In March, I put together a list of sapphic books by trans and nonbinary authors for the Trans Rights Readathon, but we don’t need a readathon to read trans books!

For each of these, I tried to verify that the author publicly identifies as trans or nonbinary, but if I’ve made a mistake, please let me know and I’ll edit the post! I’m also using the broadest definition of sapphic in order to talk about as many books as possible, but if you’re an author who would rather their books aren’t categorized that way, let me know and I’ll remove it.

Some of these have trans main characters, some don’t, but all of them are by trans or nonbinary authors. Most of them have Lesbrary reviews linked, because so many of our favourite sapphic book are by trans authors!

Fiction:

Nevada by Imogen Binnie (review): one of my favourite books, following a trans lesbian who steals her ex-girlfriend’s car and goes on a road trip. It’s introspective, sarcastic, and unforgettable–and it recently got republished!

Missed Her by Ivan E. Coyote (review)—and everything else they’ve ever written: Ivan Coyote is an incredible storyteller, and I recommend not only all of their books, but also checking out their videos on YouTube.

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg (review): It’s hard to overstate the important of Leslie Feinberg’s work in queer and trans literary history. You can download this for free on hir website.

The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard edited by Tom Léger (review): this is a great way to be introduced to a bunch of trans authors, and it includes several F/F stories.

Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey (review): a queer punk BDSM retelling of Peter Pan.

A Dream of a Woman: Stories (review) and A Safe Girl to Love (review) by Casey Plett: beautiful literary short stories, most with sapphic trans women main characters.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters: this won the PEN/Hemingway Award along with many other honours and became an instant classic of trans literature.

Romance:

Chef’s Kiss by TJ Alexander: an F/NB romance with a foodie element.

Who We Could Be (review) and many more by Chelsea Cameron: this is a grown up Anne of Green Gables-inspired romance (between Anne and Diana, obviously), but Chelsea Cameron writes lots of “tropetastic sapphic romances”!

Caroline’s Heart by Austin Chant (review): paranormal romance with a bi trans heroine and bi trans hero.

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly (review): an F/NB romance set at a reality TV baking competition!

Wherever is Your Heart by Anita Kelly (review): a butch/butch romance novella.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (review): if you somehow haven’t already read this F/F time travel romance, now is a good time!

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner (review): the milf F/F romance. You know the one.

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Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror:

Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett (review): this is a fantastic collection that is also an introduction to a ton of trans authors, and it’s finally back in print!

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (review): one of my favourite reads of last year! This has two sapphic main characters and a trans woman character. It’s genre-blending and heartwarming—but also, check the content warnings.

From A Shadow Grave by Andi C. Buchanan (review): this is an experimental collection of connected short stories told in the second person about a trans girl in 1930s New Zealand.

Finna by Nino Cipri (review): this a wacky sci-fi adventure set at an Ikea. Ava and Jules are exes and coworkers who have to rescue a customer who went through a wormhole.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson: a fantasy trilogy following witches who fight the patriarchy and also fight TERFs.

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw (review): “a little bit heist novel, a little bit noir narration, a hint of Lovecraftian, and a whole lot of gritty sci fi.”

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (review): military science fiction with intense worldbuilding and a lesbian main character.

A Lake of Feathers and Moonbeams by Dax Murray (review): this is a queer, polyamorous Swan Lake retelling with a nonbinary main character!

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (review): an epic queer fantasy that begins with a sister assuming her dead brother’s identity in order to claim his destiny for greatness.

Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Brook Tsai: “a biracial, queer, nonbinary retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein.”

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey (review): a Western dystopian about a queer caravan of librarians.

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin (review): this is a gruesome post-apocalyptic zombie horror novel with queer trans main characters.

Graphic Novels:

Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey, Pius Bak, and Roman Titov (review): an over-the-top, gruesome, funny, anti-capitalism, queer graphic novel!

Stone Fruit by Lee Lai (review): this is a graphic novel that follows Bron (a trans woman) and Ray (a cis woman) and their complicated relationship to each other and their families. 

Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta by Rosalarian, writing as Megan Rose Gedris (review): silly lesbian mermaid erotica comics.

I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!!! by Rosalarian, writing as Megan Rose Gedris: I’m linking a pirate website (appropriately) because the rights to this comic were essentially stolen from the author and it’s no longer available legitimately, sadly.

Young Adult:

The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta (review): this is a heartwarming, super queer fabulist baking story with an agender/gender-fluid romance—not sapphic, but I can’t miss a chance to recommend it.

The Lost Coast by A.R. Capetta (review): a surreal story about six queer teen witches who band together to save one of them who disappears and then returns…empty behind the eyes.

Once & Future by A.R. Capetta and Cori McCarthy (review): “a queer, sci fi retelling of the Arthur myth, with a female Arthur. It’s somehow simultaneously dystopian, sci fi, and fantasy.”

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco: a sapphic YA fantasy dulogy pitched as Frozen meets Mad Max.

Dreadnought (review) and Sovereign (review) by April Daniels: a trans lesbian YA superhero story–but do be prepared for a lot of transphobia included in the story.

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee (review): more teen superheroes! This one has a bi girl main character, but each book in the series has a different POV, including a trans guy.

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee (review): “a dark academia, witchy, teenage boarding school sapphic romance which includes seances, a three hundred year old murder mystery, and ghosts.”

