Everyone seems to have a slightly different perspective of what a beach read or summer read is. To me, it’s a book that is absorbing, but not too emotionally or intellectually demanding. It’s something that will suck you in when you pick it up, but you can also put it down to run into the waves and not be lost when you come back to it. The definitions for “summer read” and “beach read” vary a lot, though, and there don’t seem to be a lot of resources for bi and lesbian summer reads, so I’m making one myself!
Of course, despite all the debates about what makes a bi or lesbian beach read, a book that is actually set during the summer is a bonus! Here are some of the books that I’ve read that I think are perfect for beach reading:
YA and Middle Grade:
This is What it Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow
This is less fluffy than most of this list, but, honestly, the cover alone of this one makes me happy. Dia, Jules, and Hanna used to be inseparable, and they played in a band together. Meanwhile, Dia’s boyfriend, who she was just starting to get close with, was killed in a car accident. Weeks after the funeral, Dia finds out she’s pregnant and decides to keep the baby. Hanna and Dia walk away from each other, and Jules sides with Dia. Now, their city is holding a music competition that includes a $15,000 prize, and they just might have a chance to win it–but it means getting the band back together.
As you could guess from that description, there is definitely seriousness here, but it’s also about friendship, and a budding adorable F/F relationship. Also, there’s an adorable toddler who is a fan of a dog named Waffles, so what more could you want? Despite their hardships, this is an optimistic and beautiful book.
Check out my full review here.
Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow
This is a middle grade book that takes place at summer camp, so it makes for a perfect summer read. It’s about music and friendship and divorce and growing up and crushes, but mostly it’s just about Melly finding herself and being true to herself.
I loved reading about this tiny clueless bisexual’s first foray into crushing on a girl. She gets butterflies in her stomach, and then: “I looked at her hard, trying to understand. But I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so how was I supposed to recognize it when I saw it?”
Check out my full review here.
Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan
The cover, title, and blurb of this makes it seem like it will be pure fluff, but be warned that it does come with a fair share of angst. It’s so summer-y, though, that I couldn’t leave it off this lsit!
Lou is gearing up for The Best Summer Ever, and even being cast as the hot dog at her summer carnival job doesn’t break her stride. Sure, her crush is literally dating the Princess of the park, but she’s got a plan to snag this diving pirate for herself. And as for the apparent closing of the park, which has been one of the few constants in her life, she is determined to find a way to save it. When she ropes her best friend, Seeley, into fake dating her, Lou is surprised to find that her various schemes aren’t going exactly to plan…
This turns into a fake dating love pentagon with a slowburn F/F friends-to-lovers romance. Hot Dog Girl is a queer YA romcom that makes for a perfect summer read.
Check out my full review here.
You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan
You Know Me Well takes place during Pride! Mark and Kate both go to the same high school and are both gay, but they don’t know anything about each other until they meet by chance at a bar during Pride. After their chance meeting, they become the other’s main source of support and guidance during a pivotal point in their lives.
I love this story of friendship and change. Probably my favourite thing to read about is queer community, so this one made me feel warm & fuzzy.
Check out my full review here.
Going Off Script by Jen Wilde
Jen Wilde’s books are my go-to for queer, escapist, fluffy, fun reads. Going Off Script is about a teenager who gets an internship at her favourite TV show. Her boss is a jerk, and when she writes a script to try to prove her worth, he takes it as his own, and straight-washes the lesbian character.
This is a real celebration of queer fandom, and it ends up being a very fluffy, geek revenge fantasy, as the queer actors and fandom team up to take down the homophobic showrunner. There’s a huge queer community in this book, which makes any homophobia not sting as much. If you’re a queer geek, definitely pick this one up.
Check out my full (video) review here.
Romance:
My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
Imagine reading a M/F romance novel: you’re plodding along, all the love interests have been introduced, and your friend (with whom you clearly have more chemistry than with the dudes) throws out that, hey, if you want, you can travel to Egypt with her instead. You reach that point in the book and sigh. Image if she had taken her up on that! Imagine if instead of heading to the drafty castle or trading quips with the asshole rich guy, you just skipped town and went on an Egyptian adventure instead! Only this time, you can!
