Category Archives: Queer Lit

Love, Misha by Askel Aden

Can this road trip get any worse? Yes, Mom (Audrey) wanted to spend time with Misha. And yes, she’s never around and they don’t even live together, so this is a rare opportunity. But Audrey still thinks of Misha as her daughter, despite Misha being non-binary and trying to talk to her openly about it. Misha even tries to write how they feel in a letter, but that isn’t going well either. Then a wrong turn down a forest road leads the mother-child duo straight into the Realm of Spirits! Suddenly in peril and without a clue how to return to their… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misgendering

Kirby’s Lessons for Falling [in Love] by Laura Gao

Once dubbed the Queen of Balance as her school’s top rock climber, Kirby Tan suffers an injury that sidelines her for the rest of the season. Now she’s forced to join the newspaper club for some desperately needed extra credit. Worse, she’s recruited by crystal-wearing, tarot-reading Bex Santos for her astrology-based love advice column. As Kirby reluctantly agrees to orchestrate “matches made in heaven” with Bex, she begins to wonder if their own stars could be aligned. But loving who she wants isn’t so easy when her family and church community are on the line. Can Kirby pull off her greatest balancing act yet?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Sexual harassment
  • Emesis
  • Death of a parent

Ash’s Cabin by Jen Wang

Ash has always felt alone. Adults ignore the climate crisis. Other kids Ash’s age are more interested in pop stars and popularity contests than in fighting for change. Even Ash’s family seems to be sleepwalking through life. The only person who ever seemed to get Ash was their Grandpa Edwin. Before he died, he used to talk about building a secret cabin, deep in the California wilderness. Did he ever build it? What if it’s still there, waiting for him to come back…or for Ash to find it? To Ash, that maybe-mythical cabin is starting to feel like the perfect place for a fresh start… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Coming out themes & deadnaming
  • Death of a grandparent recounted
  • Blood & injury depiction
  • Emesis
  • Animal injury (dog) from a bear attack (on-page)

Brownstone by Samuel Teer & Mar Julia

Almudena has always wondered about the dad she never met. Now, with her white mother headed on a once-in-a-lifetime trip without her, she’s left alone with her Guatemalan father for an entire summer. Xavier seems happy to see her, but he expects her to live in (and help fix up) his old, broken-down brownstone. And all along, she must navigate the language barrier of his rapid-fire Spanish—which she doesn’t speak. As Almudena tries to adjust to this new reality, she gets to know the residents of Xavier’s Latin American neighborhood. Each member of the… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & lesbophobia
  • Parental abandonment
  • Minor physical injury
  • Gentrification

Tall Water by S.J. Sindu and Dion MBD

Ever since she turned sixteen, Nimmi has wanted to see her mother. Though she has a loving but overprotective father and a budding relationship, she yearns to travel to Sri Lanka to confront the mother who refused to leave the island during a war, not even for Nimmi’s sake. Her father is going back for the first time as a reporter on assignment, but he refuses to take her, deeming Sri Lanka too dangerous. But then Nimmi’s mother appears to her in a dream, asking her to come find her, and Nimmi knows she must go. Her father is livid when he sees her at baggage claim, but by then… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Tsunami (on-page)

Leap by Simina Popescu

Ana has been studying contemporary dance since she was little, but her heart isn’t in it anymore. Instead her focus is on Carina―a beautiful, ambitious ballerina whose fear of being outed keeps Ana in the closet and their fragile relationship from seeing the light of day. Risking her own career, Ana gives up more and more in order to fit into the shadows of Carina’s life. Sara, on the other hand, is fielding whispers she may be the best dancer their school has produced in years. Much of that is thanks to her mentor and instructor, Marlena, who plucked Sara from the classical track… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Body-shaming & weight loss discussed (in the context of ballet), including mentions of starving oneself for weight loss & calorie counting

Vantage Point by Sara Sligar

The old-money Wieland family has it all—wealth, status, power. They’re also famously cursed. Clara and her brother Teddy grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents’ tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi. Fourteen years later they’ve mostly put their turbulent past to rest. Teddy has married Clara’s best friend, Jess, and the three of them have moved back home to take over the sprawling, remote family mansion known as Vantage Point. Then Teddy decides to run for the Senate—an unnerving prospect made much worse when… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Misogyny
  • Domestic abuse
  • Sexual assault
  • Eating disorder (protagonist)

Good Girl by Aria Aber

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist. Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Domestic abuse
  • Drug use

Motheater by Linda H. Codega

After her best friend dies in a coal mine, Benethea “Bennie” Mattox sacrifices her job, her relationship, and her reputation to uncover what’s killing miners on Kire Mountain. When she finds a half-drowned white woman in a dirty mine slough, Bennie takes her in because it’s right—but also because she hopes this odd, magnetic stranger can lead her to the proof she needs. Instead, she brings more questions. The woman called Motheater can’t remember her true name, or how she ended up inside the mountain. She knows only that she’s a witch of Appalachia, bound to tor and holler, possum and snake, with power in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Murder
  • Imprisonment
  • Animal death

There’s Always Next Year by Leah Johnson and George M. Johnson

Andy was supposed to shed her too-serious student journalist persona and reinvent herself on New Year’s Eve. Instead, she puked on her crush, dropped her phone in a fish tank, and managed to get her car stolen. Now, she only has the first day of the year to stop the gentrification that’s threatening her family’s business right her wrongs from the night before, and figure out why she feels so drawn to the electric new-girl-next-door. . How can Andy find her voice when everything’s being turned upside down? Dominique is an influencer on the verge of securing a major brand deal that will ensure his future and family legacy. But… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism & classism
  • Gentrification