LGBT Fiction Recommendations
This section aims to give a wide range of different literary works for those seeking to see themselves represented in media.
Warning: Please check online for any potential trigger warnings before reading.
MLM Narratives
“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
The Song Of Achilles is an imaginative retelling of the Illiad from the point of view of Patroclus, who later becomes Achilles lover. The text remains truthful to the source material, spanning from before the Trojan war to the aftermath. This text does deal with the loss of Achilles and Patroclus' lives, but that is merely staying true to the original story. Nevertheless, their love story is richly outlined in this story, and is a favorite read for me to go back to.
Considered a young adult novel, the story deals with themes of war and death. This novel can be found at the Joplin Public Library or any independent bookdealer of your choice.
“Making Ronan Lynch smile felt as charged as making a bargain with Cabeswater. These were not forces to play with.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King
A four part series, The Raven Cycle deals with four teenagers coming of age as they attempt to solve the mystery of finding the location of a lost welsh king. Featuring a bisexual character, Adam Parrish who is seen in a romantic relationship with both a girl and a boy, as well as his love interest, Ronan Lynch. Both character's are complex in their family relationships and how they are comprised together.
The second series, Call Down the Hawk, further follows the life of Ronan Lynch and his boyfriend, Adam Parrish. An absolute must read!
“Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King
“And it seemed to me that Dante's face was a map of the world. A world without any darkness.
Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is an absolute must-read that will leave you turning every page until you reach the end. With a happy ending for two gay poc boys, this is a one in a million novel that doesn't come around every day. A must read!
WLW Narratives
The 1st day, I stood in the kitchen leaning against the counter watching Annie feed the cats, and I knew I wanted to do that forever.
― Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind
An absolute classic, Anne on My Mind is a must-read for any reader starting out on their LGBT reading career. Featuring the life of a teenage girl coming of age in New York City, she is learning that her feelings towards her close friend is more than strictly platonic. Written in the early 1980's this novel does feature a more conservative standpoint that while they are capable of love, they will have to be careful to hide it. Nevertheless, it is a hallmark of LGBT fiction and a definite must-read for those looking for a good WLW narrative to start off on.
“Instead of disappearing, she makes me feel reappeared. Reimagined. Her touch shapes me, draws out the boldness that had been hiding in my core.”
― Natasha Ngan, Girls of Paper and Fire
“I want to be a body for you. I want to chase you, find you, I want to be eluded and teased and adored; I want to be defeated and victorious—I want you to cut me, sharpen me. I want to drink tea beside you in ten years or a thousand. Flowers grow far away on a planet they’ll call Cephalus, and these flowers bloom once a century, when the living star and its black-hole binary enter conjunction.I want to fix you a bouquet of them, gathered across eight hundred thousand years, so you can draw our whole engagement in a single breath, all the ages we’ve shaped together.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War
Transgender Narratives
“It was true she never did her own laundry or tidied away her own teacups, and that she left me to scrub suspicious bloodstains out of the floor of the kitchen, had once vomited in my hat, on a separate occasion prevailed upon me to move her hand from her waist to her forehead because she lacked the energy to lift it herself, and, on this very evening, had thrown a chandelier at my head, but I remained convinced that she was, deep down, a good and honourable person.”
― Alexis Hall, The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
An oddball retelling of Sherlock Holmes, this story involves a trans mlm puritan main character John Watson along with the terribly unknowable pansexual sorceress Sherlock. A surprising delight if you want something new in the detective department!
“I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn't decide what it wanted to be?”
― Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts
Featuring a trans woman and a nonbinary sidekick, this sci-fi novel absolutely satisfies an itch for nonbinary representation that is treated respectfully! The main character is also deaf, which is a bonus for disability representation.
“In the early twentieth century, the Congress of our great nation debated a glorious plan to resolve a meat shortage in America. The idea was this: import hippos and raise them in Louisiana’s bayous. The hippos would eat the ruinously invasive water hyacinth; the American people would eat the hippos; everyone would go home happy. Well, except the hippos. They’d go home eaten. Much to everyone’s disappointment, Congress didn’t follow through on the plan, and today America lives a cursed life—a beef life, with nary a free-range hippo within the borders of our country.”
--Sarah Gailey, River of Teeth
Featuring a nonbinary character in a romance with a man, this book can only be described by the excerpt above. Fun fact, Congress only lost the vote by one! We almost had a future with hippos in the Mississippi river.