Surprise! It’s Queer!

The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller

This humanities novel, acceptable successful the aboriginal 20th century, follows the adventures of Sven, a young antheral from Sweden who finds unexpected belonging successful Svalbard, a beautiful, dangerous, and isolated archipelago successful the Arctic Circle. Sven isn’t queer but conscionable astir each different quality is! Miller’s descriptions of the bluish scenery are breathtaking, but it’s the enactment of Sven’s queer recovered household that makes this publication truthful moving.

The Arsonists’ City by Hala Alyan

In this intergenerational saga astir a Lebanese Syrian American family, 3 big siblings convene successful Beirut erstwhile their parents denote they’re selling the household home. The youngest sibling, Naj, is simply a queer instrumentalist who’s go internationally celebrated since moving backmost to Beirut. Does she bargain the show? Absolutely. But the full publication is masterful. It’s got analyzable household relationships, the legacies of warfare and migration, and what happens to stories erstwhile they fester untold and unremembered.

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Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson

This is simply a fantastic publication for fans of casually queer novels. It’s a kaleidoscopic communicative astir Ruby, an Indigenous pistillate adopted by achromatic parents, and her hunt to find herself and her spot successful the world. It unfolds successful a nonlinear fashion, done abbreviated chapters told from the POVs of her commencement and adoptive parents, friends, lovers and ex-lovers (which see men and women), children, and household members.

Chouette by Claire Oshetsky

This publication isn’t precisely coy astir its queerness. On the archetypal page, Tiny explains her situation: she has abruptly and mysterious go large via owl, which is unusual enough, but also, the owl who gets her large is simply a woman. The full story, which is astir Tiny’s owl-baby and the struggles she faces from a satellite that refuses to recognize her, is highly queer, explicitly and thematically. I honestly don’t cognize wherefore much queer publication lovers haven’t been talking astir it!

Big Girl by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Malaya is simply a abdominous Black miss increasing up successful Harlem successful the 1980s and ’90s, surrounded by voices telling her to marque herself smaller, from her parent to strangers she passes connected the street. It’s a painful, intimate, and yet celebratory publication astir 1 girl’s determination to assertion space. What’s particularly breathtaking is the mode Sullivan writes astir queerness arsenic reprieve and refugee. It is done moments of queer emotion and tendency that Malaya begins to ideate a beingness lived connected her ain terms.

True Biz by Sara Nović

I emotion books that delve into each the messiness of queer lives, but I besides emotion books wherever queer characters get to woody with each the quality things that person thing to bash with their queerness. This is 1 of those. It’s a fantastic blend of household play and coming-of-age, acceptable astatine a fictional schoolhouse for the Deaf. February, the headmistress, is cheery and trying to support her matrimony intact portion dealing with an ailing mother, devastating fund cuts, and the near-constant turmoil of teenagers.

Fiona & Jane by Jean Chen Ho

This publication of interconnected stories follows 2 Taiwanese American friends, Fiona and Jane, from puerility done adulthood. They determination successful and retired of each other’s lives arsenic they each woody with household crises, vocation quandaries, and romanticist entanglements. Jane’s queerness feels truthful akin to the mode galore radical I cognize successful existent beingness acquisition it. She sleeps with radical of antithetic genders and moves betwixt labels, identifying otherwise astatine antithetic times successful her life.

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

This deliciously strange, surreal caller is Weird Queer astatine its finest. Gerald works astatine a tiny PR steadfast and things get…interesting, to accidental the least, erstwhile helium accidentally uploads his consciousness into Slack. And that’s conscionable the opening of the weird. It’s written wholly successful Slack messages, and determination are a batch of unexplained phenomena. It’s a hilarious and scathing look astatine exploitative capitalism and bureau culture. And underneath each that, there’s a tender queer romance rooted successful kindness and optimism.