day. One of the two twins is gay.
Gender Identity and Other LGBTQIA+ Identities
One author we can’t leave out when talking about LGBTQIA+ representation is Becky Chambers – and her books can’t be categorised into a single subsection either – they’re full of LGBTQIA+ representation. Let’s take a quick look at her key works. (FYI: Becky Chambers identifies as a queer woman and has a wife.)
This is probably the most well-known of Becky Chambers’ books and is the first in a series of connected standalones. This first one follows a crew of humans and aliens as they forge pathways across the universe.
This book includes all sorts of gender and sexual identities and there are also many alien cultures where gender and sexuality function completely differently to our own world.
A standalone novel about the ethics of space travel and scientific exploration following a crew of scientists whose spacecraft loses contact with Earth.
This LGBTQIA+ rep in this book is diverse but not prominent – it is simply a fact of the characters that, for me, became minor compared to the other issues discussed. However, if you want diverse humans (rather than aliens), this has pansexual, polyamorous, trans, asexual/aromantic and lesbian rep.
A hopepunk duology set in a future following environmental collapse and robots gaining sentience and walking out on human civilisation. The world has rebuilt into a more sustainable and kinder version of itself. A robot comes back from the wild to check in on humanity and see what they still need, and meets a tea monk who has no answers but is happy to let him tag along on his travels.
The most obvious representation in this book is our non-binary main character.
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Breq, formerly the starship Justice of Toren and now reduced to a single human body thanks to an act of treachery, is determined to get vengeance against Anaander Mianaai, leader of the empire.
The dominant culture in this story does not have gender (it is implied that they do have differences in sex, as other cultures with different genders will identify different members of the society as belonging to different genders, but they themselves do not have any concept of ‘gender’ and all are referred to by she/her pronouns). This theoretically also means that any/all romantic relationships could be ‘queer’ by our standards.
Ending with some YA.
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
A story following the new girl in school who has a secret that she’s worried will cost her new friendships (and budding romance) if it’s ever found out.
I picked this book even though I’m not sure it’s the best YA book now for this category – I simply don’t read a lot of YA these days to pick a better choice. This book is known to present a sort of idealised or sanitised version of the transgender experience and I think there are probably a lot more books out there that don’t do that.
However, this was a trailblazer when it came out: it is written by a transgender woman, based somewhat on her life (and the US cover featured a transgender model). I think it could also still be a good entry point for those who aren’t as keyed-in to issues like gender identity (unfortunately, there are still many such people).
In the UK and want to support independent bookshops?
If you are based in the UK and want to support independent bookshops, please consider buying the books on this list via my storefront on Bookshop.org UK (or the affiliate links in my posts). If you do, I get 10% commission and so do British independent bookshops (without affecting the price you pay).
If you can’t buy the books right now but want to read them, please check your local library (or request them)! Together we can keep these important community resources alive.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think?
I’m also planning to do a LGBTQIA+ books on my TBR post soon, so leave me your favourites in the comments so that I can check them out.
Keira x.
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