Contemporary Fiction

  • “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong – Lyrical novel written as a letter from a son to his illiterate mother, exploring identity, family trauma, and queerness in the Vietnamese-American experience
  • “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Aging Hollywood icon reveals her scandalous life story and her greatest love to a young journalist
  • “Less” by Andrew Sean Greer – Pulitzer Prize-winning comedic novel about a middle-aged gay writer traveling the world to avoid his ex’s wedding
  • “Call Me By Your Name” by André Aciman – Coming-of-age romance between a teenage boy and a summer guest in 1980s Italy
  • “Memorial” by Bryan Washington – Story of a gay couple navigating their relationship as one partner travels to Japan to care for his dying father
  • “Real Life” by Brandon Taylor – A Black, queer graduate student confronts microaggressions and trauma over one transformative weekend
  • “Detransition, Baby” by Torrey Peters – Groundbreaking novel about a trans woman, her detransitioned ex, and his pregnant girlfriend forming an unconventional family
  • “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo – Historical novel about a Chinese-American teenager discovering her sexuality in 1950s San Francisco
  • “The Heart’s Invisible Furies” by John Boyne – Epic tale following a gay man’s life through seven decades of Irish history
  • “Under the Udala Trees” by Chinelo Okparanta – Coming-of-age story of two girls falling in love during the Nigerian Civil War

Memoirs & Biographies

  • “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel – Graphic memoir exploring the author’s relationship with her closeted gay father
  • “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe – Illustrated memoir about discovering and coming to terms with a nonbinary identity
  • “How We Fight for Our Lives” by Saeed Jones – Powerful memoir about growing up Black and gay in the American South
  • “In the Dream House” by Carmen Maria Machado – Genre-defying memoir about surviving an abusive queer relationship
  • “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson – YA memoir-manifesto about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey
  • “Tomorrow Will Be Different” by Sarah McBride – Memoir by the first openly transgender state senator about love, loss, and the fight for equality
  • “The Fixed Stars” by Molly Wizenberg – Food writer’s memoir about marriage, divorce, and falling in love with a woman
  • “Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story” by Jacob Tobia – Humorous and heartfelt memoir about growing up gender nonconforming
  • “Over the Top” by Jonathan Van Ness – Queer Eye star’s journey from small-town Illinois to self-love and acceptance
  • “The Natural Mother of the Child” by Krys Malcolm Belc – Memoir about pregnancy, birth, and parenting as a transmasculine person

Young Adult

  • “The House in the Cerulean Sea” by TJ Klune – Whimsical fantasy about a caseworker who discovers a special orphanage for magical children
  • “Felix Ever After” by Kacen Callender – Black, queer, and trans teen navigates love, identity, and self-acceptance
  • “Cemetery Boys” by Aiden Thomas – Trans Latino boy summons the wrong ghost while trying to prove himself to his traditional family
  • “Red, White & Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston – Romance between the First Son of the United States and the Prince of Wales
  • “I Wish You All the Best” by Mason Deaver – Nonbinary teen finds love and chosen family after being kicked out by their parents
  • “They Both Die at the End” by Adam Silvera – Two boys meet on their last day of life through an app called Death-Cast
  • “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Leah Johnson – Black, queer girl runs for prom queen to win a scholarship
  • “The Black Flamingo” by Dean Atta – Novel in verse about a mixed-race gay teen discovering drag
  • “Heartstopper” series by Alice Oseman – Graphic novel series about two British boys falling in love at an all-boys school
  • “If I Was Your Girl” by Meredith Russo – Transgender girl navigates new school, first love, and keeping her past secret

Classic Literature

  • “Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin – Groundbreaking 1956 novel about an American man confronting his sexuality in Paris
  • “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf – Time-spanning fantasy about a poet who changes gender and lives for centuries
  • “The Price of Salt” by Patricia Highsmith – 1952 lesbian romance that dared to have a happy ending (later adapted as “Carol”)
  • “Maurice” by E.M. Forster – Written in 1914 but published posthumously, a story of same-sex love in Edwardian England
  • “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker – Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about Black women’s experiences including same-sex love in the early 20th century South
  • “The Well of Loneliness” by Radclyffe Hall – Controversial 1928 novel about a lesbian’s struggle for acceptance
  • “Tales of the City” by Armistead Maupin – Beloved series beginning in 1970s San Francisco, following queer and straight residents of 28 Barbary Lane
  • “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown – Groundbreaking 1973 coming-of-age novel about a bold lesbian protagonist
  • “Our Lady of the Flowers” by Jean Genet – Avant-garde 1943 novel celebrating queer outcasts and criminals
  • “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde – Gothic novel with queer subtext about beauty, morality, and corruption

Non-Fiction & Essays

  • “The Argonauts” by Maggie Nelson – Genre-bending memoir blending theory and personal narrative about queer family-making
  • “Sister Outsider” by Audre Lorde – Essential collection of essays and speeches by the Black lesbian feminist poet and activist
  • “Ace” by Angela Chen – Exploration of asexuality and what it means for desire, relationships, and society
  • “Trans Like Me” by CN Lester – Accessible introduction to transgender issues and experiences
  • “The Stonewall Reader” edited by New York Public Library – Primary sources and firsthand accounts from the Stonewall uprising
  • “Transgender History” by Susan Stryker – Comprehensive history of transgender activism and communities in the United States
  • “Queer: A Graphic History” by Meg-John Barker – Illustrated introduction to queer theory and LGBTQ+ history
  • “Love Lives Here” by Amanda Jette Knox – Family memoir about supporting a transgender child and spouse
  • “Beyond the Gender Binary” by Alok Vaid-Menon – Pocket guide challenging the gender binary by nonbinary artist and writer
  • “Gay New York” by George Chauncey – Historical account of gay male culture in New York from 1890-1940