Most of the storylines you can choose from in this interactive romance novel are tongue-in-cheek takes on classic romances, including a Gothic Jane Eyre-esque plot line, or more of a Pride and Prejudice angle, but the F/F storyline is totally original: search for an artifact stolen from an Egyptian museum, and encounter your lady love interest’s angry ex-girlfriend! Maybe end up in a lesbian pirate gang! (Yes, you can do that. Definitely try to get to that point.) As an added bonus, I enjoyed this so much that I even went back and read the M/F plots. That’s how good this is.
Check out my full review here.
Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman
Shira Glassman’s books are a paragon of queer joy. This is a cute, mostly fluffy story that has a wide appeal: Jewish readers, queer ladies (including bi women), and artists will all find aspects that have special interest to them. It was also nice to read about a fat love interest. This definitely felt like a “slice of life” story. It’s realistic, and as if you’re just being dropped into a short period of these people’s lives, but the characters seem to live outside the words on the page, as well.
This isn’t entirely a traditional romance novella: there is a romance, but it’s just as much about Clara and Danielle’s art, or their relationships with their siblings, or their shared love of fandom. If you’re looking for a quick, light, but satisfying read, pick this one up!
Check out my full review here.
Bearly a Lady by Cassandra Khaw
I was sold immediately when I heard “Bisexual werebear novella.” The book opens with Zelda irritated that her transformation into a bear is continually destroying her wardrobe. She works for a fashion magazine, so she doesn’t take this lightly.
This is such a fun, light read. It’s quippy and snarky and smart, and because it’s only just over 100 pages, it moves quickly. The romances are mostly M/F, but the most significant relationship is F/F. Bisexual werebear novella!
Check out my full review here.
Roller Girl by Vanessa North
Roller Girl follows Tina, a trans woman who has recently divorced as well as retiring as a professional athlete. She’s adrift. So when she gets invited to play on the local roller derby team, she jumps at the opportunity. And it doesn’t hurt that the coach is a swoonworthy butch woman. They are drawn to each other, but Joe doesn’t want to endanger the team by admitting to dating a teammate, and Tina doesn’t want to stay a secret forever.
This is a quick, fun read with steamy sex scenes!
Check out my full review here.
Comics:
Space Battle Lunchtime Volumes 1 & 2 by Natalie Riess
This comic is an all-ages queer women comic about a competitive cooking show… in space. What could be better?? Peony agrees to be in a competitive cooking show, only to be transported onto the spaceship it’s being filmed on. That’s when she realizes that this isn’t space-themed, it’s literally in outer space. But she takes the existence of aliens in stride, and concentrates on the competition. And, okay, maybe one of the cute alien contestants.
I highly, highly recommend reading volume 1 & 2 back to back, because they really are one complete story. This is such a joyful book!
Check out my full review here.
Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Shannon Watters
This one gets bonus summer points for following a group of girls at summer camp! Where they get into fantastical adventures. The strongest part of the series is the dynamic between the 5 main characters. They all have different personalities, strengths, fears, priorities, etc, but they are a tightly-knit group. They support each other. And we get to see each one spotlighted at some point.
This is also a diverse cast, including multiple trans characters, and two of the girls start dating. This is a fun series to read as an adult, but I’m especially glad it exists for kids and teens. The main characters are different ages and also a little ambiguous, so this really works as a recommendation for 9 and up, I’d say. And it’s still going!
Check out my full review here.
I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up by Naoko Kodama
This short, standalone manga is about a fake marriage: Morimoto is sick of being constantly set up by her parents. Her friend Hana suggests that they get married to shut them up.
Unsurprisingly, Hana and Morimoto’s relationship changes as they live together. Morimoto also finds new confidence in herself: she is inspired by Hana, by her dedication to her passion (art) and her defiance in being unapologetically out. It was gratifying to see an out character, one who even uses the word “lesbian,” in the pages of a yuri manga. This has all of the appeal that yuri manga usually has for me: it’s a quick, absorbing, and adorable read. But it adds more depth and realism than I expect from this genre. It had me absolutely grinning as I read it.
