Five MORE Queer Book Recommendations

My last queer book recommendation post was my most popular, and since I am queer (as is most of my audience), I figured I would recommend five MORE queer books to you all.

I tried to do a good mix of genres, and this post has young adult and adult titles. I think there is a little something for everyone here.

---

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Genre(s): Horror, Young Adult

My rating: 4 stars

Description via The Storygraph: "It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true. "

Why I Recommend This: This book seems to be a big hit or miss amongst readers, but I adored this book! This was the book that really got me back into reading last year, and so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

This is a sapphic pandemic body horror book, with sprinkles of dark academia, and I recommend this to folks who like light, non-gory horror novels with a lot of emotion.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Genre(s): Literary, Mystery, Thriller

My rating: 5 stars

Description via The Storygraph: "On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it.

A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras.

But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students' world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent."

Why I Recommend This: I was hesitant to pick this book up since I haven't read Shakespeare since high school, but I can assure you, you do not need an extensive knowledge of Shakespeare plays to enjoy and understand this book,

I am a sucker for murder mysteries. Add in dark academia, messy friend groups, theater kids and a tragic gay love story? Count me in!

This book is beautifully written, and I highly recommend picking it up.

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

Genre(s): Graphic Novel, Romance, Young Adult

My rating: 4.75 stars

Description of Volume 1 via The Storygraph: "Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. A sweet and charming coming-of-age story that explores friendship, love, and coming out. This edition features beautiful two-color artwork.

Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player Nick Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn't think he has a chance.

But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works."

Why I Recommend This: This series is SO CUTE and wholesome and I love it so much.

I am not typically a graphic novel person, but after watching the show, I decided I needed to read the novels, and I am so glad I did.

This is queer joy and had me kicking my little feet and giggling. There is some tougher subjects handled in volume four, but otherwise this is just so calm and wholesome.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Genre(s): Memoir

My rating: 5 stars

Description via The Storygraph: "In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.

And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope--the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman--through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships.

Machado's dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be."

Why I Recommend This: This is definitely a different pick than all the others on this list.

This book is about an abusive queer relationship, and how isolating that can feel due to the large societal insistence that queer relationships be nothing but sunshine and rainbows in order to be taken seriously.

Machado explores her life in this memoir in a series of vignettes, almost like a memoir in short stories, and it is painfully vivid and bleak and incredibly powerful and beautifully written.

I have not stopped thinking about this since the day I finished it, and if you are looking for a queer memoir, this should be on your list for sure.

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

Genre(s): Speculative Fiction, Young Adult

My rating: 5 stars

Description via The Storygraph: "On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They're going to die today.

Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they're both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There's an app for that. It's called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.

In the tradition of Before I Fall and If I Stay, They Both Die at the End is a tour de force from acclaimed author Adam Silvera, whose debut, More Happy Than Not, the New York Times called “profound."

Why I Recommend This: I know that this is also a hit or miss book, but I was sobbing by the fifth page. I didn't think I could love a book that tells me how it ends in the title, but boy was I wrong.

I think if you are looking for a good, hearty cry and some heartbreak, you should pick up this book. I am excited to read the prequel sometime soon.

---

Have you read any of these books? Are there other queer books you recommend? Let me know in the comments!