Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! I’ve got a couple recommendations for you to add to your TBR this month, plus artwork from Cemetery Boys you can hang up in your reading nook.
From September 22-25, Pride and Less Prejudice is holding a virtual auction to raise money to donate LGBTQ-inclusive books to elementary schools in the U.S. and Canada. Mark your calendar!
Bookish Goods
Mi Querido scene from Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas | Illustration | Print by Peaches Obviously
This shop has art from a bunch of queer books, including The Song of Achilles, One Last Stop, and I Wish You All the Best. This one is a scene from Cemetery Boys! $16
New Releases
I’m the Girl by Courtney Summers (Sapphic YA Thriller)
From the author of Sadie and The Project, this is a highly-anticipated queer YA thriller about Georgia, who is trying to solve the murder of the 13-year-old girl whose body she discovered. Along the way, she’s pulled into a glittery world of excess unlike anything she’s ever experienced, and it soon becomes obvious that here, everyone is complicit. But exposing the truth will mean risking everything.
No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay by Julian Aguon (Queer Essays)
This is a mix of essays, memoir, and poetry that explores environmental justice and Indigenous resistance, highlighting why the natural world is worth fighting for, from a queer climate activist based in Guam.
Junie by Chelene Knight (Sapphic Bisexual Historical Fiction)
We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow: And Other Stories by Margaret Killjoy (Queer SFF Short Stories)
Notorious Sorcerer by Davinia Evans (M/M Fantasy)
The Unbalancing by R.B. Lemberg (Queer F/NB Fantasy)
Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #3) by Tamsyn Muir (Sapphic SFF)
Death by Society by Sierra Elmore (Sapphic YA Contemporary)
Aces Wild: A Heist by Amanda DeWitt (Asexual YA Heist)
Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco (Queer, Polyamorous YA Vampires)
Tragic by Dana Mele & Valentina Pinti (Sapphic YA Hamlet Graphic Retelling)
Love Nest, Vol. 1 by Yuu Minaduk (Yaoi Manga)
Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen (Queer Poetry)
Brother Sleep by Aldo Amparán (Queer Poetry)
Almanac of Useless Talents by Michael Chang (Queer Poetry)
Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones (Queer Poetry)
Caught In The Act: A Memoir by Courtney Act aka Shane Jenek (Drag Memoir)
A Place Called Home: A Memoir by David Ambroz (Gay Memoir)
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown (Asexual Essays)
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam (Trans Nonfiction)
For more new releases, check out our New Books newsletter!
Riot Recommendations
It’s Hispanic Heritage Month! (It runs September 15th through October 15th.) So, of course, it felt like a good time to highlight some queer Hispanic books. As with many intersectional identities, I find it easier to find YA that’s representative, but here is a litfic title and a memoir to add to your TBR this month! And if you haven’t read Carmen Maria Machado yet, get on that.
Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis
Cantoras follows a friend group of five queer women over several decades during the Urguayan dictatorship (1970s and 80s). Despite the danger they face being queer in this time period, they find community in each other, escaping every year to an isolated shack on the beach that they own together.
¡Hola Papi! by John Paul Brammer
Brammer’s advice column got its name from the opening line he kept getting from white guys on Grindr. In the book of the same name, he explores growing up as a queer Latino kid in a small town and how it eventually led to becoming “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw.”
As always, if there’s a topic you’d like queer books recommendations for, let me know on Twitter and it might be my next Riot Rec!
All the Links Fit to Click
The Right Is Banning LGBTQ+ Books, So We Made Our Own Queer Syllabus
8 Books A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Fans Have to Read
Andrew Sean Greer on His New Novel, Less Is Lost
Before We Were Trans by Kit Heyam was reviewed at The New York Times
That’s it for me this week! Until next time, you can find me at my sapphic book blog, the Lesbrary, as well as on Twitter @danikaellis. You can also hear me on All the Books or you can read my Book Riot posts.
Happy reading!
Danika