In an effort to build a space for queer people like myself, every Tuesday I’ll be posting opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latinx/WOC community since I am Latinx.) Welcome to Queerly Not Straight! And for the month of June we’ll be posting an EXTRA dose of LGBTQ+ goodness on Thursdays!
Don’t let 2019 end without checking out these LGBTQ+ books! From witches to royalty AU’s straight out of your queer dreams, join us in celebrating these amazing reads. And when you’re done, add these books to your Goodreads or send the authors some love. They deserve it for the tide of change they are part of when any queer book gets published!
Note: Summaries are from the Goodreads for each individual book. Everything else is me!
1. These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling
Why You Should Be Reading: Elemental witch deals with new love, exes, friend & family, and a possible magical threat in Salem, Massachusetts. Come for the magic, stay for the realistic portrayal of young love.
Full Summary: Hannah’s a witch, but not the kind you’re thinking of. She’s the real deal, an Elemental with the power to control fire, earth, water, and air. But even though she lives in Salem, Massachusetts, her magic is a secret she has to keep to herself. If she’s ever caught using it in front of a Reg (read: non-witch), she could lose it. For good. So, Hannah spends most of her time avoiding her ex-girlfriend (and fellow Elemental Witch) Veronica, hanging out with her best friend, and working at the Fly by Night Cauldron selling candles and crystals to tourists, goths, and local Wiccans.
But dealing with her ex is the least of Hannah’s concerns when a terrifying blood ritual interrupts the end-of-school-year bonfire. Evidence of dark magic begins to appear all over Salem, and Hannah’s sure it’s the work of a deadly Blood Witch. The issue is, her coven is less than convinced, forcing Hannah to team up with the last person she wants to see: Veronica.
While the pair attempt to smoke out the Blood Witch at a house party, Hannah meets Morgan, a cute new ballerina in town. But trying to date amid a supernatural crisis is easier said than done, and Hannah will have to test the limits of her power if she’s going to save her coven and get the girl, especially when the attacks on Salem’s witches become deadlier by the day.
Add These Witches Don’t Burn to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy These Witches Don’t Burn HERE.
Make sure to follow Isabel Sterling on Twitter and Instagram.
2. Small Town Hearts by Lillie Vale
Why You Should Be Reading: Small town goodness with a side of cafe tropes and a bisexual girl dealing with a summer fling while her ex is back in town. Come for the tropes, stay for the bisexual realness!
Full Summary: Fresh out of high school, Babe Vogel should be thrilled to have the whole summer at her fingertips. She loves living in her lighthouse home in the sleepy Maine beach town of Oar’s Rest and being a barista at the Busy Bean, but she’s totally freaking out about how her life will change when her two best friends go to college in the fall. And when a reckless kiss causes all three of them to break up, she may lose them a lot sooner. On top of that, her ex-girlfriend is back in town, bringing with her a slew of memories, both good and bad.
And then there’s Levi Keller, the cute artist who’s spending all his free time at the coffee shop where she works. Levi’s from out of town, and even though Babe knows better than to fall for a tourist who will leave when summer ends, she can’t stop herself from wanting to know him. Can Babe keep her distance, or will she break the one rule she’s always had – to never fall for a summer boy?
Add Small Town Hearts to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Small Town Hearts HERE.
Make sure to follow Lillie Vale on Twitter.
3. Please Send Help by Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin
Why You Should Be Reading: The sequel to I Hate Everyone But You is in the same email/messages format as the first novel with a side of “we are now in the same coast and things are getting messy because we’ve only known how to deal with our relationship lately via HUGE distances.” Come for the email/messages format, stay for the friendship!
Full Summary: In this hilarious follow-up novel to the New York Times bestseller I Hate Everyone But You, long distance best friends Ava and Gen have finally made it to the same time zone (although they’re still over a thousand miles apart).
Through their hilarious, sometimes emotional, but always relatable conversations, Ava and Gen are each other’s support systems through internships, relationship troubles, questionable roommates, undercover reporting, and whether or not it’s a good idea to take in a feral cat. Please Send Help perfectly captures the voice of young adults looking to find their place in the world and how no matter how desperate things seem, you always have your best friend to tell it like it is and pick you back up.
Add Please Send Help to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Please Send Help HERE.
Make sure to follow Gaby Dunn on Twitter and Instagram.
Make sure to follow Allison Raskin on Twitter and Instagram.
4. The Grief Keeper by Alexandra Villasante
Why You Should Be Reading: This is the kind of book that gives you shivers because of what is currently happening in the Souther border of the US. Heartbreaking, real, and poignant, this book makes you want to protect Marisol from the world! So come for the RL feels, stay for the risks this author takes!
