20 Must-Read Queer Millennial Novels

All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews

I’ll admit that this is the caller that made maine commencement reasoning earnestly astir queer millennial novels. I americium not 1 to state immoderate caller “the dependable of a generation” but, for the foreseeable future, if anyone asks maine for the publication that astir truthfully captures what it’s similar to beryllium a queer idiosyncratic surviving done these times successful the U.S., this is what I’ll springiness them. It’s a breathtaking publication astir Sneha, a 20-something queer Indian migrant surviving successful Milwaukee during the mid-2000s recession, muddling done emotion and heartbreak and wealth and loneliness and friendship. It’s a cleanable book. No notes.

Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej

On the surface, this is simply a caller astir a queer pistillate and her narration with a overmuch older man. If you’re wary of books astir affairs betwixt younger women and older men, I promote you to springiness this 1 a try. It is astonishing and sharp, a masterfully crafted exploration of selfhood, desire, community, friendship, and art. It’s astir truthful overmuch much than 1 relationship, though the cardinal narration is exquisitely rendered. The details beautifully seizure the mean realities of millennial life: the protagonist’s apartment, the coffeeshops and bars she visits, the meals she cooks.

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Just By Looking astatine Him by Ryan O’Connell

Elliott is simply a 20-something TV writer with cerebral palsy who, contempt his bully occupation and loving boyfriend, isn’t truly definite what helium wants oregon wherever his beingness is going. So helium starts sleeping with enactment workers successful an effort to find thing else. His archetypal idiosyncratic narration is brash and snarky, precise large and in-your-face. He doesn’t clasp back, which makes him consciousness precise real. It’s a boisterous but yet moving publication astir enactment and desire, disability, self-worth, and navigating relationships.

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets, translated by Emma Rault

This is simply a publication astir the internet, and what could beryllium much millennial than that? It’s a chilling, upsetting novel, the benignant you person to work successful 1 sitting due to the fact that erstwhile you’re in, you’re in, and you don’t privation to travel up for air. Bervoets exposes the underlying unit of societal media successful ways that I’m inactive pondering months alter.

A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt

As a millennial approaching mediate property (whatever that is), I find myself drawn to books that see the past and the future. It’s hard to picture this superb novel, which plays with signifier and overflows with sentences that consciousness similar poems, but it is profoundly acrophobic with questions of however we got present and wherever we’re going. It’s astir a queer Cree PhD pupil who abandons his dissertation and returns location to Alberta to constitute a novel. As helium visits with elders, family, and assemblage members, helium ponders queerness and loneliness, the ongoing unit of colonialism, the intent of art, world institutions, and Indigenous knowledge. It’s a abbreviated publication made of infinite possibiltles.

A World Between by Emily Hashimoto

This publication is bursting with millennial energy. It’s a emotion story, benignant of. It’s a relationship story. It’s a household story. It’s astir 2 queer women of colour who conscionable and autumn successful emotion successful college, and past weave successful and retired of each other’s lives implicit the adjacent decennary plus. It’s astir uncovering a occupation that pays the bills, adjacent if you don’t similar it much. It’s astir activism and accountability and household expectations. It’s highly comic and afloat of truthful overmuch sapphic popular culture.

Skye Falling by Mia McKenzie

Queer radical person been making our ain families extracurricular of heteronormative boxes for arsenic agelong arsenic we’ve been around. But I similar to deliberation we bash speech astir queer families much these days, that young radical person much relation models to look up to. Skye Falling is simply a publication astir a queer family, and each the mistakes and messes and challenges and joys and moments of quality that spell into making it. It’s outrageously comic astatine times, and it’s besides a thoughtful, nuanced coming-into-self caller astir a pistillate who yet decides to look immoderate of her aged traumas head-on.

The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela

Andrés, the cheery Latine protagonist of this astute and comic caller astir suburbia, is astir apt conscionable connected the Gen X broadside of the generational line, but retrieve erstwhile I said I can’t support each these generations straight? Returning location for his 20th precocious schoolhouse reunion, Andrés delves headfirst into each the messes helium thought helium near behind. In Andrés’s concerns astir clime alteration and nationalist health; the mode helium often spirals into despair; his heavy emotion of the satellite paired with his occasional self-righteousness; and his anxiousness astir relationships, fatherhood, and money, Varela captures truthful galore emotions and concerns that are profoundly acquainted and relatable, particularly for older millennials.

Boys Come First by Aaron Foley

Housing insecurity is simply a grim world for truthful galore millennials. You’ve seen the memes astir however overmuch it takes to bargain a location these days and however those astronomical numbers puts it retired of scope for truthful galore people. Gentrification is thing new, but it’s not getting immoderate better. Foley’s joyful, mostly lighthearted caller astir 3 Black cheery friends successful Detroit deals with gentrification and the lodging crisis, arsenic good arsenic people differences, however wealth affects relationships, the world of dating apps, exploitative bureau cultures, and a full batch more. It’s a emotion missive to Detroit and a solemnisation of Black queer friendship.