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston (review): this has an F/F enemies-to-lovers story at its core, but it has a big queer cast.

Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve (review): a paranormal YA novel starring a nonbinary witch zombie and a Muslim lesbian werewolf.

A Dark and Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth: an urban YA fae fantasy with four queer teen main characters.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (review): a bisexual, polyamorous, feminist YA novel with mechas and influence from Chinese history.

YA Graphic Novels:

Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier, illustrated by Val Wise: an F/F YA graphic novel about two cheerleaders, one a trans girl.

As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman (review): a YA graphic novel about a queer Brown kid on a (white) feminist spiritual backpacking trip, where she feel very out of place until she bonds with a trans girl there.

Stage Dreams by Melanie Gillman (review): this is a fast-paced Western comic with a trans Latina main character and a heist plot!

YU+ME: dream by Rosalarian, writing as Megan Rose Gedris: this began as a webcomic in 2004 and ended in 2010, and there are some very big changes that happen in between. It’s a teenage love story–that then turns fantastical and experimental.

The Avant-Guards, Vol. 1 by Carly Usdin and Noah Haye: the adventures of a ragtag college basketball team.

Heavy Vinyl, Vol. 1 by Carly Usdin and Nina Vakueva (review): it’s like Fight Club, but teenagers at a record store.

Middle Grade:

Ellen Outside the Lines by A.J. Sass: a sapphic middle grade contemporary with an autistic main character and nonbinary side character.

Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman (review): This is a middle grade graphic novel collection of queer fairy tales, most of which are sapphic!

Aquicorn Cove by Kay O’Neill (review): I love all of Kay O’Neill’s graphic novels, especially the Tea Dragon Society series. This is a MG fantasy book about grief with a sapphic subplot.

Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill (review): this is an all-ages comic about a princess acting as the knight in shining armor for another princess! It’s super cute.

Lumberjanes series by N.D. Stevenson (review): a fun and silly fantasy graphic novel set at a summer camp, with several queer characters and trans characters.

Nonfiction:

Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote (review) and Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon (review): you should read everything Ivan Coyote writes, for beautiful thoughts about gender, love, and being a human in the world.

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler: one of my favourite reads of last year! It beautifully weaves together Imbler’s memoir, including being Asian and nonbinary in the U.S., with science writing. I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Kicked Out edited by Sassafras Lowrey (review): this was published in 2010, so keep that in mind while reading it, but it’s an invaluable look at the experiences of homeless LGBTQ youth, told from their own perspectives.

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (review): this work is about disability justice: disability activism that centres queer and trans black, indigenous, and people of colour.

The Future is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (review): this is another collection of essays about disability justice, but focused on the experiences of disabled people during the (ongoing) pandemics.

Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (review): accessible, powerful poetry about being a queer disabled femme of colour. This is my favourite poetry book I’ve ever read.

This isn’t a complete list! Let me know in the comments which books I’ve missed that have sapphic content and trans/nonbinary authors.

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I’ve been running the Lesbrary for over a decade, but did you know book blogging is also, separately, my full time job? It’s (somehow) true! My day job is being an Associate Editor at Book Riot. I do a lot of things there, including co-hosting the All the Books podcast, but one of my favourite things I get to do is write Our Queerest Shelves, Book Riot’s twice weekly queer books newsletter!

If you like the Lesbrary, I think you’ll also like my newsletter. I highlight a couple queer new releases every Tuesday and Thursday, plus a big list of more LGBTQ books out that week. I then recommend a few queer books on a theme, like queer autistic teens taking on the world, sapphic romances starring pets (plus two sapphic YA books with dogs named Waffles), queer activism history books, and lots more.

I also include links to some of the most interesting queer lit news stories and book reviews out that week, like I do with Lesbrary Links. Basically, Our Queerest Shelves is a mash-up of everything I do at the Lesbrary, but looking at the whole LGBTQIA2S+ alphabet!

If you’d like to read even more about queer books, sign up for Our Queerest Shelves!

There’s a famous photograph of a Nazi book burning. A mound of books are spread in the street, some smoldering, some still aflame. Surrounding it are people raising the Nazi salute. It’s an eerie image.

I’m sure I was shown it in school. It’s an example of the censorship and the violent intolerance of Nazi Germany. It wasn’t until I was teaching myself, though, that I found out what books those are. This is outside the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in Berlin. It began in 1919, and it collected all kinds of materials on sexology, including pro-LGBT documents, images, and books. It was one of the first of its kind and was an invaluable trove of information, which people used to lobby for LGBT rights. Berlin would become famous for its gay-friendly reputation. In 1933, the Nazi party raided the library and archive, pulling 20,000 books and journals out into the street and burning them, along with thousands of photographs and other materials.

It’s breathtaking to fathom how much was lost in that fire. How many decades of progress was reversed, both by the outright attempted genocide of the Nazi party and their erasure of history. How many of those books, journals, and images were irreplaceable? What really horrified me, though, is that I had never learned about this act of hatred—at least, not who this hatred was directed towards. I had been told books were burned, but not which books. I didn’t know they were part of queer history. Likely, talking about sexology in school would have been considered inappropriate when I was learning about this history. Which means that the coverage of censorship was censored. As I looked at books being burned, the real history was being whitewashed at that very same moment.

