BOOK QUEERY

Love in the Time of Global Warming (2013) - Francesca Lia Block

Sequel: The Island of Excess Love (2014)

DUOLOGY • DYSTOPIAN • BI FEMALE • SINGLE POV • MLM • WLW • AFAB TRANS MAN • GAY SIDE CHARAS •

After the Earth Shaker, which all but destroyed Los Angeles, seventeen-year-old Penelope (Pen) sets out into the wasteland in search of her family, her journey guided by a tattered copy of Homer's Odyssey. Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who wishes her dead. On her voyage, Pen learns to tell stories that reflect her strange visions, while she and her fellow survivors navigate the dangers that lie in wait.

In her signature lyrical style, Francesca Lia Block has created a world that is beautiful in its destruction and as frightening as it is lovely. Love in the Time of Global Warming has shades of science fiction, fantasy, eco-fiction, and dystopic disaster.

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Tropes

hero’s journey • epic journey • trans*formation • closeted • coming out • unrequited love • retelling • magic • monsters

Warnings sex • fire • drugs • death • homophobia

When the Moon was Ours (2016) - Anna-Marie McLemore

BOOK • MAGICAL REALISM • AFAB TRANS PAKISTANI (POC) MALE AND QUEER CIS FEMALE LATINA PROTAGONIST • MULTI-POV • LABELS USED • LESBIAN AND TRANS SIDE CHARAS •  OWN VOICES: QUEER FEMALE AUTHOR

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

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Tropes Closeted • sexual awakening • trans*formation • a beauty but a funny girl • gender questions

Warnings Sex mention • death • suicide ideation • depression • transphobia • slurs • alcohol • drowning • claustrophobia • dysphoria • being outed • evil gay

Labyrinth Lost (2016) - Zoraida Córdova

BOOK IN A SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • BISEXUAL PROTAGONIST • FEMALE POV • WLW • LABELS IN PRINT • SPECTRUM SIDE CHARAS • OWN VOICES • WLW AUTHOR • LATINX AUTHOR

Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can’t trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange marks on his skin.

The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland…

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Tropes

hero’s journey • epic journey • quest • sexual awakening • gaytopia • magic • fairies

The Raven King (2016)  (Book Four in The Raven Cycle)  Maggie Stiefvater

BOOK IN A SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • MULTI-POV • GAY PROTAGONIST • MLM • BISEXUAL PROTAGONIST

All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

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Tropes closeted • coming out • sexual awakening • evil gay • hero’s journey • epic journey • old mystic • sleeping kings

Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014)  (Book Three in The Raven Cycle)  Maggie Stiefvater

BOOK IN A SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • MULTI-POV • GAY PROTAGONIST • MLM • QUESTIONING PROTAGONIST

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.

The trick with found things, though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.

Mothers can disappear.

Visions can mislead.

Certainties can unravel.

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Tropes closeted • coming out • sexual awakening • evil gay • hero’s journey • epic journey • old mystic • sleeping kings

The Dream Thieves (2013)  (Book Two in The Raven Cycle)  Maggie Stiefvater

BOOK IN A SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • MULTI-POV • GAY PROTAGONIST • MLM • QUESTIONING SIDE CHARACTERS

If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take?

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.

One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.

And sometimes he's not the only one who wants those things.

Ronan is one of the raven boys - a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface - changing everything in its wake.

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Tropes closeted • coming out • sexual awakening • evil gay • hero’s journey • epic journey • old mystic • sleeping kings 

Brooklyn Brujas (2016) - Zoraida Córdova

SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • BISEXUAL PROTAGONIST • FEMALE POV • WLW • LABELS IN PRINT • SPECTRUM SIDE CHARAS • OWN VOICES • WLW AUTHOR • LATINX AUTHOR

The only way to get her family back is to travel to a land in between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland…

Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation…and she hates magic.

At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she's not sure she can trust, but who may be Alex's only chance at saving her family.

Books:

Labyrinth Lost (2016)

Circle Unbroken (coming soon)

Tropes hero’s journey • epic journey • quest • sexual awakening • gaytopia • magic • fairies

The Raven Boys (2012)  (Book One in The Raven Cycle) - Maggie Stievfater

BOOK IN A SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • MULTI-POV • QUESTIONING /AMBIGUOUS CHARACTERS

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit o St. Mark's Eve," Neeve said. "Either you're his true love . . . or you killed him"

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them-not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He has it all-family money, good looks, devoted friends-but he's looking for much more than that.

*Note* The first of this series is not overtly queer, but is important as it is the beginning of this story, and the beginning of the queer characters in this series.

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Tropes hero’s journey • epic journey • old mystic • sleeping kings

The Raven Cycle (2012-2016) - Maggie Stiefvater

SERIES • MAGICAL REALISM • MULTI-POV • GAY PROTAGONIST • BISEXUAL PROTAGONIST• MLM • QUESTIONING SIDE CHARACTERS

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

Books

The Raven Boys (2012)

The Dream Thieves (2013)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014)

The Raven King (2016)

Tropes closeted • coming out • sexual awakening • evil gay • hero’s journey • epic journey • old mystic • sleeping kings

You Know Me Well (2016) - Nina LaCour and David Levithan

BOOK • YA • CONTEMPORARY • GAY AND LESBIAN (MALE AND FEMALE) POV • MLM • WLW • LABELS IN PRINT • GAY LESBIAN BISEXUAL GENDERQUEER TRANSGENDER SIDE CHARAS • OWN VOICES  •  GAY AUTHOR • LESBIAN AUTHOR

Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really?

Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed.

That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.

When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other -- and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.

A book told in alternating points of view by Nina LaCour, the award-winning author of Hold Still and The Disenchantments, and David Levithan, the best-selling author of Every Day and co-author of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn) and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green), You Know Me Well is a deeply honest story about navigating the joys and heartaches of first love, one truth at a time

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Tropes

coming out • closeted • wise old gay • sexual awakening • unrequited • gays of a feather • pride

Warnings

Carry On (2015) - Rainbow Rowell

BOOK • YA  • FANTASY • GAY • QUESTIONING • MULTI-POV • MLM • LABELS IN PRINT • WLW SIDE CHARAS 

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen.

That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.

Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here--it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up.

Carry On - The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.

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Tropes coming out  •  closeted •  hero’s journey •  chosen one • evil gay •  sexual awakening • who needs labels • mystery •  ghosts •  wizards •  magic •  vampires • enemies to lovers •  let the soul rest

Hero (2007) - Perry Moore

YA • BOOK • SUPERHERO • MALE GAY PROTAGONIST  • MLM • LABELS IN PRINT • OWN VOICES • MLM/GAY AUTHOR

The last thing in the world Thom Creed wants is to add to his father's pain, so he keeps secrets. Like that he has special powers. And that he's been asked to join the League the very organization of superheroes that spurned his dad. But the most painful secret of all is one Thom can barely face himself: he's gay.

But becoming a member of the League opens up a new world to Thom. There, he connects with a misfit group of aspiring heroes, including Scarlett, who can control fire but not her anger; Typhoid Larry, who can make anyone sick with his touch; and Ruth, a wise old broad who can see the future. Like Thom, these heroes have things to hide; but they will have to learn to trust one another when they uncover a deadly conspiracy within the League.

To survive, Thom will face challenges he never imagined. To find happiness, he'll have to come to terms with his father's past and discover the kind of hero he really wants to be.

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Tropes  hero’s journey • wise old gay • closeted • coming out • sexual awakening • superhero • aliens