Full Summary: Seventeen-year-old Marisol has always dreamed of being American, learning what Americans and the US are like from television and Mrs. Rosen, an elderly expat who had employed Marisol’s mother as a maid. When she pictured an American life for herself, she dreamed of a life like Aimee and Amber’s, the title characters of her favorite American TV show. She never pictured fleeing her home in El Salvador under threat of death and stealing across the US border as “an illegal”, but after her brother is murdered and her younger sister, Gabi’s, life is also placed in equal jeopardy, she has no choice, especially because she knows everything is her fault. If she had never fallen for the charms of a beautiful girl named Liliana, Pablo might still be alive, her mother wouldn’t be in hiding and she and Gabi wouldn’t have been caught crossing the border.
But they have been caught and their asylum request will most certainly be denied. With truly no options remaining, Marisol jumps at an unusual opportunity to stay in the United States. She’s asked to become a grief keeper, taking the grief of another into her own body to save a life. It’s a risky, experimental study, but if it means Marisol can keep her sister safe, she will risk anything. She just never imagined one of the risks would be falling in love, a love that may even be powerful enough to finally help her face her own crushing grief.
The Grief Keeper is a tender tale that explores the heartbreak and consequences of when both love and human beings are branded illegal.
Add The Grief Keeper to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy The Grief Keeper HERE.
Make sure to follow Alexandra Villasante on Twitter and Instagram.
5. I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
Why You Should Be Reading: You don’t get many books that are as interesting and on point with what it is to be nonbinary in 2019 with love on the mind. Come for the enby author, stay for the opportunity to talk about an important part of self identity.
Full Summary: When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents’ rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.
But Ben’s attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.
At turns heartbreaking and joyous, I Wish You All the Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, and love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity.
Add I Wish You All the Best to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy I Wish You All the Best HERE.
Make sure to follow Mason Deaver on Twitter and Instagram.
6. Ash by Malinda Lo
Why You Should Be Reading: It’s the 10th anniversary of the Cinderella fairytale you didn’t know you needed in your life. Come for the Disney nostalgia, stay for the dark turn, fairies, and the King’s Huntress.
Full Summary: In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.
Add Ash to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Ash HERE.
Make sure to follow Malinda Lo on Twitter and Instagram.
7. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Why You Should Be Reading: It’s the tropey royal AU straight out of your fanfic dreams! Come for the tropey goodness, stay for the fake friendship that obviously turns into something more!
Full Summary: A big-hearted romantic comedy in which First Son Alex falls in love with Prince Henry of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends…
First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.
The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?
Add Red, White & Royal Blue to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Red, Whie & Royal Blue HERE.
Make sure to follow Casey McQuiston on Twitter and Instagram.
8. The Disasters by M.K. England
Why You Should Be Reading: Imagine if Voltron had a hella queer baby and it’d be The Disasters! Friendships are tested and young candidates not deemed worthy to be called “Academy material” find their way to some bigger than they could have ever expected! Also, SPACE!
Full Summary: Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than twenty-four hours. But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape—barely—but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats. On the run and framed for atrocities they didn’t commit, Nax and his fellow failures execute a dangerous heist to spread the truth about what happened at the Academy. They may not be “Academy material,” and they may not get along, but they’re the only ones left to step up and fight.
Add The Disasters to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy The Disasters HERE.
Make sure to follow M.K. England on Twitter and Instagram.
9. The Meaning of Birds by Jaye Robin Brown
Why You Should Be Reading: Gripping tale of how loss changes us and what we do to survive, heal, and grow from it. Come for the feels, stay for rediscovering the passion through the pain. <3
Full Summary: Before, Jessica has always struggled with anger issues, but come sophomore year that all changes when Vivi crashes into her life. As their relationship blossoms, Vivi not only helps Jess deal with her pain, she also encourages her to embrace her talent as an artist. And for the first time, it feels like the future is filled with possibilities. After In the midst of senior year, Jess’s perfect world is erased when Vivi suddenly passes away. Reeling from the devastating loss, Jess pushes everyone away, and throws out her plans to go to art school. Because art is Vivi and Vivi is gone forever.
Desperate for an escape, Jess gets consumed in her work-study program, letting all of her dreams die. Until she makes an unexpected new friend who shows her a new way to channel her anger, passion, and creativity. Although Jess may never draw again, if she can find a way to heal and room in her heart, she just might be able to forge a new path for herself without Vivi.
Add The Meaning of Birds to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy The Meaning of Birds HERE.
Make sure to follow Jaye Robin Brown on Twitter and Instagram.