The most exciting thing about learning queer history is discovering stories that have been hidden or obscured. So many queer stories have been buried, so many gender outlaws have been rewritten in historical accounts. Unearthing them is exciting. The worst thing about exploring queer history, though, is learning how much has been lost forever. The statues in Hindu temples that were destroyed so their homoeroticism wouldn’t be associated with Indian culture. Pre-Colombian pottery depicting sex between men. Entire Aztec and Mayan libraries by Spanish Jesuits, erasing any of their recorded queer history.

The first book of lesbian poetry was Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes [Some Portrait-Sonnets of Women] by Natalie Clifford Barney, published in 1900. They were all love poems to women. Her mother did the watercolour illustrations—but probably didn’t know just what she was illustrating. The first papers to review her poetry assumed that she was writing from a male persona, oblivious to what was in front of their faces. When newspapers did begin to comment on the scandal, Barney’s father bought up all the remaining copies and burned them.

The correspondence between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok that we have is already pretty scandalous, and definitely romantic. Unfortunately, we’re missing a whole lot of it. Hickok burned any of the more scandalous letters, likely to protect Eleanor’s reputation.

Miriam Van Waters was a prison reformer in the 1940s. With political opponents closing in, she decided to destroy anything that might be used against her. She wrote in her journal, “The Burning of Letters continues. One can have no personal life in this battle, so I have destroyed many letters of over 22 years.” The letters were between her and her partner/patron, Geraldine Thompson. They wrote almost daily. (Read more about her in “The Burning of Letters Continues: Elusive Identities and the Historical Construction of Sexuality” by Estelle B. Freedman.)

Queer writers often left instructions for their personal letters and journals to be destroyed after their death. Winifred Ashton, using the pen name Clemence Dane, wrote The Regiment of Women in 1917. It’s a depressing lesbian book, but is dedicated to E.A., who is most likely Elsie Arnold, a woman she knew for 40 years and lived with for some time.  She was known for her malapropisms, calling herself “randy” when meaning “full of life and creative energy.” A playwright as well as an author, Radclyffe Hall requested she adapt The Well of Loneliness. She was also friends with Vita Sackville-West. Unfortunately, there is very little we know about her: in her will, she appointed literary executors to destroy all personal information about her after her death. None of her personal papers survive.

The destruction of Sappho’s work has become a legend in itself: Gregory Nazianzen Bishop of Constantinople destroyed most of it in the 4th century. Pope Gregory VII destroyed what survived. The Library of Alexandria, which contained her nine volumes of poetry, was burned by Caesar. Or by Christians in the 5th century. Or Caliph Omar. Sappho’s books were burned not for homosexuality, but for being too sexual. Or they were targeted for being gay. Or they were never targeted at all, but didn’t get copied over because they were written in an obscure dialect. Or they’re actually much more preserved than most poets were from that time period. They were burned maliciously, or accidentally, or they simply were neglected. In any case, they were lost. What remains is pieced together from Egyptian mummies’ wrapping and quotations in other works.

Queer history has been forcibly erased—destroyed, defaced, burned. When it wasn’t burned, it was buried, hidden from sight. It’s been rewritten and censored, like T.S. Eliot’s poetry, which Ezra Pound edited to have less gay subtext. Authors hid and disguised their own work, even having their personal information burned after their death. It’s a history of erasure, of having to read between the lines and look for what’s missing. (If you’re looking for more on this topic, definitely check out The Suppression of Lesbian and Gay History by Rictor Norton.) I’m grateful for what had survived—for the artists, authors, and everyday people who risked their own well-being to represent their authentic selves any way they can. For the queer historians digging out queer history from the archives, like Anne Lister’s diaries. I mourn what we lost, celebrate what we have, and look forward to what we will carve out in the future.

This post originally ran on Book Riot.

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Here’s a trope I didn’t realize I loved in a YA novel: complicated families. Whether it’s an unusual family configuration, strained parent relationships, or long-lost siblings, I love seeing queer stories that explore all the different ways biological families can look. I come from a very loving and supportive but also fairly complicated family, so this topic is close to my heart. So here are a few of my favorite YA books with complicated families!

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

There’s a good chance you’re already familiar with this one, because it was hugely popular when it came out! This is a story told in verse about two sisters: one in New York and one in the Dominican Republic. Yahaira lives in New York City with her mother and her father, and Camino only sees her father once a year, when he comes to visit the Dominican Republic–but they actually don’t know about each other until their  father dies.

This is a story about grief, but it’s also about trying to navigate those family secrets as well as finding out more about their father after he died, when they don’t have a chance to talk to him about it or understand why he kept those secrets.

This is a really beautiful story that deals with some pretty difficult subject matter. Camino, especially, is really struggling, and when her father dies, she doesn’t have that  same support and protection that she had before, and that leaves her vulnerable. One of the things I really appreciated about this book was the two main characters slowly starting to  figure out who they might be to each other. We only see the beginning of this, but it stayed with me. This is a beautiful book about the complicated forms that family can take. (Yahaira has a girlfriend, so that’s the queer content.)

You can read my full review here.

This is What it Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow

This is one of my favorite YA books! It’s a literal getting the band back together story with an F/F romance subplot–who can resist that? This follows three teenagers in the summer after they graduated from high school. They used to be best friends and in a band together, but a lot of events transpired at the same time that broke them apart.

