Happy Pride Month! This June, I’ll be updating my series of “best of” queer books, TV shows, and movies. Keep in mind that these are simply my opinions, and as a result of that these books tend to skew towards queer women and nonbinary people, given that these are the people I identify with most strongly. That being said, there is something for everyone on this list, and I tried my best to make it as comprehensive as possible!

Below are my favorite 33 queer books, out of the 59 total I’ve read, which is up 13 books from last year. All books on this list have received at least 4 stars.

I will continue to update the list each year with all of the new stories I’ve read. If we’re missing your favorite, recommend it in the comments!

33. Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Author: Malinda Lo

Release Date: January 19th, 2021

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop

Starting the list off strong with a young adult historical fiction novel about a young girl in Chinatown who finds herself at a late-night lesbian club. It’s so beautiful how being around other queer people can help you to find yourself, and that was captured really well in this story.

32. Boyfriend Material

Author: Alexis Hall

Release Date: July 7th, 2020

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop

Boyfriend Material is so cute! This is an enemies to lovers story about how, sometimes, opposites can attract. I appreciated the fact that this book wasn’t strictly romance; it developed the entire friend group and gave them all attention. Queer people so often have their own found family, and it was nice to see that given proper weight in this series.

31. Both Can Be True

Author: Jules Machias

Release Date: June 8th, 2021

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop

This is just one of only two middle grade books on the list, but I adored this one. Both Can Be True is a story of two kids who attempt to care for a dog in secret. I love the way they were both so affirming of each other and that despite these protagonist’s young age, it wasn’t just a coming out story.

30. Bad Habit

Author: Alana S Portero, Translated from Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem

Release Date: May 3rd, 2023

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

This Spanish-translated book tells the story of a young person as they navigate both their place in the world and their gender identity through the decades. The choice to tell this book entirely through the eyes of someone who wasn’t even given a name was stunning. It lent an emotional gravitas to every single word that could not have been achieved any other way. As I followed her journey through youth into adulthood, I found myself rooting for the character while simultaneously understanding her mistakes.

29. She Who Became the Sun

Author: Shelley Parker-Chan

Release Date: July 20th, 2021

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

She Who Became the Sun is the first book in The Radiant Emperor series. While the second book is already out, I haven’t read it yet! This first book was so incredible, and while it wasn’t explicitly queer, Parker-Chan is gender queer and their protagonist gender-swaps in order to survive. Plus (no spoilers) I’m expecting the second book to be even gayer.

28. Rainbow Rainbow

Author: Lydia Conklin

Release Date: May 1st, 2022

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

I am genuinely obsessed with this queer short story collection. Every single story was painfully relatable and made me either laugh or cry or both. Conklin is such an incredible storyteller and I found myself ceaselessly impressed with the depth and breadth of characters they brought to life in a single collection.

27. Late to the Party

Author: Kelly Quindlen

Release Date: April 21st, 2020

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

This was the perfect, light, YA coming of age story. It’s the type of book that straight teens and pre-teens get all the time but doesn’t really seem to exist in the queer world. Reading this book made me delightfully happy the entire time.

26. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care

Author: Ashley Herring Blake

Release Date: February 22nd, 2022

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It’s so nice to read a book about an adult character finding love! As someone who also hates my hometown (albeit for much less traumatic reasons) I appreciated the built in redemption arc for both Delilah and her home of Bright Falls.

25. The Last Love Song

Author: Kalie Holford

Release Date: April 9th, 2024

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

In this dual perspective YA book, Mia Peters is faced with one last challenge before the end of her summer after high-school. Alongside her sort-of girlfriend Britt, Mia must decode a message left to her by her long dead mother. The answer, Mia hopes, will tell her whether she should leave her hometown to become a singer or stay with her (also gay!) grandmothers.

24. You Exist Too Much

Author: Zaina Arafat

Release Date: June 9th, 2020

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

The bisexual representation in this book is everything I could want. It’s messy as hell, but so are real people! Arafat told a story that I haven’t seen told a lot, especially from a female LGBTQ+ perspective, and so I enjoyed the narrative that was weaved together.

