ME Recommends: Queer Books for Pride Month
Happy Pride Month, everyone! The ME team has put together some recommendations to read this month (!) and the rest of the year.
Juliet recommends…
PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL by Andrea Lawlor
Set in 1993, and following a young queer shapeshifter called Paul this is riotously funny, incredibly nostalgic, and a clever examination of gender fluidity (quite literally). Come for the smut, stay for the razor sharp prose.
LESS by Andrew Sean Greer
I love queer novels which are funny. Greer’s depiction of a recently heartbroken novelist who decides to go on a world literary tour to deal with his ex getting marriedmade me laugh out loud so many times. Arthur Less is hapless, but charming, and there’s a real sweetness as well as a skewering (of publishing, of aging, of gay culture) to the novel.
Liza recommends…
TIN MAN by Sarah Winman. The relationships between every character in this book are done so beautifully that the writing gets me every time.
I cannot wait to read HIJAB BUTCH BLUES by Lamya H. This memoir caught my eye and everything I have heard about it is fantastic.
Rachel recommends…
IN MEMORIAM by Alice Winn
One of the most powerful novels I have read in a long time. Ellwood and Gaunt completely captured my heart – I can’t remember the last time I felt so invested in a love story. Brutal, heartbreaking but so, so good!
Kiya recommends…
I reread a book by Palestinian-American writer, Zaina Arafat, called YOU EXIST TOO MUCH, which I originally read back in 2020 or 2021 – my sense of time from the pandemic is totally skewed! It’s an intensely personal book, told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, who is grappling with her cultural, religious, and sexual identities.
I’m a huge Casey McQuiston fan and JUST read her iconic romance novel Red White and Royal Blue for the first time. I also loved Mrs. S by K. Patrick – who doesn’t love a book about sapphics at an elite girls’ boarding school?
Alba recommends…
The ENLIGHTENMENT trilogy by Joanna Chambers is a historical series that I re-read yearly. Set in 1822 Scotland, I loved the tension between the main characters, David, a lawyer that comes from a poor family, and Murdo, a Lord that spends most of his time in London – their differences in class, politics and morals are beautifully explored. Just talking about them makes me want to re-read them.
I love the remix collection Feiwel&Friends are producing and SELF-MADE BOYS: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore is a recent favourite. You follow Nicolás Caraveo who goes to New York City to work in finance, thanks to the help of his cousin, Daisy Fabrega – he is shocked to discover that she now goes by Daisy Fay – and becomes neighbours with the magnetic Jay Gatsby. Can I just say that I love that Nicolás is a trans boy and the title is SELF-MADE BOYS? I love the layers of that.
Catriona recommends…
Earlier this year I listened to PAGEBOY, the moving memoir by Elliot Page. He opens up about his body dysphoria, coming out and transitioning while struggling with the hypervisibility of fame. I’ve been loving memoirs recently and PAGEBOY has become a new favourite amongst them.
Top of my TBR is WAYWARD LIVES, BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENTS by Saidiya Hartman. Through her research, Hartman delves into the histories of Black women from Philadelphia and New York during the early twentieth century who constructed new ways of living as resistance to the suffocating oppressions they faced.
Emma recommends…
I love to re-read FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel. I re-read partly because I’m still furious that I missed seeing the musical adaption when it was in London, but mostly because I always want to re-experience Bechdel’s hilarious and poignant account of how she realised that she was queer and that her Dad was probably queer too. I love reading books about how queer parents interact with their queer children and would like to see more of these stories.
A queer book I’ve read this year is Kirsty Logan’s THE UNFAMILIAR: MAKING A QUEER MOTHERHOOD MEMOIR. I adore books that explore the complexities of being temporarily, or permanently childless not by choice, so I sped through this gorgeously written memoir, feeling the pain as Logan and her wife struggle within the surreal world of two women trying to conceive. I’d suggest reading this book alongside Jenny Kleeman’s book THE PRICE OF LIFE, which has a brilliant chapter about the high financial cost of having children as a male gay couple.