In many ways it’s never been a better time to be an LGBTQ+ reader: books which span all genres and topics are being published regularly and access to long-forgotten classics as well as emerging writers has never been easier. Plus, it’s Pride month, which means that it’s peak time for lists of LGBTQ+ friendly books – so finding titles to add to your ‘to read’ list is hardly a challenge.
But there are times, such as now, when you want to make sure your read doesn’t remind you just how awfully LGBTQ+ people are still treated in 2021. That doesn’t mean it has to be saccharine or unrealistic. Just that there is a sense of joy, possibility or celebration at the heart of the book.
The following titles are all, in some way, an iteration of queer joy, whether it’s an exploration of the ways families could form, a riotous piece of historical fiction or a genuinely happy ending for a relationship.
In case you haven’t, the story follows three women – cis and trans – whose lives are intertwined by an unexpected pregnancy. It reckons with desire, relationships, motherhood and the possibilities of family outside of the cis straight norm. While the novel never shies away from the realities of trying to live your life as trans in a transphobic world, it does so with a sense of humour that doesn’t bother to worry what others will think of it.
Profile Books Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, $, available at bookshop.org
There’s lesbians, mysterious deaths, gothic horror and stories-within-stories. It’s a riot.
Harper Collins Publishers Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth, $, available at bookshop.org
Hodder & Stoughton All The Things She Said by Daisy Jones, $, available at bookshop.org
A horny, punk love song full of imperfect intimacies, 100 Boyfriends takes readers on a riotous journey through dirty warehouses and gentrified bars, from dysfunctional houseshares to desolate farming towns in Alabama. Drawing us into a community of glorious misfits living on the margins of a white supremacist, heteronormative society, Purnell gives us an uncompromising vision of desire, desperation, race, loneliness and queerness.
Cipher Press 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell, $, available at bookshop.org
Little Brown Book Group Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez, $, available at bookshop.org
Richly imagined with art and folk tales, this moving and modern novel follows a young intersex teenager called Oto through life at home and at boarding school in Nigeria, through the heartbreak of living as a boy despite their profound belief they are a girl, and through a hunger for freedom that only a new life in the United States can offer. It is about struggle but it is also about the potential of new beginnings and the celebration that can be found in that.
Little Brown Book Group An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon, $, available at bookshop.org
From the daily bite of anxiety as you leave the house to the freedom found swimming in the wild, through to moments of queer rage and joy and the peculiar timeslip of reliving your adolescence, the stories in this collection reveal the untold lived realities of trans people to help inform, inspire and unite. Spanning a range of topics such as gender dysphoria, transphobia, chest binding, gender reassignment surgery, coming out in later life, migration and love and relationships, these unique first-person accounts celebrate the beauty and diversity of being trans and will empower others on their journey.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers Transitions: Our Stories of Being TRANS, $, available at bookshop.org
Reading these letters is a window into a constantly evolving relationship that spanned 20 years and moves from acquaintance to passion to an intense bond. Though they first met nearly 100 years ago, their words and the way they spoke about and to each other still resonate today.
Vintage Publishing Love Letters: Vita and Virginia, $, available at bookshop.org
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