Check out my full review here.
Girl Friends: The Complete Collection by Milk Morinaga
This seems to the quintessential yuri series: It’s school girls, and a lot of blushing, and the typical “girls don’t do this” heteronormativity. I read this in the omnibus, and talk about a slow burn! This is almost 500 pages, and mostly just about Mariko making a new friend, falling in love with her, and then (much later) realizing that she’s fallen in love with her.
Girl Friends is super cute, but with the melodrama of agonizing over a crush on a girl. This is a fun, quick, addictive read.
Check out my review of volume 1 and volume 2.
Bonus:
A bonus recommendation for a book that I love that has summer in the title, but is definitely darker than most of this list:
The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie
This is a beautiful, haunting book about family, and when the history you’ve been running from finally catches up with you. When we meet Ava, she is closed off and practical. Through flashbacks, we meet her vibrant, unrestrainable childhood self–what happened to take her from that to this is the central question of the story. Everything comes to a head when Ava finds herself kissing a woman she doesn’t know on the front porch (while her husband, unknowing, waits inside).
Read this at your kitchen table on a hot summer’s night, as the humidity envelops you, and you feel the crackle in the air of a thunderstorm just about to happen.
Check out my full review here.
For even more fluffy sapphic books, check out 25+ Happy Sapphic Books to Make You Feel Warm & Fuzzy.
Summer Reads On My TBR:
So those are some of my recommendations, but it’s far from a complete list! Here are a few books on my TBR that looks like perfect summer reads, with the publisher’s blurbs.
The Summer of Impossibilities by Rachael Allen
Four girls. One summer. And a pact to do the impossible.
Skyler, Ellie, Scarlett, and Amelia Grace are forced to spend the summer at the lake house where their moms became best friends.
One can’t wait.
One would rather gnaw off her own arm than hang out with a bunch of strangers just so their moms can drink too much wine and sing Journey at two o’clock in the morning.
Two are sisters.
Three are currently feuding with their mothers.
One is hiding how bad her joint pain has gotten.
All of them are hiding something.
One falls in love with a boy she thought she despised.
One almost sets her crush on fire with a flaming marshmallow.
One has a crush that could change everything.
None of them are the same at the end of the summer.
Kings Queens and In-Betweens by Tanya Boteju
Judy Blume meets RuPaul’s Drag Race in this funny, feel-good debut novel about a queer teen who navigates questions of identity and self-acceptance while discovering the magical world of drag.
Perpetually awkward Nima Kumara-Clark is bored with her insular community of Bridgeton, in love with her straight girlfriend, and trying to move past her mother’s unexpected departure. After a bewildering encounter at a local festival, Nima finds herself suddenly immersed in the drag scene on the other side of town.
Macho drag kings, magical queens, new love interests, and surprising allies propel Nima both painfully and hilariously closer to a self she never knew she could be—one that can confidently express and accept love. But she’ll have to learn to accept lost love to get there.
From debut author Tanya Boteju comes a poignant, laugh-out-loud tale of acceptance, self-expression, and the colorful worlds that await when we’re brave enough to look.
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
Liz Lighty has always believed she’s too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it’s okay — Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor.
But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz’s plans come crashing down . . . until she’s reminded of her school’s scholarship for prom king and queen. There’s nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington.
The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She’s smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?
I’ll Be the One by Lyla Lee
The world of K-Pop has never met a star like this. Debut author Lyla Lee delivers a deliciously fun, thoughtful rom-com celebrating confidence and body positivity—perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Julie Murphy.
Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.
She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.
When Skye nails her audition, she’s immediately swept into a whirlwind of countless practices, shocking performances, and the drama that comes with reality TV. What she doesn’t count on are the highly fat-phobic beauty standards of the Korean pop entertainment industry, her sudden media fame and scrutiny, or the sparks that soon fly with her fellow competitor, Henry Cho.
But Skye has her sights on becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and that means winning the competition—without losing herself.
When You Get the Chance by Tom Ryan and Robin Stevenson
Follow cousins on a road trip to Pride as they dive into family secrets and friendships in this contemporary YA novel — perfect for fans of David Levithan and Becky Albertalli.
