Our Favorite LGBTQ+ Books of 2021
Happy PRIDE!
After a loooong year of being shutdown, we’re more than ready for HOT GAY SUMMER and these books are here to help! There have been so many great queer books published recently, and we wanted to highlight some of our favorite new titles that are adding much-needed gender and romantic and sexual diversity to the modern literary canon.
For more recs, check out our June staff picks, and our PRIDE list on our website.
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Detransition, Baby will be unlike anything you've ever read before. Full of flawed characters with an array of differing viewpoints just trying to figure out life. This book is polarizing, queer, and raucously funny, Peters’ writing is an unflinching examination of identity, gender, womanhood, and relationships. — Anthony
We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman
This funny, quick debut novel about ambition and the price of creating art is the perfect book to read this summer. —Mike FS
Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans
These are amazing, poignant poems about home, youth, race, feminism, and queer identity. The coolest part is that there are six parts that each have a corresponding active phone number that you can call to hear Jasmine Mans reading excerpts from these poems. Tying in the "Call Home" from the title and Mans' amazing talent as a performer this is a really brilliant idea. — Nick
Everybody: A Book About Freedom by Olivia Laing
These essays are just incredible. Laing is so smart and talented at illustrating these complex threads of history, philosophy, and psychology rooted in the experience of having a physical body and the notion of liberation. She explores various intersections of social justice movements including the fight for gay rights, the AIDS crisis, and many other struggles for freedom and equality, starting with William Reich, a former student and colleague of Freud, who dedicated his life to understanding the vexed relationship between bodies and freedom. I finished this book feeling both mentally fulfilled and infinitely more curious about everyone Laing introduces. — Colleen
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
This is a true southern gothic tale with twists and turns that will keep you guessing at every page. Vern is an amazing character, escaping her abusive cult leader husband and still trying to navigate motherhood and the racist, misogynist world around her. Steeped with beautiful passages this book will be a timeless classic in no time. — Nick
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
The Chosen and the Beautiful grabs you from the first sentence with it's vivid imagery and doesn't let you go until the final, breathtaking scene. Told from the perspective of Jordan Baker, a queer Vietnamese woman with a penchant for paper magic, Gatsby's New York is transformed into a dark and thrilling fantasy playland. The lines between truth and fiction feel almost nonexistent, and the classic characters you think you know take on a sinister sheen. Vo is a master of fantasy, weaving magic into her stories so effortlessly that the most dreamlike scenes are also the most natural and grounded of occurrences. — Shulokhana & Lindsay
With Teeth by Kristen Arnett
Kristen Arnett has written a visceral and entertaining novel full of messy people. Sammie is dissatisfied with her monotonous lifestyle enduring the grueling routine of controlling her wild son and dodging snide comments from her "girlboss" wife. Arnett exposes the underbelly of marriage and motherhood. Sammie will have you laughing one moment and cringing with second hand embarrassment next. A sharp, snappy, and funny read! — Natalie
The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons
One of my favorite romances of the season! The Passing Playbook follows fifteen-year-old soccer star Spencer Harris as he gets a fresh start at a new school after transitioning--and starts to fall for one of his teammates. Fitzsimons' writing is bright and vivid, and this warm hug of a novel has all the trans boy joy you could possibly want from a book. — Abby
Future Feeling by Joss Lake
Future Feeling is a journey of self-acceptance, community, found family, and finding your place in the world. Filled with witches, succulents, and holograms—all bathed in aural shades of measured emotion in ultraviolet, turquoise, lime green, pleasant pastels, and black. –Anthony
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Come for the lesbian time travel romance, stay for the best public transportation sex scene since Risky Business. –Emma
Forthcoming:
Antiman: A Hybrid Memoir by Rajiv Mohabir (June 22)
In this highly-saturated and multi-textured memoir, Rajiv Mohabir invents a mode to encompass the complexities of his existence as an Indo-Guyanese poet who is “queer sexually, queer religiously, queer by caste, and queer countried.” With an intergenerational life story marked by various migrations—and some may say, transgressions—Mohabir carves a vessel to contain his multitudes using the instruments of prose, song, poetry, and prayer. Authentic and defiant, this memoir responds to erasure with assertion, to derogation with reclamation, and to fragmentation with relation. Fans of Ocean Vuong, Alexander Chee, and Saeed Jones will adore this book! — Serena
Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (June 22)
Did you read and love Brandon Taylor’s debut novel, Real Life? Of course you did! Were you lucky enough to be in the room when Brandon came to Books Are Magic before lockdown? I hope so! Brandon’s prose is dazzling in all ways, and I am beyond excited to read these stories! –Emma
Rise To the Sun by Leah Johnson (July 6)
Fun yet earnest! This is the epitome of an outstanding summer read; I recommend it to all our YA readers! Two queer black girls find love, friendship, and their dreams at a mid-western music festival. Toni is grieving the loss of her musician father and hopes to love music again; Olivia is trying to escape the drama she experienced during the school year. Readers will relate to the characters' newly found independence and the responsibility that comes with it. — Jacque
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (July 20)
This epic book is a fantastic queer retelling of the founding of the Ming Dynasty told through the eyes of Zhu, a young child hungry for greatness who seized her brother's destiny by taking on his name and identity. Her foil is Ouyang, a eunuch general who serves the great Khan and is propelled by his need for revenge upon the people who mutilated him. Parker-Chan's literary voice is gripping and her explorations of gender expression, sexuality, and power will make this book a queer classic in the years to come. — Shulokhana
Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton (July 27)
Wowow! This book is so fresh and lush and expansive! The way Thornton reanimates the epistolary form to tackle themes of celebrity and fandom, trans identity, 60’s counterculture, mental illness, as well as spirituality and occultism, is really something special. Big-hearted and extraordinarily written, this summer release is not be missed by anyone, cis, fluid, trans or otherwise—I highly suggest you preorder this bb! — Serena
A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell (Sept 14)
A YA fantasy book featuring nonbinary, queer witches! Yes, please! I appreciate this book because the main character is plus-size. I’m thrilled that there are more books coming out featuring diverse body types. PRIDE is a great time to celebrate YOU in all your forms, inside and out. This book gives you all that, hands down. — Jacque