When a battle of the bands is announced, though, they have to figure out how to come back together to hopefully win a ten thousand dollar prize, which would be life-changing money for them. What broke up their friend group is that one of the main characters was struggling with alcoholism and was hospitalized. At that same time, Dia’s boyfriend died, and weeks later, she realizes she’s pregnant. So she decides she can’t stay in Hanna’s life as long as Hanna is really self-destructing and drinking so much, especially now that she is pregnant. They don’t talk to each other again until this summer that the story takes place.

What I really liked about this one is telling the story of Dia’s teen pregnancy and being a young mom. I come from a family of young mothers, and it is very difficult to be a young mom, but I also really appreciate stories that show how complicated it is and how you can still have this beautiful family that comes out of it. It’s a fairly small part of the plot, but it does show how Dia’s family came together to help her raise this child.

You can read my full review here.

How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake

This is a heart-wrenching story that is equal parts sweet romance of two girls falling in love and Grace’s difficult relationship with her mother. Eva, Grace’s love interest, has just lost her mom, and she finds comfort in conversations with Grace’s mother, Maggie. Grace feels pulled in several directions: she’s jealous that Maggie and Eva have a better relationship than Maggie and Grace, but she’s also nervous for Eva. Maggie can seem like a gregarious, generous person, but she is unreliable. Grace is the one who has to rescue her from dangerous dive bar situations. She’s the one who is pulled from house to house and Maggie moves in with short-term boyfriends.

Grace also feels like she’s at a crossroads. She dreams of being a pianist and has a crucial audition coming up that would secure her a place at a prestigious school, but she’s afraid of what would happen to her mother if she left her alone.

You can read my full review here.

Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert

Suzette and her brother Lionel used to be very close, but then Lionel started struggling with mental health issues and Suzette was sent away to boarding school. Suzette is bisexual and their family is Black and Jewish, so we see how those intersectionalities play out in Suzette’s life, especially when she was at boarding school, where she had a bad experience and was outed outed.

The focus of this story, though, is Suzette and Lionel trying to repair their relationship. There’s this gulf between them of that missing time–how they were both struggling when they weren’t in each other’s lives–and they’re having trouble getting back to where they were before. Some of the descriptions of this book talk about the love triangle where they are both interested in the same girl, but it isn’t really about that, and it’s not some sort of competitive love triangle. It’s much more about this sibling relationship and their complicated family, where they clearly both care a lot about each other, but are having trouble talking to each other about what’s happened, what’s changed in their family, and about how they can form a new relationship with each other.

You can read my full review here.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth

I couldn’t help but talk about one of my favorite books, The Miseducation of Cameron Post. This book starts with Cameron having her first kiss with a girl and at that same time, far from the ferris wheel she’s riding, her parents die in a tragic audience. When Cam finds out, those two things become connected in her mind. She is sent to live with her very conservative aunt, and she ends up being sent to a conversion camp.

This is a really difficult read in times, but it is beautifully written. I love Cam Post as a character, there’s a bunch of great funny moments, and the side characters are really strong. The complicated family is mostly Cameron trying to reconcile with her grief and with her feelings about her parents, who she never got to come out to, so she doesn’t really get closure. She feels this misplaced guilt that somehow this was a punishment for her kissing a girl, and that’s why her parents died. It’s about her learning to accept her whole self and trying to deal with her grief without punishing herself. This is my favorite YA book of all time. It’s brilliant.

You can read my full review here.

Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin

This is a beautiful historical YA novels set in the 1920s in the U.S. It’s about Garnet, who loves birds, but she can only express her interest in ornithology by cutting intricate silhouettes of birds; that’s the “ladylike” way that she can pursue her interests. Her mother really needs for her to get married to support them, because they don’t really have any other options. Meanwhile, Garnet falls for a flapper girl.

What makes this complicated, and I think what is the strength of the book, is that it discusses what we owe to each other and to our family: the difficulty and complexity of balancing your own individual needs and wants with the people who might be dependent on you. In most queer YA books, you get to come out and live your authentic self, and if your family is not supportive, you walk away from them. But for Garnet, she knows if she walks away from her mother, she has almost no way to support herself. Her mother would be fairly helpless living as an older single woman in 1920s America with no money and no backup. Silhouette of a Sparrow grapples with those really difficult questions about family and individuality.

You can read my full review here.

Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar

What I really liked about this book is that it has two main characters who are both queer Bengali Irish teenagers, but they’re very different from each other: they have very different families, they speak different languages, they have different religions. One of them is out as bisexual to her family, who is extremely accepting, and the other character has a family where she can’t really safely come out.

I think that in modern queer YA, we don’t see many families where you just don’t come out–because it’s not a good idea or because you don’t feel safe doing it. And I think it’s important to have that representation. The comparison between those two very different Bengali Irish families made it such an interesting book to read with that lens.

Another complicated family component to this is that Ishu has spent her life being fiercely competitive with her older sister. She’s even competing to be head girl (that’s how she got into this fake dating mess) to try to one-up her sister. But they begin to have a different dynamic with some distance, and a subplot of this story is them rebuilding their relationship as something more supportive.

You can read my full review here.

The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe

This is about Nora, who was raised by her con artist mother. She had to participate in a lot of cons and become different people in all of them. Obviously, that is already a very complicated family. She no longer has much contract with her mother, and she’s living with her older sister who helped her get out that dangerous situation. They are trying to leave that life behind them, but Nora ends up being caught up in a bank robbery and held hostage with her girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend.

