While Pride Month may be a great reminder to revisit your favorite LGBTQIA+ must-reads, anytime is a good time to dive into the amazing range of queer literature gracing the shelves at your local (or online) bookstore. And if you’re looking to 2022 for some fresh new reads, look no further than these 12 new queer books that we can’t stop talking about.
Here are some favorite coming-out stories for Pride Month>>
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
Following his award-winning novel Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart is back with Young Mungo, which is just as heartbreaking and beautifully written as his debut. Set in Glasgow, Stuart’s sophomore novel follows a young queer boy who is trying to find himself in a world that feels like it is falling apart. It is a gem of a novel.
We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart
Michelle Hart’s novel starts with, “When Mallory was in college, she had an affair with a woman twice her age.” If that doesn’t seal the deal for you to drop everything and read this hot and steamy novel, then I don’t know what else to tell you.
Content Warning: Everything by Akwaeke Emezi
Critically acclaimed writer Akwaeke Emezi shows us the power of their pen in this debut poetry collection written through the spirtfirst perspective. Emezi is an auto-buy writer.
Greenland by David Santos Donaldson
A queer literary debut, Greenland is about a Black gay author who is writing a story around the affair between E.M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl. It is an imaginative novel that shows the reader what fiction can do and where it can take us.
And the Category Is…. By Ricky Tucker
For fans of Pose and HBO Max’s Legendary, And the Category Is… gives us a deep dive inside the New York iconic ballroom scene, helping us understand the impact that this community has had on LGBTQIA+ culture.
Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada, Translated by Kit Maude
A trans coming-of-age novel, Camila Sosa Villada with this book cements themselves as a new exciting voice in world literature.
Other Names for Love by Taymnour Soomro
Garth Greenwell, the writer behind Cleanness, says, “this haunted, haunting novel is about the cruelties we commit in our search for freedom and the bonds from which we can never be free.” Other Names for Love is a coming-of-age novel about a young queer boy struggling with his identity.
The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela
Bryan Washington, author of Memorial, calls this novel, “a queer masterpiece.” If Bryan Washington says a novel is a masterpiece then as faithful literary citizens, we must pick the book up and drop everything to read it.
Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde
Set in Nigeria, Vagabonds! is a novel that puts on display the lives of those who are pushed to the margins. This book has it all—queerness, fantasy, myth and much more. You don’t want to let the year end without getting emersed in this debut.
My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson
Set in 1980’s New York, this coming-of-age queer novel introduces us to a character and a story that we won’t soon forget. Rasheed Newson is a writer that we all should be excited about.
Break This House by Candice Iloh
National Book Award finalist Candice Iloh is back with their second YA novel about a teenager who is forced to face the past and find the true meaning behind the words family and home. Iloh is a writer that I’m constantly excited about.
High Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez
High Risk Homosexual is about what it is like coming of age as a Latinx gay man. It has humor. It is vulnerable. This is one of the hottest memoirs out this year and you surely don’t want to miss it.
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