As kids, Mark and his cousin Talia spent many happy summers together at the family cottage in Ontario, but a fight between their parents put an end to the annual event. Living on opposite coasts — Mark in Halifax and Talia in Victoria — they haven’t seen each other in years. When their grandfather dies unexpectedly, Mark and Talia find themselves reunited at the cottage once again, cleaning it out while the family decides what to do with it.
Mark and Talia are both queer, but they soon realize that’s about all they have in common, other than the fact that they’d both prefer to be in Toronto. Talia is desperate to see her high school sweetheart Erin, who’s barely been in touch since leaving to spend the summer working at a coffee shop in the Gay Village. Mark, on the other hand, is just looking for some fun, and Toronto Pride seems like the perfect place to find it.
When a series of complications throws everything up in the air, Mark and Talia — with Mark’s little sister Paige in tow — decide to hit the road for Toronto. With a bit of luck, and some help from a series of unexpected new friends, they might just make it to the big city and find what they’re looking for. That is, if they can figure out how to start seeing things through each other’s eyes.
[May 4, 2021]
This Is All Your Fault by Aminah Mae Safi
Set over the course of one day, Aminah Mae Safi’s This Is All Your Fault is a smart and voice-driven YA novel that follows three young women determined to save their indie bookstore.
Rinn Olivera is finally going to tell her longtime crush AJ that she’s in love with him.
Daniella Korres writes poetry for her own account, but nobody knows it’s her.
Imogen Azar is just trying to make it through the day.
When Rinn, Daniella, and Imogen clock into work at Wild Nights Bookstore on the first day of summer, they’re expecting the hours to drift by the way they always do. Instead, they have to deal with the news that the bookstore is closing. Before the day is out, there’ll be shaved heads, a diva author, and a very large shipment of Air Jordans to contend with.
And it will take all three of them working together if they have any chance to save Wild Nights Bookstore.
[October 13, 2020]
The Summer of Jordi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding
Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Abby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick in other people’s lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby’s been happy to focus on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a great internship at her favorite boutique, she’s thrilled to take the first step toward her dream career. Then she falls for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Hard. And now she’s competing against the girl she’s kissing to win the coveted paid job at the end of the internship.
But really, nothing this summer is going as planned. She also unwittingly becomes friends with Jax, a lacrosse playing bro-type who wants her help finding the best burger in Los Angeles, and she’s struggling to prove to her mother—the city’s celebrity health nut—that she’s perfectly content with who she is.
Just as Abby starts to feel like she’s no longer the sidekick in her own life, Jordi’s photography surprisingly puts her in the spotlight. Instead of feeling like she’s landed a starring role, Abby feels betrayed. Can Abby find a way to reconcile her positive yet private sense of self with the image others have of her?
Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash
All-girl camp. First love. First heartbreak. At once romantic and devastating, brutally honest and full of humor, this graphic-novel memoir is a debut of the rarest sort.
Maggie Thrash has spent basically every summer of her fifteen-year-old life at the one-hundred-year-old Camp Bellflower for Girls, set deep in the heart of Appalachia. She’s from Atlanta, she’s never kissed a guy, she’s into Backstreet Boys in a really deep way, and her long summer days are full of a pleasant, peaceful nothing . . . until one confounding moment. A split-second of innocent physical contact pulls Maggie into a gut-twisting love for an older, wiser, and most surprising of all (at least to Maggie), female counselor named Erin. But Camp Bellflower is an impossible place for a girl to fall in love with another girl, and Maggie’s savant-like proficiency at the camp’s rifle range is the only thing keeping her heart from exploding. When it seems as if Erin maybe feels the same way about Maggie, it’s too much for both Maggie and Camp Bellflower to handle, let alone to understand.
Let me know in the comments what your favourite bi and lesbian summer reads are! You might also want to check out Autostraddle’s 8 Summer Affair Books featuring Lesbian and Bisexual Women and on the Lesbrary, Kathryn Hoss Recommends Lesbian Beach Reads.