This is an incredible thriller: it’s so fast-paced. Definitely check out the trigger warnings, though, because it is also one of the most brutal books I have read. It is incredibly effective, and for the purposes of this list, it really shows how difficult it is for Nora to have grown up with this mother, who did not provide a safe and loving environment for her, but who also helped inform so much of who she is, and Nora trying to detangle those. If you are okay with really difficult subject matter, including rape, murder, and gore, and if you want to read a thriller about misogyny, I highly recommend this one.

You can read my full review here.

Middletown by Sarah Moon

This is the book that inspired this post! It’s YA novel about two sisters who are trying to stay out of foster care while their mother is in rehab, and it It also has a gender questioning main character.

Not only do Eli and Anna have a difficult relationship with their mother–Eli always accepts their mother’s apologies after she comes home from the drunk tank, while Anna storms to her bedroom and slams the door–they also have a complicated relationship to each other. They used to be very close, but there’s been distance between them ever since Anna threw out all her soccer gear one night and started dressed in black with no explanation. Now, while their mother is in rehab, they have only each other. And if they’re going to avoid getting split up by foster care, they’ll have to be persistent. (Anna dresses up as their aunt and goes to Eli’s parent teacher conferences.)

Quickly, though, their plans fall apart, and in the scramble and impromptu road trip that results, they’ll learn their family is even more complicated than they imagined.

You can read my full review here.

This post was originally a video sponsored by Middletown! If you want to hear me talk about these books instead of reading it, I’ve included the original video.

If you like what we do here and want to see more of it, support the Lesbrary on Patreon and get queer books in the mail throughout the year!

For Pride month, the Lesbrary has posts going up every day in June! Today, I’m talking about 10 sapphic books that completely blew my mind.

As a bit of a sapphic book connoisseur, nothing makes me happier than talking about queer women books. For the last decade or so, they’ve been a huge part of my reading life, and I’ve found so many wonderful bi and lesbian books that way. Unfortunately, lesbian books in particular seem to have a reputation for low quality.

Maybe it’s because when you search “lesbian books” on Amazon, you get pages of $1 erotica, but I’ve heard many queer readers say they’ve given up on bi and lesbian books because they think they’re either a) badly-written, b) depressing, or c) both. Some have gotten the idea that most lesbian books are written by and for straight men. It pains me to know that so many people are missing out on reading amazing sapphic literature because of misconceptions about queer women lit as a whole.

So here are 10 books about queer women that I think are truly mind-blowing. Not just “good,” but thought-provoking, unforgettable, and even (in my case) life-changing. Whether you are a queer woman or not, I don’t think you can go wrong with these bi and lesbian books.

(These aren’t ranked in any order, because that would be way too hard.)

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

This is gorgeous, multifaceted story that I bounced between wanting to read cover to cover in one sitting and setting aside for weeks because I wasn’t emotionally prepared to dive back into it. While it took me a bit to finish, it completely floored me, and I was left thinking about it long after finishing it.

Light From Uncommon Stars is such a tricky, contradictory books to recommend. It’s about aliens and demons and curses, but it’s also a grounded, realistic character study. It’s hopeful and comforting, but it also contains abuse, bigotry, and a lot of brutal descriptions of transmisogyny. This disparate parts combine into a heartachingly affective story, but do be prepared to be reading about both the kindness and the cruelty of humanity.

If you like the idea of a science fiction meets fantasy meets coming-of-age contemporary story with queer main characters, I can’t recommend this highly enough. It’s a masterpiece.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

This is a classic for a reason. Despite covering extremely dark subject matter (including rape, violence, and racism), it is also profoundly life-affirming. This is a story about women who all survive, through different methods, the misogynoir that is impressed upon them, but they still reach across their differences to support each other.

Celie and Shug’s relationship helps form the core of the novel, and it’s Shug’s love for Celie that helps her on her path to finding her own self-worth. This is a book that I feel like reading once only scratches the surface. I’m sure I will be returning to it many times.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

I hesitated between choosing Tipping the Velvet or Fingersmith, two amazing books by my favorite author, but while Tipping the Velvet is my personal favorite, Fingersmith fits the “mind-blowing” label more closely.

This is the most intricately-plotted book I’ve ever read. Every time I thought I knew what was happening, I would be blindsided by another revelation. I didn’t think I liked historical fiction until I read Sarah Waters for the first time and was promptly proven wrong.

This is dark and twisting, including in the complex love story, but (spoiler) it does end on a hopeful note.

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The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m danforth

Although there are some amazing F/F books under the young adult umbrella, I feel like The Miseducation of Cameron Post stands out from the pack. The writing completely drew me into Cam’s world, and this is the first time I’ve finished a book that pushes 500 pages and fervently wished it was at least 300 pages longer. Although a doorstopper book about conversion therapy sounds like a harrowing reading experience, the beautiful writing and memorable characters kept me glued to the pages until the end, unable to put it down even while walking to work.

(Do check out Debbie Rees’s critique of the indigenous representation in this title, however.)

Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue

I love fairy tale retellings, but this collection of feminist, mostly-F/F retellings has likely ruined me for all others. They’re beautifully-written, and each story connects to the next, so despite being separate, they all flow together.

This is a classic of lesbian literature at this point, and for good reason.

You may know Emma Donoghue as the author of Room, but most of her books are sapphic, and they’re all must reads. This is the one that made her one of my all-time favourite authors.