Poetry

  • “Crush” by Richard Siken – Intense, visceral collection exploring desire, violence, and gay love
  • “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” by Ocean Vuong – Debut poetry collection examining queer identity, war, and intergenerational trauma
  • “The Tradition” by Jericho Brown – Pulitzer Prize-winning collection confronting race, sexuality, and HIV
  • “Slingshot” by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson – Powerful poems about disability, Blackness, and queer/trans identity
  • “Homie” by Danez Smith – Celebration of friendship, Black joy, and queer kinship
  • “Don’t Call Us Dead” by Danez Smith – Collection addressing police violence, HIV, and Black queer life
  • “Lord of the Butterflies” by Andrea Gibson – Spoken word artist’s exploration of gender, mental health, and love
  • “Nepantla: An Anthology” edited by Christopher Soto – Collection featuring queer poets of color
  • “If They Come For Us” by Fatimah Asghar – Poems about partition, orphaning, and queer Pakistani identity
  • “Feed” by Tommy Pico – Book-length poem blending pop culture, indigeneity, and queer desire

Graphic Novels & Comics

  • “Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me” by Mariko Tamaki – Story of a toxic lesbian relationship and finding self-worth
  • “Are You My Mother?” by Alison Bechdel – Companion to “Fun Home” exploring the author’s relationship with her mother
  • “On a Sunbeam” by Tillie Walden – Sci-fi graphic novel about love across space and time at a boarding school
  • “The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen – Vietnamese-American boy uses fairy tales to come out to his immigrant parents
  • “Bloom” by Kevin Panetta – Sweet romance between two young men working at a bakery
  • “Spinning” by Tillie Walden – Memoir about competitive figure skating and coming out
  • “My Brother’s Husband” by Gengoroh Tagame – Japanese manga about a single father meeting his late brother’s Canadian husband
  • “Blue Is the Warmest Color” by Julie Maroh – French graphic novel about a young woman discovering her sexuality
  • “Bingo Love” by Tee Franklin – Story of two Black women reuniting after decades apart
  • “The Bride Was a Boy” by Chii – Autobiographical manga about a trans woman’s transition and marriage in Japan

Historical Fiction

  • “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller – Retelling of the Iliad focusing on the love between Achilles and Patroclus
  • “The Paying Guests” by Sarah Waters – Post-WWI London drama about a widow falling for her female lodger
  • “Fingersmith” by Sarah Waters – Victorian thriller about a con artist and an heiress with multiple plot twists
  • “The Great Believers” by Rebecca Makkai – Dual timeline novel about the AIDS crisis in 1980s Chicago and its lasting impact
  • “Tell It to the Bees” by Fiona Shaw – 1950s Scotland romance between a doctor and a single mother
  • “At Swim, Two Boys” by Jamie O’Neill – Love story between two young men during the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland
  • “As Meat Loves Salt” by Maria McCann – Intense historical novel about two soldiers during the English Civil War
  • “The Mercies” by Kiran Millwood Hargrave – Based on true events, a story of love between women during 17th century witch trials in Norway
  • “The Pull of the Stars” by Emma Donoghue – WWI-era Dublin novel featuring a nurse, a volunteer, and a mysterious woman doctor during the flu pandemic
  • “Days Without End” by Sebastian Barry – Love story between two Irish soldiers in the American Indian Wars and Civil War

Science Fiction & Fantasy

  • “The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers – Optimistic space opera featuring diverse species and sexualities
  • “Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir – Lesbian necromancers in space solving murders in a gothic mystery
  • “Black Sun” by Rebecca Roanhorse – Epic fantasy inspired by pre-Columbian mythology with queer and nonbinary characters
  • “Phoenix Extravagant” by Yoon Ha Lee – Fantasy about a nonbinary artist caught between empire and rebellion
  • “An Unkindness of Ghosts” by Rivers Solomon – Afrofuturist reimagining of the antebellum South on a generation ship
  • “The Unbroken” by C.L. Clark – North African-inspired fantasy about a soldier and a princess navigating colonialism and rebellion
  • “Light From Uncommon Stars” by Ryka Aoki – Genre-blending story of a trans runaway violinist, a cursed violin teacher, and an alien refugee
  • “The Priory of the Orange Tree” by Samantha Shannon – Epic fantasy with dragons, queens, and multiple queer relationships
  • “A Memory Called Empire” by Arkady Martine – Hugo Award-winning space opera with a lesbian protagonist navigating galactic politics
  • “Sorrowland” by Rivers Solomon – Gothic sci-fi about a Black woman escaping a religious compound with her children

Romance

  • “Written in the Stars” by Alexandria Bellefleur – Fake dating romance between an astrologer and a skeptical actuary
  • “Honey Girl” by Morgan Rogers – A PhD graduate impulsively marries a woman in Vegas and tracks her down
  • “One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston – Time-slip romance between a cynical twenty-something and a punk lesbian from the 1970s stuck on the subway
  • “Something to Talk About” by Meryl Wilsner – Hollywood romance between a showrunner and her much younger assistant
  • “The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics” by Olivia Waite – Regency romance between an astronomer and an embroiderer
  • “Get It Right” by Skye Kilaen – Fake dating between former college rivals who are both women in tech
  • “Perfect Rhythm” by Jae – Romance between a burned-out pop star returning home and her father’s nurse
  • “Count Your Lucky Stars” by Alexandria Bellefleur – Second-chance romance between wedding planner and her first love
  • “Meet Cute Club” by Jack Harbon – Sweet romance between Black trans and nonbinary teens who love romantic comedies
  • “I’m So (Not) Over You” by Kosoko Jackson – Fake boyfriend romance between two men attending a wedding together