7 Queer Books to read for Pride Month
Coronavirus may have killed the fun, but it cannot kill Pride. Pride Month during a socially distanced coronavirus pandemic might be lacking in parades and festivals, but it won’t be lacking in good queer books. For all this year’s many problems, 2020 has been stacked with killer LGBTQ literature: hilarious essay collections, soul-baring memoirs, critically acclaimed literary fiction – whatever you’re in the mood for.
In June, as we celebrate LGBTQ lives and honor those who stood up for equality at the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, sit down with one of these 7 recently published books that celebrate, examine, and champion gay lives.
Check this out: LGBTQ Movies to watch in June!
(7/7) Good Boy by Jennifer Kinney Boylan
Good Boy is a universal account of a remarkable story: showing how a young boy became a middle-aged woman—accompanied at seven crucial moments of growth and transformation by seven memorable dogs. “Everything I know about love,” she writes, “I learned from dogs.” Their love enables us to pull off what seems like impossible feats: to find our way home when we are lost, to live our lives with humor and courage, and above all, to best become our true selves.
Buy it here, Good Boy: My Live in Seven Dogs
(6/7) Save yourself By Cameron Esposito
Save yourself is a funny and insightful recollection about everything from coming out (at a Catholic college where being gay can get you expelled) to how joining the circus can help you become a better comic (so much nudity) to accepting yourself for who you are–even if you’re an awkward tween with an eyepatch (which Cameron was). Packed with heart, humor, and cringe-worthy stories anyone who has gone through puberty can relate to, Cameron’s memoir is for that timid, fenced-in kid in all of us–and the fearless standup yearning to break free. Read our recommended Queer Books, Save Yourself– Not a comic, but a human.
Buy it here, Save Yourself
(5/7) Once a girl, Always a Boy By Jo Ivester
Once a Girl, Always a Boy is Jeremy’s journey from childhood through coming out as transgender and eventually emerging as an advocate for the transgender community. This is not only Jeremy’s story but also that of his family told from multiple perspectives—those of the siblings who struggled to understand the brother they once saw as a sister, and of the parents who ultimately joined him in the battle against discrimination. This is a story of acceptance in a world not quite ready to accept.
Also Read: WHY IS JUNE CELEBRATED AS PRIDE MONTH?
Buy Queer Books, Once a Girl, Always a Boy
(4/7)Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda By Becky Albertalli
Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.
With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out-without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.
Download the queer books, Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda
(3/7) Labyrinth Lost By Zoraida Cordova
Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives.
Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can’t trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange marks on his skin.
The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland… Find the Queer love angle in our recommendation of queer books.
Listen to the audiobook Labyrinth Lost
(2/7) Let’s Talk about Love by Clarie Kann
Alice had her whole summer planned. Non-stop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting–working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she’s asexual). Alice is done with dating–no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done.
But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom-com -grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).
When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn, and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.
Listen to the audio Queer books, Let’s talk about Love on Google Play.
(1/7) Will Grayson, Will Grayson By John Greene
Our last pick is John Greene. Will Grayson meets Will Grayson. One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two strangers are about to cross paths. From that moment on, their world will collide and lives intertwine.
It’s not that far from Evanston to Naperville, but Chicago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a push from friends new and old – including the massive, and massively fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur extraordinaire – Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most awesome high school musical.
Buy it here, available in kindle version too Will Grayson, Will Grayson
Writer’s Pick:
UNTAMED By Glennon Doyle
In her most revealing and powerful book yet, the beloved activist, speaker, and author of the bestselling sensations Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world and start trusting the voice deep within us.
This is how you find yourself.
Untamed is both a memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It offers a piercing, electrifying examination of the restrictive expectations women are issued from birth; shows how hustling to meet those expectations leaves women feeling dissatisfied and lost; and reveals that when we quit abandoning ourselves and instead abandon the world’s expectations of us, we become women who can finally look at ourselves and recognize: There She Is.
Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists: The braver we are, the luckier we get.
#stayhome and #liveyourPride