23. With Teeth

Author: Kristen Arnett

Release Date: June 1st, 2021

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

This is one of those books that I was thinking about for a long time after I finished reading. Sammie Lucas, a lesbian mother, sort of hates her son. To be honest, she’s not that good at raising him. Throughout the book, we dig deeply into Sammie’s interiority and examine how she is feeling and how that makes her behave. The book is beautiful and complex and you’re bound to either love it or hate it.

22. Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date

Author: Ashley Herring Blake

Release Date: October 24th, 2023

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In her third book in the Bright Falls series, Ashley Herring Blake takes on Iris Kelly, the flirty redhead who doesn’t want anything serious. I liked this book more than Delilah Green, mostly because Iris’ love interest was fun to learn about. These books are fairly sexless but fun from a romantic perspective.

21. Manhunt

Author: Gretchen Felker-Martin

Release Date: February 22nd, 2022

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Gretchen Felker-Martin created an absolutely crushing dystopian world filled with trans people who were doing their best to survive. It was gruesome and well-written, creating a vivid world that kept me turning the pages, desperate to know what happens next.

20. Dykette

Author: Jenny Fran Davis

Release Date: May 16th, 2023

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This book was absolutely bizarre and yet totally intoxicating. Sasha and Jesse are a butch/femme couple invited on a trip to a cabin with an older lesbian couple they admire. This is one of those books that I would never recommend to a straight person (although that’s made clear by the title) but would highly recommend to any lesbian who wants to read something deeply, entirely queer.

19. Husband Material

Author: Alexis Hall

Release Date: August 2nd, 2022

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

I wasn’t sure if Hall had left himself with anywhere to go after Boyfriend Material. Our main couple seemed to be in a good place. I was delighted to find out that there was still so much growth in store for Oliver and Luc. That, combined with how dynamic the side characters were, made for a wonderful sequel.

18. Behind the Scenes

Author: Karelia Stetz-Waters

Release Date: January 31st, 2023

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

I love romances featuring two adults who find a second chance at love, work, and life. It’s so refreshing to read a book that doesn’t center high schoolers or younger, especially as I grow up and start to see myself more in 30-year-olds than 16-year-olds. This romance was fun, and I loved all of the side characters as well!

17. Ryan and Avery

Author: David Leviathan

Release Date: September 12th, 2023

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

Ryan and Avery is the perfect YA book. There’s some coming of age content, but it’s more focused on the immediate interactions of the two boys in the novel. We accompany them on their first few dates and learn about how they started falling in love. It’s adorable and well written and the perfect encompassment of being a kid while feeling like an adult.

16. Come and Get It

Author: Kiley Reid

Release Date: January 30th, 2024

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

If you’re someone who likes slow, character driven novels that actually do have a plot if you stick with it long enough (I am one of these people!) you’re going to love this book. Reid takes on topics of race, gender, sexuality, and power dynamics all within the world of University of Arkansas.

15. All This Could Be Different

Author: Sarah Thankham Mathews

Release Date: August 2nd, 2022

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This book about a somewhat problematic early-20s woman trying to figure out her life, her friends, and her job during the recession was incredibly well done. Every single character was fleshed out and felt real, and I absolutely adored every page.

14. Two Boys Kissing

Author: David Leviathan

Release Date: August 27th, 2013

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This book holds a special place in my heart as one of the first queer books I ever read. I definitely need to re-read at some point to see if it deserves to be this high up, but for now it is! In the book, two 17 year old boys decide to break the world record for kissing. This means they have to kiss for 32 hours straight. Over the course of the 32 hours, they flashback on their relationship and do their best to just keep kissing.

13. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Release Date: June 13th, 2017

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While The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo isn’t written by a queer author (which did hurt its ratings in this list), it is a sapphic classic if only because of how fun it is to apply this scenario to a wide assortment of real life celebrities. I cannot wait for a certain celebrities’ 87-year-old tell-all memoir!

12. You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty

Author: Akwaeke Emezi

Release Date: May 24th, 2022

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

Everything is beautiful. This book was a story of struggling with grief and moving on– Feyi repeats the words “I’m alive” often throughout the story– but it was also a black bisexual success story on two fronts.

11. Lakelore

Author: Anna-Marie McLemore

Release Date: March 8th, 2022

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop

Lakelore is the perfect choice for lovers of adorable YA coming of age novels. These two teens fall in love with each other at the same time they are learning to love themselves. Lore and Bastian are both confident in their genderqueer-ness, and work on accepting their dyslexia and ADHD respectively over the course of the novel.

