reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
It’s been a little while since we featured a sapphic book on our book of the month feature, but this month’s is just that! I (Charlotte) have read this book and adored it, so I can’t recommend highly enough that you preorder it. (You can also read some of the other works by this author in the meantime, which are also not straight so…)
But anyway, read on to find out more about this book!
Have you ever picked up a gay middle grade book, in the hopes of something lighter to read in between YA or adult books, and suddenly found yourself bawling over it, because there’s something about MG that just hits and yet is so hopeful?
If you haven’t, you’re missing out.
So, in the interests of helping you not miss out any more, I have compiled a rec list of MG books for you to cry over*.
*Disclaimer: you might not actually cry. I don’t know.
Because I haven’t read huge amounts of LGBT MG myself, here you’ll find 6 books I’d rec, and 4 upcoming releases I can’t wait to read.
Enjoy!
If there is one thing I care about deeply when it comes to YA literature, it’s supportive parents. I firmly believe that at least in fiction, LGBT kids deserve only the best. And nothing can be more formative than your parents being perfectly fine with who you are (as they always should be!) & allowing you to grow up with love and confidence.
So this is why this rec list got made. Because as much as I personally adore supportive parents, it’s still not the opinion shared by majority and books featuring them are scarce. All the more reasons to appreciate them!
…or urbanish, since most of these turned out to be historical fantasies. But that still counts, in my opinion.
But anyway! Today’s rec list is a continuation of a previous one, because I’ve done high fantasy, I did adult fantasy, and Anna did (some) YA fantasy. So where else to turn to next, but (back) to urban fantasy. So. Without further ado, let’s start!
P.S. you can see what I recced in the first of these posts here.
After going slightly rogue last month and picking three books of the month, for September we’re back to usual, with just a single book. We had no trouble looking through our releases list and choosing this one because, in all honesty, it’s one we’re incredibly excited for.
But anyway, read on to find out more!
A little while back, I touted the possibility on twitter of doing a rec list of Arthurian retellings, but gay (obviously). Now, I thought this would be a pretty niche rec list, but apparently not, which is why I’m here today with 10 gay retellings of Arthurian legend.
First things first, I haven’t read any of these myself, and a fair few are upcoming because, as it turns out, gay Arthurian retellings aren’t that big a market (shamefully, let’s be real). So I have dispensed “why should I read it” sections, since all I can really say is it’s gay, it’s Arthuriana, why aren’t you as excited as I am already.
One last thing before we start though. You will probably notice one book in particular missing and I just want to say, before people start mentioning it in the comments, I do know about it. I didn’t get along with it. That’s why it’s not on this list.
P.S. if you want more than this post, I made a list on Goodreads of everything I could find.
When I wrote up the schedule for this month’s posts, I was initially planning for this rec list to be a continuation of that sapphic series. But, at the eleventh hour, I changed my mind, and went with adult sci fi recs.
Sci fi is, in all honesty, one of my favourite genres. And particularly sci fi that leans towards being hard rather than soft (as such, if you don’t like hard sci fi, you may not find a whole lot on this list for you, for which I apologise). And when that sci fi is gay? It just makes it all the better.
So, here are ten of my absolute faves.
Full disclosure, this year has been bad for me in terms of reading and loving YA fantasy. Yes, I have loved some, but also I’ve been bored as anything by others. So I’ve turned a fair bit to adult fantasy — mostly avoiding all the white cishet men writing it, of course.
This is not a definitive list of all the LGBT adult fantasy novels I have loved, of course. I went to write down possible entries to this list and ended up with about twice as many that I loved, and maybe three or four times as many that I would rec. But these are ten of my favourites.
So, dive in, and I hope you find something to enjoy here!
This month’s feature is a little different, in that, both me and Anna looked at our releases list, and couldn’t decide which book to pick, since there were three books we thought, hey we’ve not seen that talked about very much. And we definitely hadn’t seen them being talked about as being gay.
Hence why this post contains not one but three books.
Something a bit different for you today, with a series of reviews of books that have been published recently (and a little less recently) that you might have missed out on. A little disclaimer first up, though: copies of these books were kindly provided us by the authors, but these are my unbiased reviews.
So dive in! And I hope you find something here that interests you.
I wasn’t sure what kind of movies or shows should I compile a rec list of for you guys, so I asked on twitter & that is why today, I’m here with 10 LGBT anime. There will be both shows and movies here, so hopefully everyone can find something for themselves.
Anyway, I’m not marking Japanese mcs in rep, since it’s true for all the titles here.
A second part to the post I made at the beginning of the year, where I listed books with bi/pan main characters which were published between January and June (it’s here!). Now it’s time for the second half of the year.
Once again, I want to make some things clear:
1) I included only books that use the bi & pan labels or, in case of sff ones, that make it clear from context the characters are bi or pan. It’s not always clear-cut but I figured that if you’re looking for bi/pan rep, you’re looking for something concrete;
2) I did not include books which I wasn’t sure about, because I didn’t want to falsely advertise. If there’s anything I missed that you know for a fact features a bi or pan protag, please let me know!
The rainbow emoji indicates that the book is written by an LGBT author, and just for fun, I also marked YA books with a ✌️ emoji. Please let me know if I missed or mislabeled something!
A bit of a different post for you today in that it’s not really got a theme as such. Instead I went for books that I’d rec that have fewer than 400 ratings (criminally) on Goodreads (as voted for on twitter, actually).
There is a somewhat…eclectic mix here, for sure. But I hope it’s such that you will be able to find something you’re interested in, no matter what you’re looking for.
Oh, and I tried my best to include books that didn’t have so few ratings just because they had only recently been released.
So check it out!
About, oh a month or two back, I asked a question on twitter. Namely, if you had to rec a single LGBT book (cruel I know), what would it be.
Well, these are the results — 50+ books recommended by 50+ folks!
Even when you’re an adult, sometimes what you really wanna do is watch teens being dramatic. There’s something very soothing about it. And it’s great to see them finally figure their life out and be at peace, so you can feel like a proud parent for a moment.
With that in mind, I compiled a list of ten TV shows about teenagers. There are quite a few genres here, so you should be able to choose something for yourself. Have fun!
