reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
We asked what rec lists you guys would like to see & got this gorgeous request that maybe, possibly we have almost fought over. Just maybe.
So anyway, the request was: “wholesome books full of queer characters if possible, essentially just books that feel like a big queer warm hug because I cannot handle reading anything else”. You would fight to recommend people books like that, too, wouldn’t you? Enjoy then!
At this point it’s a tradition: I’ve already made a compilation posts about 2019 LGBT YA books & about 2020 LGBT YA books (first half of the year and second).
So it’s absolutely no surprise to anyone that I’m here with a list of LGBT YA books of 2021, right? Well, the first half of the year anyway. Over 175 of them! Have I missed any?
The books are (more or less) in a chronological order of publication, and I tried to be as specific with the rep as it was possible, given I have only read a few of them so far myself. Which of course means, please correct me if I’m wrong. As always, books by LGBT authors also have a rainbow emoji next to the title. Enjoy and preorder!
Today’s post is our, slightly delayed, book of the month announcement! This time, we’ve chosen Me, My Dad and the End of the Rainbow, a children’s-slash-middle-grade book about a kid who just wants to make his dad happy, so he sets off to Pride in order to do that. If you want a book that will make you feel happy and full of love, this is the book for you.
You can also check out my (Charlotte’s) review of it here!
It’s a busy start to 2021 for this blog, what with our favourite books and tv/film/other media of 2020 posts, but now we come to the exciting stuff. Our 12 most anticipated releases of January to June 2021. There are, obviously, a vast number of books we couldn’t include here, so this is not the be all and end all of everything we’re excited about.
This year we are also going to do our best to actually read every book that we select in these two posts (instead of deciding to try it in September, leaving Anna with a near impossible task).
Also an important note from Anna: there are books I was able to choose as my most anticipated because I haven’t read them yet, because unlike Charlotte I’m a little baby forever stuck in a reading slump and I don’t read ARCs we’re granted on time.
Buckle in, guys, this is gonna be a monster of a post! To give you some context for just how giant our list of favourite reads of this year is: we only listed three books each from 2018 & five books each from 2019.
But this time? We had to divide our list into 3 categories: backlist books, books released in 2020 & books to be released in 2021. We also cheated for the last two categories and added a group of books that both of us loved, so we didn’t have to fight over them. Also all the groups are 5 books long, apart from the group of 2021 ARCs which is uhh… 16 books long.
So yes, in total here are 41 books we read this year and loved the most! Enjoy!
After three days of wrangling this post (there is nothing worse than when your browser and internet connection decide to take turns screwing up while you’re trying to make the longest post known to man), it’s finally done! An absolutely not at all definitive list of books we heard about too late to add them to our monthly releases lists. Yeah, that’s a mouthful I know.
Undoubtedly, there are still yet more we’ve missed off, even after all this, but here are the 380 or so books that we didn’t get the first time round.
But before we start, just for you all, have a list of
It being the end of 2020 (finally) it’s time to start looking ahead to what 2021 has to offer us in terms of releases (spoilers: it’s a lot and it looks amazing). So, if you’re wondering what to do with the Christmas money and/or book tokens you’ve received, then here are 65 books releasing in January you might consider preordering!
As ever, you can find all our previous releases posts here and the rainbow emoji indicates an author who id’s as LGBT.
I already showed you all the M/M books written by achillean authors that were published in the first half of this year. Now it’s time for the second half!
I use the “ownvoices” term from the title in a pretty loose sense. So you will find books here by gay authors featuring bi characters, and so on. But at the end of the day, all the authors in this post know first-hand what love between men looks like.
Without a further ado, then!
A while back, Anna asked for rec list suggestions and one of the ones that came up was nonbinary SFF. Now, they passed that onto me, since that’s not really their ballpark, and I sort of changed the rules ever so slightly. Instead of solely nonbinary rep (although most of the books here are still that), I’ve just gone for SFF that actually considers gender in its worldbuilding.
It’s a smaller category than you might think, sadly. But because it’s Christmas (or another winter holiday of your choice), I’ve lengthened this post from the usual 10 books to include a couple more.
So, enjoy!
Books which features coming out scenes are all very well and good — we do, after all, need to see a wide range of those and there are areas where that story still hasn’t been told — but sometimes you just want to read a book where the fact that the main character is gay is wholly incidental to the story. That is, not a coming out story, nor really a romance.
So, here are 10 books which (hopefully) suit that remit. Yes, some do feature romances, but they aren’t romance books, in the sense that it’s central to the story. (Oh, and they’re all contemporary, because it doesn’t really make sense to make my task easier by including other genres, since obviously they wouldn’t have coming out scenes.)
But anyway. On with the list.
In case you haven’t heard of Bywater Books before now, they are an independent publishing company that only publishes lesbian fiction. So obviously, they’re one of our favourites. And we are very lucky to be able to review three of their books today!
So, if you’re looking for a contemporary romance, or a mystery, check out these books!
It’s finally time! The results are in! Six weeks of voting and over 1000 votes cast, and we finally have the winners right here.
Last year, we included the top five (or more, since there were a lot of ties) in each category but this year, we can have a distinct top three in every category bar one, so that’s what we’ve gone with. However, if you do want to know how the numbers worked out, there’ll be a link below to the results (as of tomorrow, probably, thanks to internet connectivity and slow computer issues).
Otherwise, happy scrolling!
If you want something a little more light-hearted to read this or next month, perhaps some middle grade lit, perhaps featuring a trans mc, then look no further than our December book of the month! And to make it even better, the book featured here is a sequel, so you can get on the first book right away, just in time for the next one in January. And you can support a self-published author.
It’s wins all round.
Can you guys believe this hell year is almost over? Yeah, me neither! I have no idea when this happened and how the time works anymore. I sure am glad that 2020 is basically behind us, though. Hopefully next year will be better. Anyway! If you’re looking for last minute holiday gifts or simply something to read on a cozy winter afternoon, browse away! There are almost 50 LGBT books coming out in December 2020!
A reminder that a rainbow emoji indicates that the author is LGBT, but not necessarily that the specific rep in the book is ownvoices.
And if you need some more books, you can find all our previous releases posts here.
I had absolutely no idea what rec list to make for today so, in a sort of democracy I suppose, I got people on twitter to choose between this, butch lesbians and yes this book is gay. (Don’t worry, the latter two will be coming, although maybe not so soon.)
We all know that yearning is a massive part of the best LGBT lit, at what we all yearn (lol) for. So, here are ten of my favourites that just hit that sweet spot.
Yes, there are some upcoming books on this list, I can’t be held accountable for it though.