10. We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra
Why You Should Be Reading: An unexpected friendship turns into love for two boys partnered up for a school project. And sure, there are the haters that want to keep them apart. But they’re stronger together. So, come for the tropey goodness of writing letters and falling in love with your penpal, stay for the characters you’ll totally fall in love with!
Full Summary: Jonathan Hopkirk and Adam “Kurl” Kurlansky are partnered in English class, writing letters to one another in a weekly pen pal assignment. With each letter, the two begin to develop a friendship that eventually grows into love. But with homophobia, bullying, and devastating family secrets, Jonathan and Kurl struggle to overcome their conflicts and hold onto their relationship…and each other.
This rare and special novel celebrates love and life with engaging characters and stunning language, making it perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson, Nina LaCour, and David Levithan.
Add We Contain Multitudes to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy We Contain Multitudes HERE.
11. Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
Why You Should Be Reading: Because they’re so unapologetically queer! Look at this cover! There’s no queer baiting, no “is she gay” or “maybe they’re friends.” It’s hella gay and has the enemies to lovers feel that I absolutely love!
Full Summary: Sana Khan is a cheerleader and a straight A student. She’s the classic (somewhat obnoxious) overachiever determined to win. Rachel Recht is a wannabe director who’s obsesssed with movies and ready to make her own masterpiece. As she’s casting her senior film project, she knows she’s found the perfect lead – Sana.
There’s only one problem. Rachel hates Sana. Rachel was the first girl Sana ever asked out, but Rachel thought it was a cruel prank and has detested Sana ever since. Told in alternative viewpoints and inspired by classic romantic comedies, this engaging and edgy YA novel follows two strongwilled young women falling for each other despite themselves.
Add Tell Me How You Really Feel to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Tell Me How You Really Feel HERE.
Make sure to follow Aminah Mae Safi on Twitter and Instagram.
12. Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan
Why You Should Be Reading: Just look at the cover. It’s gold and absolutely the main reason why you should check out this book. I’M STICKING TO WHAT I SAID! *whispers* But seriously, it’s a bi mess of genuine realness with a character that doesn’t feel cookie cutter.
Full Summary: Elouise (Lou) Parker is determined to have the absolute best, most impossibly epic summer of her life. There are just a few things standing in her way:
* She’s landed a job at Magic Castle Playland . . . as a giant dancing hot dog.
* Her crush, the dreamy Diving Pirate Nick, already has a girlfriend, who is literally the Princess of the park. But Lou’s never liked anyone, guy or otherwise, this much before, and now she wants a chance at her own happily ever after.
* Her best friend, Seeley, the carousel operator, who’s always been up for anything, suddenly isn’t when it comes to Lou’s quest to set her up with the perfect girl or Lou’s scheme to get close to Nick.
* And it turns out that this will be their last summer at Magic Castle Playland–ever–unless she can find a way to stop it from closing.
Jennifer Dugan’s sparkling debut coming-of-age queer romance stars a princess, a pirate, a hot dog, and a carousel operator who find love–and themselves–in unexpected people and unforgettable places.
Add Hot Dog Girl to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Hot Dog Girl HERE.
Make sure to follow Jennifer Dugan on Twitter and Instagram.
13. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
Why You Should Be Reading: It’s a comic book that doesn’t hold back or shy away from the tough questions when it comes to being queer, the pronouns we use, and how we identity in this big and crazy world. Come for the comic book talent, stay for the gipping story!
Full Summary: In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity–what it means and how to think about it–for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
Add Gender Queer: A Memoir to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Gender Queer: A Memoir HERE.
Make sure to follow Maia Kobabe on Instagram.
14. Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron
Why You Should Be Reading: This book hit me in the feels because we all crave to belong. And yes, I MEAN EVERY ONE! Mix in a little love, a “knock-off Narnia”, and some life altering decisions and you’ve got a recipe for the kind of story that sticks with you long after you finish reading!
Full Summary: Brody Fair feels like nobody gets him: not his overworked parents, not his genius older brother, and definitely not the girls in the projects set on making his life miserable. Then he meets Nico, an art student who takes Brody to Everland, a “knock-off Narnia” that opens its door at 11:21pm each Thursday for Nico and his band of present-day misfits and miscreants.
Here Brody finds his tribe and a weekly respite from a world where he feels out of place. But when the doors to Everland begin to disappear, Brody is forced to make a decision: He can say goodbye to Everland and to Nico, or stay there and risk never seeing his family again.
Add Last Bus to Everland to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Last Bus to Everland HERE.
Make sure to follow Sophie Cameron on Twitter and Instagram.