10. Thin Girls

Author: Diana Clarke

Release Date: June 30th, 2020

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

This book wrecked me in every possible way. I will note that this could be extremely triggering for those with an eating disorder, as the main plot is that Rose Winters becomes increasingly anorexic until she is ultimately institutionalized. Nonetheless, the writing was hauntingly beautiful and I couldn’t stop reading once I began.

9. She Gets the Girl

Author: Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick

Release Date: April 5th, 2022

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop |  Review

If you want a gay, dual perspective, enemies to friends to lovers story written by a real life couple, this is the book for you! Bonus points for the fact that Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick are hilariously cute on TikTok.

8. Big Swiss

Author: Jen Beagin

Release Date: February 7th, 2023

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop

Big Swiss is the story of a sex therapist’s transcriptionist who falls in love with one of the clients she’s transcribing. This book is partially told via transcription and partially via actual prose, and yet it somehow works so well together. I laughed out loud multiple times throughout reading, and would highly recommend to anyone who wants a darkly hilarious sort-of romance starring an adult main character.

7. The Death of Vivek Oji

Author: Akwaeke Emezi

Release Date: August 4th, 2020

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The Death of Vivek Oji is a book about a Nigerian named Vivek and the people around him. Told through a series of flashbacks and present day anecdotes, this deeply moving story had me in tears throughout. I truly cannot explain enough how deeply moving this book was. As always, Emezi’s prose is beautifully constructed and manages to strike exactly the right balance between simplicity and elegance. I would not recommend this as a happy book, but it is the perfect choice when you want to read about a queer kid and cry.

6. We Deserve Monuments

Author: Jas Hammonds

Release Date: November 29th, 2022

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This high school story of inter-generational trauma and coming of age hit me right where it hurt. I was sobbing, laughing, and smiling idiotically at various points while reading this book.

5. Detransition, Baby

Author: Torrey Peters

Release Date: January 12, 2021

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | Bookshop | Review

The conflict and emotional tension between each of these characters and with themselves is masterful. I can relate to each of them on such a strong level, and crave knowing what comes next for them.

4. Ophelia After All

Author: Racquel Marie

Release Date: February 8, 2022

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This YA book has an ensemble cast of queer characters that feels entirely realistic for a high school friend group. I loved every minute of it, especially the way it allowed characters to find themselves and share that discovery with each other in their own time without the entire book devolving into a “coming out” novel.

3. Skye Falling

Author: Mia McKenzie

Release Date: June 22, 2021

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I cannot get over how much I loved this book. Mia Mckenzie did an incredible job of creating a dynamic, real protagonist that I could root for, cheer for, and bemoan when she made mistakes. While this isn’t strictly a love story—the major focus is on the main character loving herself—the romance it did include was an enemies to lovers story that had me screaming into the pages.

2. Nevada

Author: Imogen Binnie

Release Date: April 2nd, 2013

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Nevada is the story of two people. Maria is a nearly thirty year old trans woman who just broke up with her girlfriend and is headed out on a quest to find herself, and James is the Definitely Not Trans Definitely A Boy she meets along her way. Maria embarks on a quest to help James, despite James not wanting it and Maria not really having her own life in order. Along the way, it’s a beautiful road trip story that captured me both in the simplicity and the lack of answers it felt the need to find along the way.

1. Stone Butch Blues

Author: Leslie Feinberg

Release Date: March 1st, 1993

Find the Book: Goodreads | StoryGraph | PDF Copy

Stone Butch Blues takes the top spot both for how incredible it is and how iconic it has become. Leslie Feinberg is a butch lesbian who wrote a semi-fictional story about Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl who comes into herself as a butch lesbian in a blue-collar town. This book works both as an introduction to butch/femme dynamics and as a powerful and earnest story for people who are already deeply familiar. To be honest, I was expecting this book to be a slog due to how “educational” it was purported to be, but in fact this was just the opposite. The only time I put the book down was when I physically needed a break because of how gut wrenchingly sad and well-written the story was. If you’re a lesbian, or just a queer person in general, this is an absolute must-read and you’ll be glad you did.

What are your favorite LGBTQ+ books?