While you never need an excuse to enjoy good representation, Pride month is the perfect excuse to enjoy LGBTQ+ representation! Every year, more and more LGBTQ+ books are added to banned book lists. Despite these efforts, LGBTQ+ representation has grown so much in the years. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, seeing ourselves reflected in writing is always special.
Here are nine books with all sorts of LGBTQ+ representation coming out before Pride Month so you can celebrate before, during, and even after June.
Portrait of a Body by Julia Delporte
Starting off strong, Portrait of a Body is a graphic novel about all the questions that Julia Delporte has about sexuality and gender. Delporte uses an idyllic colored pencil and writes in her own handwriting to tell her journey in healing and finding herself despite the trauma she has experienced. Delporte hopes to open up readers to listen to their own bodies and the lessons that can be learned by doing this.
This book originally came out in French and has been translated into English by Helge Dascher and Karen Houle.
Buy it here on Amazon!
An Education in Malice by S.T Gibson
An Education in Malice is for dark academia lovers. Beyond dark academia, this novel has all the fun you can imagine: vampires, a main lesbian relationship, rivalry to lovers, horror, and the best gothic vibes.
An Education in Malice follows our main character, Laura Sheridan, as she starts at Saint Perpetua College. The first of class has her launched into a rivalry with a beautiful and alluring student, Carmilla. A Professor of poetry named De Lafontaine brings the girls closer and closer together; what could possibly go wrong?
If this novel really ends up suiting you, read A Dowry of Blood, as this novel is a companion novel set in the same world! A Dowry of Blood also has some LGBTQ+ representation to enjoy.
Buy it here on Amazon!
These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere
These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaviere is a hard read. This story is told over the course of a lifetime. These Letters End in Tears takes place in Cameroon, a country in which same-sex relationships are still a crime. Our main characters, Bessem and Fatima, meet while playing soccer and quickly start a secret relationship.
Sadly, Fatima’s brother finds out about this relationship and ends up taking matters into his own homophobic hands. Bessem’s life is in disrepair when Fatima goes missing.
Bessem never forgets Fatima as she grows up and continues to hide her feelings towards women. When years later, a mutual friend who saw Fatima last appears, Bessem sets out to find the girl she loved as a teenager.
Buy it here from Penguin Random House.
How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly
How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly is a fun and easy love story! Our main character, Coach Julie Parker, coaches basketball at East Nashville High School, and a new student’s foster parent is ready to change her life. Ella Cochrane is an ex-WNBA player who has been roped into assistant coaching for Julie.
Julie is ecstatic and maybe a little nervous about working with Ella. In her nervousness, Julie expresses how she wishes to practice dating, and Ella is happy to help. When the lines end up blurring, will they be able to come out of the game together?
Buy it here on Amazon!
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh is set in post-military Nigeria and follows our main character, Obiefuna. Obiefuna is the black sheep of the family, and when his father catches him having a romantic moment with another boy, disaster strikes. Obiefuna’s father sends him away to a boarding school.
While Obiefuna himself is trying to get used to his new life, the country around him is working on making same-sex relationships illegal. Obienfuna’s family also struggles with the fact that they’re losing a son and a brother. Throughout the novel, Obienfuna is searching for his identity, which might cost him his life if he decides to share it with everyone. What will he do?
Buy it here at Penguin Random House.
Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland
Are you missing Our Flag Means Death right about now? Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland will fill that hole in your heart!
Running Close to the Wind follows our main character, Avra Helvaçi, a nonbinary former field agent who just happens to be on the run after stealing a very expensive secret. The only place to run? The open ocean. Despite the mess they get themselves into, it’s about to get worse when they must team up with their ex, a Captain pirate named Teveri az-Ḥaffār.
Together, they are trying to get the information Avra stole to an island to be able to find the richest buyer. What happens when a new member of the ship’s crew seems to be keeping a close eye on Avra? Will they be able to sell their information and become legends? Or will something stop them before they even get off the pirate ship?
Buy it here from MacMillian Publishers!
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley
Often, LGBTQ+ representation relies on the sadder aspects of being a part of the community. You Only Call When You’re in Trouble by Stephen McCauley tries to avoid this. LGBTQ+ people live regular lives and have families and jobs that are quite normal. You Only Call When You’re in Trouble is the perfect example of this. Our main character, Tom, is a gay architect who loves his family more than any romantic relationship he’s had.
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble involves Tom trying to help his sister and his niece with their own troubles. His sister is ready to come clean about her child’s paternity, and Tom’s niece is currently in a disastrous career situation. Tom does everything in his power to help his family, but will it be enough?
Buy it here from MacMillian Publishers!
How to Live Free in a Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson
While most of the books on this list are fiction, How to Live Free in a Dangerous World is nonfiction. Shayla Lawson writes their memoir as a nonbinary disabled Black person. They talk about their travels throughout the world, from celebrating New Year’s Eve in Mexico City to learning about the beauty of friendship when leaving Egypt. Shayla Lawson tells their story as a divorcee, traveling throughout the world, and anyone who has suffered heartbreak will be able to relate.
How to Live Free in a Dangerous World gives everything a memoir should give: laughs, tears, and moments of intensity from examining Blackness in post-dictatorship Zimbabwe or maybe just enjoying a Prince concert.
Buy it here from Penguin Random House!
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
Most books on this list are already out or will be out before Pride Month. Compound Fracture sadly won’t be out until September 3rd. That being said, Compound Fracture follows Miles Abernathy, a transgender, queer autistic teen living in West Virginia. Miles is caught in the middle of a long generational struggle happening in his town when he accidentally kills someone and garners the attention of the sheriff.
Miles must figure out if he will be the one to break generations of suffering or not. There are ghosts and mystery, yet Compound Fracture isn’t afraid to be political, as the discussion of the rural poor and the people who exploit them is prominent.
Preorder Compound Fracture here from Penguin Random House.
Pride month is a wonderful time to celebrate and embrace your own identity. Throughout each of these novels, readers get to explore all kinds of voices and see how these unique voices deserve to be heard, loved, and celebrated. Enjoy your reading!