15. Carmilla by Kim Turrisi
Why You Should Be Reading: Hit web series is adapted into a book about two roommates, a spooky school, and a girl behind a camera documenting it all while trying to hide that she has the hots for her possibly vampire roommate? Oh yeah. Sign me up! Come for the Carmilla, stay for the Carmilla!
Full Summary: An adaptation of Shaftesbury’s award-winning, groundbreaking queer vampire web series of the same name, Carmilla mixes the camp of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the snark of Veronica Mars, and the mysterious atmosphere of Welcome to Nightvale. Newly escaped from the stifling boredom of a small town, college freshman Laura is ready to make the most of her first year at Silas University. But when her roommate, Betty, vanishes and a sarcastic, nocturnal philosophy student named Carmilla moves into Betty’s side of the room, Laura decides to play detective.
Turns out Betty isn’t the first girl to go missing? She’s just the first girl not to come back. All over campus, girls have been vanishing, and they are completely changed when (or if) they return. Even more disturbing are the strange dreams they recount: smothering darkness, and a strange pale figure haunting their rooms. Dreams that Laura is starting to have herself. As Laura closes in on the answers, tensions rise with Carmilla. Is this just a roommate relationship that isn’t working out, or does Carmilla know more than she’s letting on about the disappearances? What will Laura do if it turns out her roommate isn’t just selfish and insensitive, but completely inhuman? And what will she do with the feelings she’s starting to have for Carmilla
Add Carmilla to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Carmilla HERE.
Make sure to follow Kim Turrisi on Twitter and Instagram.
16. Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins
Why You Should Be Reading: This is the kind of queer royalty cheese that I need Hallmark or Lifetime to get on. Seriously, queer people like watching heterosexuals falling in love in the middle of some tropey royalty AU. Imagine if networks ACTUALLY made them LGBTQ+? TAKE MY MONEY! *throws imaginary stacks at computer because I don’t have the money but hope to one day have it and create all the queer goodness*
Full Summary: Millie Quint is devastated when she discovers that her sort-of-best friend/sort-of-girlfriend has been kissing someone else. And because Millie cannot stand the thought of confronting her ex every day, she decides to apply for scholarships to boarding schools . . . the farther from Houston the better.
Millie can’t believe her luck when she’s accepted into one of the world’s most exclusive schools, located in the rolling highlands of Scotland. Everything about Scotland is different: the country is misty and green; the school is gorgeous, and the students think Americans are cute.
The only problem: Mille’s roommate Flora is a total princess.
She’s also an actual princess. Of Scotland.
At first, the girls can barely stand each other–Flora is both high-class and high-key–but before Millie knows it, she has another sort-of-best-friend/sort-of-girlfriend. Even though Princess Flora could be a new chapter in her love life, Millie knows the chances of happily ever afters are slim . . . after all, real life isn’t a fairy tale . . . or is it?
Add Her Royal Highness to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy Her Royal Highness HERE.
Make sure to follow Rachel Hawkins on Twitter and Instagram.
17. When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
Why You Should Be Reading: It’s never too late to learn more about yourself or just overall your life because you’ve realized that everything isn’t as it seems. That’s what happens to Katie in the midst of the end of an engagement, job woes, and hanging out with the one woman who is blowing her mind left and right. Come for the romance, stay for the heart.
Full Summary: Katie Daniels is a perfection-seeking 28-year-old lawyer living the New York dream. She’s engaged to charming art curator Paul Michael, has successfully made her way up the ladder at a multinational law firm and has a hold on apartments in Soho and the West Village. Suffice it to say, she has come a long way from her Kentucky upbringing.
But the rug is swept from under Katie when she is suddenly dumped by her fiance, Paul Michael, leaving her devastated and completely lost. On a whim, she agrees to have a drink with Cassidy Price-a self-assured, sexually promiscuous woman she meets at work. The two form a newfound friendship, which soon brings into question everything Katie thought she knew about sex—and love.
When Katie Met Cassidy is a romantic comedy that explores how, as a culture, while we may have come a long way in terms of gender equality, a woman’s capacity for an entitlement to sexual pleasure still remain entirely taboo. This novel tackles the question: Why, when it comes to female sexuality, are so few women figuring out what they want and then going out and doing it?
Add When Katie Met Cassidy to your Goodreads HERE.
Buy When Katie Met Cassidy HERE.
Make sure to follow Camille Perri on Twitter and Instagram.
Queerly Not Straight posts every Tuesday (AND THURSDAYS FOR PRIDE MONTH) with opinion pieces, listicals, reviews, and more focused on the LGBT community (and occasionally about the Latinx community since I am Latinx.)
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