reviews, releases and recommendations of LGBT media
This post being a day late (work has made a mess of my timing skills), I figured I would go with something easier. That is, part three of my list of books with less than 400 ratings on Goodreads.
Okay, it’s a mouthful. We’re working on it.
In the meantime, you can find the first post here and the second one here.
It’s been a while since I did my first high fantasy rec list on here, and I’ve read a lot more of it since so, it being Friday and I cannot come up with a more interesting theme for this list, I decided that it’s the perfect time for a sequel.
In the interests of making this list a little more, I don’t know, readable, I suppose, I’m going to only include books that are already out. So, yes, there are several upcoming I’ve read and loved, but they won’t be on here. Plenty of motivation to make a part three then though…
After a lot of discussion over just what should be our book of month for April, we finally decided*. But because there was such strife, let me mention the book that lost out (look, Anna, you can never again say I give you nothing): The Sky Blues, which Anna loves and for which our reviews will be coming next month!
And now that’s done, onto our actual book of the month.
*Read: Anna gave up arguing.
As requested by Lena on Twitter, here are ten books with “characters in college/university or that general age range”. A few are straight up taking place at uni, a few are just with protags roughly that age.
I really wanted to include two more books, but I just featured them on my last rec list (Warm Hug LGBT Books), so I figured y’all need some more variety. Please know, though, Abroad by Liz Jacobs & Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin also fit this theme perfectly.
If you’ve followed our blog for a while, you know we like to make these releases posts and you also know that last year I’ve made two for books with bi and/or pan protagonists. So of course, here I am again, this year.
Like before, I want to make clear that I tried my hardest to only include books where it’s very clear a character actually is bisexual (or pansexual), so that y’all get real rep. I also included books with bi and pan love interests, since those are usually rather big roles too. If I missed any books, because I only knew they feature a sapphic or achillean main character, please let me know!
And like always, the rainbow emoji means the author is LGBT. Happy reading!
So, you’ve opened up Scribd. The choices are overwhelming. You’ve read everything Anna suggested on their previous post. But where do you go from here?
Not to worry because today it’s my turn to provide you with 50* books that you can read on Scribd! I’ve done the digging so you don’t have to! So whether you’re looking for YA or adult, classics or poetry, sapphic, achillean or trans/nonbinary rep, hopefully there’s something here for you.
A little disclaimer first though: I myself haven’t read all of these books (some of what I initially included has been taken off since, thanks for that Scribd!), but they are all, if not read, then ones I want to read sometime soon.
*You may not actually have access to all 50 of these books, since Scribd can vary in availability depending on country.
A mere week after I started working on this post, it is finally ready to go. If you were wondering exactly what sapphic books are upcoming in 2021, then look no further! There are over 250 for you right here, and just in time for f/f February, should you decide to take part in that.
Undoubtedly I have missed off books (I’m already predicting that I’ll find another as soon as I hit post on this), so I will be going through the post fairly regularly and adding more that I find, don’t worry!
I didn’t want to just use an umbrella term, which is why this post isn’t titled “2021 Trans Books”, although it might have worked too. But let’s go with “non-cis” as something broader, since there will be books on this list with agender characters, genderqueer, genderfluid, sci-fi novels with approach to gender like we don’t have here & now.
Like in my post of last year, I decided to only include books featuring main characters falling into any of those non-cis categories. I allowed myself also love interests or parents, or really major side characters. But on the whole, the idea was to have an actual rep, not a trans character mentioned in passing on page 275.
I’m sure I have missed some books and will update the post a few times throughout the year. Please leave a comment, if you know of any books I didn’t put in yet! And as always, books by LGBT authors have a rainbow emoji next to the title.
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!
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!
I’ve made a rec list for LGBT graphic novels before (funnily enough, it was on Christmas Eve two years ago) and you can check it out here. But the truth is, you can never have too many of those in your life! Which is why I decided that part two of that particular rec list is long overdue.
So here we are! Ten more LGBT graphic novels, across a bunch of genres and for various target audiences. Hope you will find a new favourite here.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that more m/m books come out each year compared to f/f ones. This is not to say that there aren’t a lot of sapphic books, though! And if you think otherwise, take a look at Charlotte’s posts of this year releases: part one & part two. But this is not really my point.
My point is that a vast majority of the m/m books are actually written by women. Very often straight women. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that, per se, those can still be good books. (They very often don’t offer good, respectful gay representation, but that’s a whole other conversation.)
It got me thinking, though. How many books written by mlm authors were published this year? Turns out not that many… Which only means we should support them all the more.
See also: ownvoices m/m books of July-December 2020, of January-June 2021 & of July-December 2021.
It’s been a good few months since I did a post like this, and since I hit…uh…500 books so far this year, I figure I’ve read enough more books to do a second post. So, here we are! Once again, there is a wide range of books on this post, so hopefully you find something you’ll enjoy.
If you want to know what I recced in the first post, take a peek here.
And, once again, the books on this list, where possible, are not ones that only have fewer than 400* ratings by dint of being published recently (i.e. within the last month, I figure).
*Although by some strange coincidence, none of these actually have over 204 ratings…
It’s two posts for the price of one on Reads Rainbow today as we are bringing you both an ARC review and an author interview. Chase: The Boy Who Hid is a middle grade science fiction novel, out in just a few days, and we had the pleasure of talking to the author, Z Jeffries, about it (among other things).
So, this post starts with five reasons you should read this book, and follows on with the interview. Enjoy!
Don’t forget, you can also follow Z Jeffries on twitter.
Don’t hide from your feelings. Hide from the giant robot trying to kill you.
I always knew I’d inherited my grandad’s mind for science and technology, but when he goes missing, I get his spot in a top-secret government game of hide and seek. The military camouflage challenge, DARPA’s game where shapeshifters, mechs, and telepaths hide from a robot seeker, is also where Grandad vanished.
To find out what happened, I’ll play along- gain the team’s trust, master the tech, and avoid catching feelings for the team navigator. If I can do all that, then maybe I can survive the dangerous game. But if it comes down to winning or finding Grandad, I’ll ditch the game and betray my team in a millisecond. Even if it means I go missing, too.
Book One in the Hide & Seek Series, the action-packed coming of age stories of STEM-minded queer kids getting their hands on the tech of the future.
Z Jeffries
Published: 15th October 2020
Goodreads
Rep: bi mc, nonbinary character, Black lesbian character
…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.