Stone Fruit by Lee Lai

Ray and Bron are a queer mates whose afternoons with their niece, Nessie, are afloat of magic, erstwhile each 3 of them are escaped to beryllium their weird, authentic selves. It’s their clip distant from Nessie that’s the problem. They conflict to pass openly with each other, often bogged down by the stresses of the existent world. It’s a beauteous representation of a queer narration successful process, and the tensions betwixt our interior and outer lives.

We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman

This is simply a gorgeous publication astir a bisexual playwright and the galore messes she gets herself into arsenic she struggles for occurrence and recognition. It touches connected truthful much: intersexual unit and #MeToo, powerfulness and ambition, queer friendship, what it means to beryllium a pistillate artist, the enactment betwixt exploitation and art. If you’re looking for a queer publication astir a messy pistillate successful her 20s, this is an particularly bully one.

Panpocalypse by Carley Moore

While it’s the procreation somewhat younger than millennials (Gen Z? Zoomers?) whose lives and improvement volition apt beryllium everlastingly changed by the pandemic, there’s nary denying that millennials coming of property and coming into adulthood during the pandemic person besides had a unsocial experience. In this strange, meandering novel, acceptable successful the outpouring of 2020 successful New York City, Orpheus wanders the bare streets connected her bike, seeking quality connection. Through Orpehus’s scattered and often contradictory thoughts, Moore explores queer lineage, parenthood and disability, desire, and isolation.

Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel

This dual POV household saga is astir a parent and son, some profoundly preoccupied with relationships from their pasts. Akash is simply a messiness erstwhile helium returns to his puerility location to assistance his parent Renu battalion up the location to sell. Renu is besides a mess, though she’d ne'er admit it to her family. Wrestling with their ain secrets, they yet statesman talking, which sets them connected a tumultuous way backmost to each other. The similarities successful Renu and Akash’s stories are heartbreaking, and item the information that immoderate things stay the same, procreation aft generation.

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

I emotion a caller with a razor-sharp focus. Taylor’s debut hones successful connected academia, and each its accompanying racism, with achy precision. Wallace is simply a Black PhD pupil astatine a tiny assemblage successful the midwest. Over the people of an eventful summertime weekend, arsenic helium ponders whether to enactment successful his program, helium questions his past, present, and aboriginal choices.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Peters code trans parenthood and family-making with refreshing directness and a full batch of complexity successful this modern classical (can I telephone it that? I’m calling it that). It’s astir 2 trans women, ex-lovers, and a cis woman, (the caller woman of 1 of them), who unexpectedly find themselves contemplating raising a kid together. It’s surely 1 of the astir deeply, wholeheartedly queer books I’ve work successful caller years.

Little Fish by Casey Plett

Plett’s debut caller has a slice-of-life prime that marque her novels truthful good. Wendy is simply a 30-year-old trans pistillate surviving successful Winnipeg. She hangs retired with her radical of mostly trans women friends arsenic they navigate hookups and relationships, enactment work, poverty, alcoholism, family. This isn’t a plot-driven book; it’s an intricate quality study, a model into Wendy’s satellite and interior life.

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

Like Little Fish, Jonny Appleseed is simply a slice-of-life caller that often feels arsenic if its unfolding successful existent time. Jonny is simply a 20-something Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer idiosyncratic trying to marque capable wealth for the travel location to the rez for his stepdad’s funeral. So helium goes astir his days, working, talking with friends, pondering hookups, and reminiscing astir his childhood, family, and archetypal love. His dependable is comic and assured, wry and tender, a premix of hope, resignation, anger, exhaustion, and pride.

We Are Watching Eliza Bright by A.E. Osworth

Eliza Bright is surviving the imagination arsenic a video crippled developer…except for the information that her workplace is steeped successful misogyny and sexism and intersexual harassment, and erstwhile she says thing astir it, it inspires a vicious backlash that upends her full life. This is simply a poignant, scathing caller astir toxic masculinity, net culture, sexism successful the gaming industry, what it means to beryllium to a community, and a full batch more. The antithetic operation and POV makes it an unputdownable read.

Memorial by Bryan Washington

I similar to deliberation of this publication arsenic a emotion communicative without a happily ever after. Mike and Benson emotion each other, but they aren’t definite if they privation to enactment together, and the contented comes to a caput erstwhile Mike flies to Japan to walk clip with his dying father, conscionable his parent arrives successful Houston for a visit. It’s a bittersweet publication afloat of characters successful hard situations, doing their champion — oregon trying to.

Yerba Buena by Nina Lacour

I’m not definite there’s immoderate factual details that convey precisely erstwhile this publication is set. It’s contemporary, but it’s not rooted successful immoderate peculiar year. It is, however, 1 of the astir beauteous and susceptible emotion stories I’ve ever read. It’s astir 2 women who dilatory find their mode to each different — done years and heartbreaks and different affairs, heavy friendships and aged traumas, household dinners and quiescent mornings. It is afloat of specifics that consciousness urgent and contemporary, but it’s someway timeless, too.