The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson

Incredibly, I was assigned this in class. Although I was reading another amazing queer book at the time and was reluctant to start something new, I changed my mind where there was a F/F sex scene on page 15.

This is a work about gods, colonialism, racism, oppression, resistance, and slavery, to begin with. There is a ton going on, but I was happy to be swept up in it and carried along, even when I seemed to be over my head. This surreal, intertwining story was a perfect candidate to be discussed and interpreted in class. I hope other students get the same opportunity.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

I picked this up because I heard it was a steampunk, alternate history of the Congo, and was pleasantly surprised to find out there are also several queer women point of view characters.

The steampunk element is a little lighter than I had expected, but what is there is an incredibly detailed view of colonialism and racism from a wide variety of viewpoints. This has so much complexity packed into it. Although it took me a while to get through, because of the constant POV changes and thought-provoking subject matter, it’s also one that has stayed with me long after finishing it, and has made me immediately want to read every other book Nisi Shawl has written.

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

This is a black sapphic vampire story that takes place from 1850-2050. Not only does it deal with how racism, sexism, and homophobia have changed (but survived) throughout time, it also has a ton of classic vampire lore and manages to establish a ton of different locations and stories through the time periods that are equally compelling. Added together, these stories also give some perspective to what being immortal would look like: the sheer scale of living for hundreds of years.

You can’t call yourself a true fan of lesbian/sapphic vampires until you read this and Carmilla!

The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg

I was a mess reading this book. 5 pages in and I had to put it down to squeal with glee: The art! The narration! The surreal worldbuilding! The F/F couple in the middle of it!! The feminism! The cleverness!

I was cackling as I read it, and barely suppressing the desire to read at least one line of every page out loud to whoever was nearby. This is a feminist, queer retelling of The Arabian Nights with beautiful artwork and a sense of humor that would make Kate Beaton proud. I just want to hug it to my chest and sigh dreamily. This is the queer feminist mythology we deserve.

Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue

Oops, I snuck another Emma Donoghue book into the list. This is a book that outlines the history of sapphic literature, and it shows how desire between women in literature has existed basically as long as literature has. This book exploded my brain. I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t aware of the long legacy of love between women in stories. It made me feel more connected to a lineage of women like me through time. If you’re interest in queer women lit at all, I highly recommend picking this up. Don’t be intimidated: this is easy to read, and if you’re anything like me, it’ll leave you with a long list of titles to pursue when you’re done.

So those are my top 10 mind-blowing sapphic reads, but it’s far from a complete list. Please let me know if you’ve read any bi and lesbian books that have blown your mind that aren’t included here, because I’m always looking for more!

This original version of this article was posted at Book Riot.

Support the Lesbrary on Patreon at $2 or more a month and be entered to win a queer women book every month!

Welcome to Pride Month at the Lesbrary! We’re celebrating with a post every day. We’re starting with an updated version of my giant list of all the sapphic books I’ve read and loved! According to my calculations, I’ve read about 500 bi and lesbian books in my life, most of which I’ve reviewed here, if that gives any authority to these recs!

The Lesbrary has been around since 2010, so we’ve covered a lot of books here. It can be overwhelming. You can browse by genre, rating, and representation, but if you’re looking for a shorter list, here are a few of my personal favorites by genre. Most of them are linked to my full reviews.

These are just my (Danika’s) picks, so be sure to browse the site for all the other Lesbrarians’ favorite books!

Classics:

• Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
• The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (review)
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker (review)
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf (review)

Fiction:

• Nevada by Imogen Binnie (review)
• The Very Nice Box by Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman (review)
• Milk Fed by Melissa Broder (review)
• My Education by Susan Choi (review)
• Missed Her by Ivan Coyote (review)
• Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi (review)
• Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg (review)
• Just Girls by Rachel Gold (review)
• Painting Their Portraits in Winter by Myriam Gurba (review)
• Stray City by Chelsey Johnson (review)
• When Fox is a Thousand by Larissa Lai (review)
• The Collection edited by Tom Leger and Riley Macleod (review)

• Lost Boi by Sassafras Lowrey (review)
• Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (review)
• The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie (review)
• Hero Worship by Rebekah Matthews (review)
• A Dream of a Woman: Stories by Casey Plett (review)
• A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett (review)
• Lizzy & Annie by Casey Plett (review)
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (review)
• Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera (review)
• (You) Set Me On Fire by Mariko Tamaki (review)
• Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
• Fresh by Margot Wood (review) (New Adult)

Historical Fiction:

• The Last Nude by Ellis Avery (review)
• Miss Timmins’ School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy (review)
• The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley (review)
• Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin (review) (YA)
• Prairie Ostrich by Tamai Kobayashi (review)
• All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell (review) (YA)
• Pulp by Robin Talley (review) [YA]
• Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
• The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

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Middle Grade:

• Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (review)
• Hazel’s Theory of Evolution by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (review) [Two moms]
• Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender (review)
• Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee (review)
• P. S. I Miss You by Jen Petro-Roy (review)
• Goldie Vance: The Hocus Pocus Hoax by Lilliam Rivera (review)
• Kenzie Kickstarts a Team (The Derby Daredevils #1) by Kit Rosewater, illustrated by Sophie Escabasse (review)

Middle Grade Graphic Novels:

• Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales by Melanie Gillman (review)
• The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor (review) (Graphic Novel)
• Aquicorn Cove by Kay O’Neill (review)
• The Girl from the Sea by Molly Ostertag (review)
• Space Battle Lunchtime Volumes 1 & 2 by Natalie Riess (Vol 1 & 2 review) (Vol 3 review)
• Lumberjanes by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Shannon Watters (review)

Young Adult Contemporary:

• Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo (review)
• Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli (review)
• This is What it Feels Like by Rebecca Barrow (review)
• Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow (review)
• Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake (review)
• How to Make a Wish by Ashley Herring Blake (review)
• The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta (review) [agender main character/genderfluid love interest]
• Fat Angie: Rebel Girl Revolution by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo (review)
• Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert (review)
• The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth (review)
• Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan (review)
• Verona Comics by Jennifer Dugan (review) [Bisexual M/F, Bi LI)

• Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett (review) [Bisexual M/F]
• The Difference Between You and Me by Madeleine George (review)
• In the Silences by Rachel Gold (review)
• Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin (review)
• Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan (review)
• You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan (review)
• A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo (review)
• Indestructible Object by Mary McCoy (review)
• Out of Character by Jenna Miller (review)
• Middletown by Sarah Moon (review)
• Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy (review) [Bisexual M/F]
• Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (review)

• The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus (review)
• Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen (review)
• Noteworthy by Riley Redgate (review) [Bisexual M/F]
• Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
• The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe (review) [Thriller]
• Under Threat by Robin Stevenson
• As I Descended by Robin Talley (review)
• Pulp by Robin Talley (review)
• Follow Your Arrow by Jessica Verdi (review) [Bisexual M/F]
• The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde (review)
• Going Off Script by Jen Wilde (review)
• Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde (review)
• The House You Pass On the Way by Jacqueline Woodson (review)

YA Romance:

• Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler (review)
• Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler
• Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins (review)
• Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick (review)
• Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar (review)
• The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (review)
• She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick (review)
• I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston (review)
• She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen (review)

YA Anthologies:

• All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages edited by Saundra Mitchell (review)
• Fools In Love: Fresh Twists on Romantic Tales edited by Rebecca Podos and Ashley Herring Blake (review)

SFF Young Adult:

• Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust (review)
• The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow (review)
• The Lost Coast by A. R. Capetta (review)
• Once and Future by A. R. Capetta and Cori McCarthy (review)
• Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova (review)
• Of Fire and Stars (review) and Of Ice and Shadows (review) by Audrey Coulthurst
• Dreadnought by April Daniels (review) and Sovereign (Dreadnought #2) by April Daniels (review)
• The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (review) (YA Horror)
• Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel by A. W. Jantha
• Adaptation (review), Inheritance (review), and Natural Selection (Adaptation 1.5) (review) by Malinda Lo
• The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (review) (YA Horror)
• Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce (review)
• Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft edited by Tess Sharpe (review)
• Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley (review)

Science Fiction:

• Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (review)
• An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (review)
• Meanwhile, Elsewhere edited by Cat Fitzpatrick and Casey Plett (review)
• The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist by S.L. Huang (review)
• The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw (review)
• Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi (review)
• The Seep by Chana Porter (review)
• The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling (review)
• Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead (review)

Fantasy:

• Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey (review)
• The Unbroken by C.L. Clark (review)
• The Narrows by m. craig (review)
• The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean (review)
• Indigo Springs by A.M. Dellamonica (review)
• Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue
• Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older (review)
• The Second Mango by Shira Glassman (review)
• “The Freedom of the Shifting Sea” by Jaymee Goh from New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color edited by Nisi Shawl (review)
• Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (review)
• Spear by Nicola Griffith (review)

• The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson (review)
• Falling In Love With Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson (review)
• Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson (review)
• The Worldbreaker Saga by Kameron Hurley (review)
• Bearly a Lady by Cassandra Khaw (review)
• Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks (review)
• A Lake of Feathers and Moonbeams by Dax Murray (review)
• Everfair by Nisi Shawl (review)
• The Dawnhounds (Against the Quiet #1) by Sascha Stronach (review)
• Hellebore & Rue edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and Catherine Lundoff (review)
• The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (review)
• Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel (review)

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Horror/Zombies/Vampires:

• Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (review)
• Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth (review)
• Fist of the Spider Woman edited by Amber Dawn (review)
• Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
• A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson (review)
• The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez (review)
• The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould (review) (YA Horror)
• Gnarled Hollow by Charlotte Greene
• Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram (review)
• The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (review)
• Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampire Stories by Pam Kesey
• The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan (review)
• Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado (review)
• The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh (review) (YA Horror)
• Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon (review)

Romance and Erotica:

• Rescued Heart by Georgia Beers (review)
• Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake (review)
• My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris (review)
• A Pirate’s Heart by Catherine Friend (review)
• Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman (review)
• One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (review)
• A Merry Little Meet Cute by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone (review) [Bi/Bi M/F romance]
• Roller Girl by Vanessa North (review)
• The Long Way Home by Rachel Spangler (review)
• Macho Sluts by Patrick Califia (review)
• Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica edited by Sinclair Sexsmith (review)

Comics/Graphic Novels:

• Eat the Rich by Sarah Gailey, Pius Bak, and Roman Titov (review)
• As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman (review)
• Stage Dreams by Melanie Gillman (review)
• The Legend of Auntie Po by Shing Yin Khor (review)
• Stone Fruit by Lee Lai (review)
• Goldie Vance Vol. 1 by Hope Larson (Author) and Brittney Williams (illustrator) (review) (as well as Vol 2 and Vol 3)
• Slip written by Marika McCoola and illustrated by Aatmaja Pandya (review)
• Sugar Town by Hazel Newlevant (review)
• Jem and the Holograms by Kelly Thompson and Sophie Campbell
• Heavy Vinyl, Volume 1 by Carly Usdin and Nina Vakueva (review)

SFF Graphic Novels:

• Heathen, Volume 1 by Natasha Alterici (review)
• When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll (review)
• The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars by Michael Dante DiMartino
• Motor Crush Vol 1 by Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr (review)
• Kim Reaper: Grim Beginnings and Vampire Island by Sarah Graley (review)
• The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg (review)
• America Volume 1 and Volume 2 by Gabby Rivera
• Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta by Ro Salarian (review)
• Supermutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki (review)
• Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess Vols. 1-3 by Jeremy Whitley (review)

Manga:

• I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up by Naoko Kodama (review)
• Girl Friends: The Complete Collection by Milk Morinaga (review of volume 1, review of volume 2)
• My Cute Little Kitten Vol. 1 by Milk Morinaga (review)
• My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata
• Revolutionary Girl Utena manga by Chiho Saito (review)
• Whisper Me a Love Song Vol. 1-4 by Eku Takeshima (review)
• How Do We Relationship? Volumes 1 & 2 by Tamifull (review)
• Citrus, Vols 1-3 by Saburo Uta (review)

Nonfiction Comics & Graphic Memoirs:

• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (review)
• I’m a Wild Seed: My Graphic Memoir on Queerness and Decolonizing the World by Sharon Lee De La Cruz (review)
• Be Gay, Do Comics!: Queer History, Memoir, and Satire from the Nib (review)
• Kimiko Does Cancer: A Graphic Memoir by Kimiko Tobimatsu, illustrated by Keet Geniza (review)
• War of Streets and Houses by Sophie Yanow (review)

Memoirs and Biographies:

• Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison (review)
• The Life and Times of Butch Dykes by Eloisa Aquino (review)
• The Family Tooth by Ellis Avery (review)
• When We Were Outlaws by Jeanne Cordova (review)
• Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote (review) [Nonbinary]
• Hunger by Roxane Gay (review)
• Prairie Silence by Melanie Hoffert (review)
• How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler (review) [Nonbinary]
• Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar (review)
• Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde (review)
• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (review)
• First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon (review) [Nonbinary]
• Gender Failure by Rae Spoon & Ivan E. Coyote (review) [Nonbinary]
• Before the Rain: A Memoir of Love & Revolution by Luisita Lopez Torregrosa (review)
• Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family and Identity by Candace Walsh (review)

Nonfiction:

• Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker, illustrated by Julia Scheele (review)
• Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman (review)
• Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire by Lisa M. Diamond (review)
• Inseparable: Desire Between Women In Literature by Emma Donoghue (review)
• Queers Dig Time Lords edited by Sigrid Ellis and Michael Damian Thomas (review)
• Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer
• The ABCs of LGBT+ by Ash Hardell (review)
• Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai (review)
• Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (review)
• Kicked Out edited by Sassafras Lowrey (review)
• Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller (review)
• The Whole Lesbian Sex Book by Felice Newman (review)
• The Women’s House of Detention by Hugh Ryan (review)
• Dear John, I Love Jane edited by Candace Walsh and Laura Andre (review)

Poetry:

• Sisterhood by Julie R. Enszer (review)
• Bodymap by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (review)
• When I Was Straight by Julie Marie Wade (review)
• If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho edited by Anne Carson

If you like what we do here and want to see more of it, buy us a coffee, or support the Lesbrary on Patreon for $2 or more a month and be entered into monthly book giveaways!

Happy Pride Eve! Of course, at the Lesbrary we celebrate sapphic books all year long, but Pride is the one time of year that queer books get a spotlight, and this year, we want to take advantage of that!

To celebrate, the Lesbrary will be posting an article every day in June! Some will be re-posts of content you might have missed, some will be updated versions of previous posts, and some will be brand new. This is in addition to the regular features like reviews, so some days will have two posts go up. So check back every day in June for posts like: sapphic mermaid books, F/F romances by Black authors, queer lit lost in the fire, and lots more.

I’m also hoping to use this time to promote the Lesbrary Patreon! By supporting the Lesbrary for $2 a month, you get entered in monthly giveaways of sapphic books–and I have a huge stack I can’t wait to get to a good home! You also get access to the Lesbrary Discord channel, where we have a little community of nerds who love queer books. $10 and up Patrons get a monthly lesbian pulp fiction postcard from me in the mail, as well as a guaranteed sapphic book every three months (on top of the giveaways). Or you can pledge $25 to become an Honorary Lesbrarian and get a sapphic book in the mail every month, on top of the other rewards.

With the rise in anti-LGBTQ book bans, now is the perfect time to celebrate Pride by stocking up on queer books and books by queer authors and recommending them to others, so get ready to see your TBR grow. And while you’re doing that, make sure to show up to your local school board and library board meetings to fight for the freedom to read. Here’s an anti-censorship tool kit that has more info on fighting book bans.

Happy Pride! And be sure to come back every day in June for more sapphic book recs!