29 LGBTQ+ Books For Adults That Inform and Entertain
Books have always been a great way to learn more about your own identity or dive into someone else's. And whether it's National Coming Out Day or Pride Month, books are also a fantastic way to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. To help you find more queer books to add to your "Want to Read" lists, we’ve rounded up a list of books to increase your consumption of LGBTQ+ authors, artists, creators and stories starting during Pride Month in June—and beyond. These 29 best LGBTQ+ books address themes of gender and sexual identity, both fiction and nonfiction.
If you're looking for a good LGBTQ+ book to read, here's the list for you.
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29 Best LGBTQ+ Books
Burn the Place: A Memoir
Burn the Place by Iliana Regan: This memoir by Iliana Regan, a Chicago-based Michelin-starred chef and Elizabeth restaurateur, is a culinary and sexual coming-of-age story. Regan recounts her youth spent foraging for mushrooms while searching for herself.
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The Great Believers: A Novel
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai: Told in alternating perspectives, Makkai delves into the height of the 1980s AIDS epidemic as it was experienced in Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood, before flashing forward to present-day Paris, where the character who links both eras is looking for her MIA daughter.
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I Wish You All the Best
I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver: After coming out to their parents, Ben, who is nonbinary, gets kicked out of their home. They find support from their estranged sister and her husband, as well as from Nathan, an unexpected new friend at school who becomes more than a friend as he and Ben become closer.
Real Life: A Novel
Real Life by Brandon Taylor: Wallace is Black, queer and in pursuit of a biochem degree at his Midwestern university, surrounded by a group of friends who sometimes feel as distant to him as his family back home in Alabama. When inter-friend group attraction begins to ferment amongst some unlikely candidates, Wallace finds himself forced to reckon with his own vulnerability and desire.
Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays
Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by Eric Thomas: Elle magazine’s “Eric Reads the News” provides some of the best content women’s magazines have to offer these days. After breaking onto the scene while covering the 2016 election for Elle, Thomas turns his signature lens to lived experiences such as code-switching, sexuality versus Christianity and more.
The Art of Showing Up: How to Be There for Yourself and Your People
The Art of Showing Up: How to Be there for Yourself and Your People by Rachel Miller: Rachel Miller is a Black queer journalist who currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of SELF. The Art of Showing Up is as pragmatic as it is inspirational, and the perfect follow-up to her first book, Dot Journaling: A Practical Guide. As we navigate a world ravaged COVID, stylish and accessible guides to showing up as our best are more appreciated than ever.
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Wow, No Thank You.: Essays
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby: Everyone who’s anyone is reading this essay collection, the highly anticipated follow-up to We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. She holds no bars when it comes to the mundanity and dysfunctionality of life as a creative person, let alone a writer with empathy, in the (almost) hilariously inhospitable culture of contemporary literature.
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones: The urgency of Saeed Jones’s poetry is present in his unsparing memoir. From his perspective as a queer Black man, he critiques (while championing) the autonomy required to own the personal narrative.
Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States
Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States by Samantha Allen: Samantha Allen’s narrative love letter to the “red state” culture that purports to hate her is couched as a call for change.
You Exist Too Much: A Novel
You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat: “You exist too much.” Arafat's protagonist, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl, is devastated when her mother responds to her expression of same-sex attraction with such vitriol. The novel that ensues is a study of the rejection and reclamation of shame, as it applies to the experience of an isolated young woman within layers of geographic marginalization.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde: This is a can’t-miss collection of 15 stories and essays by the acclaimed Audre Lorde, a Black, lesbian, feminist poet and writer, who was celebrated for her unapologetic and lyrical celebration of Black queer life in prose and beyond.
Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything in Between
Life as a Unicorn by Amrou Al-Kadhi: After coming out by admitting their crush on Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone at the age of 11, Amrou Al-Kadhi (also known as the drag queen Glamrou) embarks on an often hilariously recounted lifetime of coming to terms with their non-binary gender identity within the context of their Islamic faith.
The Color Purple: A Novel
The Color Purple by Alice Walker: Alice Walker won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction for this epistolary novel in 1983. To this day, this heartbreakingly beautiful story is the only Pulitzer-winning title written by a woman featuring a lesbian protagonist.
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The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus: After her mother catches her with her secret girlfriend, Audre is sent from her home in Trinidad to live with her father in Minneapolis. In Minneapolis, Audre meets Mabel, her future classmate (and more) who is navigating her own sexual identity amidst uncertainty about her health.
Save Yourself: Memoir
Save Yourself by Cameron Esposito: Esposito’s memoir is as funny as her stand-up (which is really funny), but readers will benefit even further from the narrative arc of a life well lived. After being raised Catholic, Esposito recounts her bumpy and honest queer journey with an uplifting message about being yourself even when there’s no life blueprint for you to follow, and even when the weight of “yourself” sometimes feels too much to bear.
Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir
Recollections of My Nonexistence by Rebecca Solnit: In Solnit’s latest, she writes about her own lived experience as a young writer coming up in 1980s San Francisco within a larger exploration of contemporary womanhood and an unapologetically feminist, queer lens. While beautifully exercising her own literary voice, Solnit simultaneously poses the question: Who do we allow to characterize the female experience? And what needs to happen in order for that to change?
Full Disclosure
Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett: Despite her positive HIV diagnosis, things are going great for Simone Garcia-Hampton as she gets acclimated to life at a new high school. She’s directing the school production of Rent and she’s crushing big time on a cutie named Miles, (whom she knows she needs to have a serious conversation with soon). When an anonymous bully threatens to “out” Simone for her diagnosis if she doesn’t stop hanging out with Miles, Simone learns how to self-advocate while sticking up for herself.
Here Comes the Sun: A Novel
Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn: Set at a luxurious resort in Jamaica’s Montego Bay, Here Comes the Sun is a story about two sisters, Margot and Thandi. They're both striving for a better life than the one they’ve been conditioned to live, on the fringes of opulence. When an outside threat to their community forces both sisters into action, Margot wonders if she’ll finally have the chance to admit her secret love for another woman.
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Mrs. Everything: A Novel
Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner: Jo and Bethie Kaufman are two sisters growing up in a seemingly quintessential 1950s household, but Jo has a secret that. The conventions of their time, and her fear of being different, prevent her from ever publicly acting on said secret. As the sisters’ lives diverge, and they are forced to navigate the changing world of the 1960s and 70s independently, Jo begins her journey back to her true self.
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness: Fresh off the heels of a new season of Netflix’s Queer Eye, there’s no better time to crack open the hilarious, honest and, yes, raw memoir by everyone’s favorite reality makeover TV star, Jonathan Van Ness. JVN shares his experience growing up very gay in their less-than-accepting Midwestern hometown while inspiring others to live their own lives out loud, whoever they may be.
Under The Udala Trees
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta: Set in 1960s Nigeria, Under the Udala Tree is a love story set in a time of civil unrest. Civil war has just broken out in Nigeria and 11-year-old Ijeoma is sent away for safety. While sheltering, she meets her soulmate. However, this soulmate is “off limits” for two reasons: she's a girl, and she’s from a different ethnic community than Ijeoma. As the young country of Nigeria finds its footing, Ijeoma tries to get accustomed to standing on her own solid ground.
Juliet Takes a Breath
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera: After coming out to her Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, Juliet heads for the opposite coast. While attempting to navigate how her lesbian identity fits into her Puerto Rican identity, Juliet spends the summer working for her literary idol and feminist celebrity, Harlowe Brisbane, in Portland.
Cinderella and the Glass Ceiling: And Other Feminist Fairy Tales
Cinderella & the Glass Ceiling by Ellen Haun and Laura Lane: This collection of short, comedic stories by sketch comedy duo Ellen Haun and Laura Lane is a hilarious takedown of princess culture in its many problematic iterations. In one particular story, the plot of The Princess and the Pea is toppled when the prince’s dream wife passes the pea test, only to inform him that she’s gay.
Something That May Shock and Discredit You
Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery (published as Daniel Mallory Ortberg): Fans of The Toast (RIP) will love Daniel Mallory Ortberg’s new memoir of self-discovery and his gender transition, recounted with his signature literary style: a genre-blending and bending feat of cultural criticism. Ortberg’s weaving of his personal history with the reimagined personal narratives of cultural icons is impressive and exciting.
Exciting Times: A Novel
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan: With favorable comparisons already being made to Sally Rooney’s Normal People, Exciting Times is a story about Ava, an Irish ex-pat teaching English to rich children while navigating life and love in Hong Kong. She finds herself torn between the love of a rich banker, Julian, and an equally high-powered lawyer, Edith.
All This Could Be Different
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews: Taking place during the American recession of 2008, Sneha is a queer Indian woman working a corporate job in Milwaukee that allows her to afford her life and send money home to her parents in India. However, she has to find a way to navigate her sexuality, her aversion to opening up to people and her economic anxiety while finding herself.
Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion: A Novel
Roses in The Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman: This novel follows Razia Mirza, growing up in her close-knit Pakistani-American community in Corona, Queens, New York City. She gets into the prestigious high school, Stuyvesant, and there she meets Angela, who she starts to develop a very strong attraction for. Razia then has to decide between fitting into her family’s mold for her or creating her own.
Nevada
Nevada by Imogen Binnie: Nevada follows Maria Griffiths, an almost 30-year-old trans woman in New York City. After a bad breakup with her girlfriend, Maria drives cross country and finds herself in the small town of Star City, Nevada. She becomes a sort of trans role model for James—who she meets and reminds her of her younger self—but it’s not something she wants to be.
High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir
High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez: In the format of a memoir, Edgar Gomez writes about being a gay Latinx person growing up surrounded by machismo and a culture that wants him “to become a man.” The memoir journeys through Gomez’s experiences in queer spaces and experiences that made him who he is today.
America made LGBTQ+ history not long ago. Look back at reactions to legalizing same-sex marriage in 2013.
