Here are 100 books that Interesting Facts About Space fans have personally recommended if you like
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Thirteen years ago, when my partner and I started our family, we didn’t know any other LGBTQ+ parents. We decided to learn all we could about the experiences of LGBTQ+ families. Our interviews with more than 70 families grew into an LGBTQ+ parenting guide called Pride and Joy. These real-life stories blew us away with their diversity; made us laugh, cry and gasp as we saw how families thrived, often against the odds. Yet we rarely saw families like these in the books our children read, so I started writing stories of my own. Thankfully, there are now many more - you’ll find some of my favourites on this list.
I wasn’t sure whether to include this book at first. It’s over twenty years old now - probably one of the first middle-grade titles where a character has same-sex parents. But while some attitudes feel dated, the story is still gripping and relevant. There are still many kids, like Holly, who love their families but feel like they have to keep them hidden to fit in with their friends. Holly learns that keeping secrets leads to bigger problems than the ones she was trying to avoid. Nancy Garden is a pioneer in writing for young adults about LGBTQ+ themes. She is one of my inspirations in becoming a writer. I hope each generation will continue to discover and be inspired by her work, just like I was.
A new town and new classmates, but the same family -- with two moms
Dear Diary, ...Until today I was Holly Lawrence-Jones. But starting tomorrow I'm going to be Yvette Lawrence-Jones. My family doesn't know that yet, but I'll tell them tomorrow, and that's the name I'll tell the people at school, too. Yvette's going to be sophisticated and grownup-feminine enough to have white ruffled curtains, and maybe even a boyfriend. She's also going to have a NORMAL family. Kids are not going to make jokes about her and say mean things, because there won't be any reason for them…
As a contemporary fiction author, I dig down into and expose the dirty underbelly of my characters’ lives and experiences. As a reader and television viewer, I am drawn to stories that do the same. My fascination with reading and writing gritty stories about queer characters figuring their lives out stems from my own confused upbringing. I have written four full-length contemporary fiction novels that all put the main character’s experiences and choices under a microscope. Additionally, while I didn’t set out to try to destigmatize therapy and friends talking openly about their struggles, reviewers have pointed out that those are themes in my books.
Michelle writes in an authentic voice that draws the reader into her tumultuous, down and dirty story. I love Valencia because as I read the book, it feels like she is sitting next to me on a dirty curb, late at night, regaling me with stories about her youthful adventures (and misadventures) in San Francisco. Valenciawas a touchstone for me as a young author; it taught me that it’s okay to write about gritty, real-life things because, surprise, they are relatable. Valencia also helped me overcome my self-doubt about writing and getting my own unique voice out into the world.
Valencia is the fast-paced account of one girl's search for love and high times in the drama-filled dyke world of San Francisco's Mission District. Michelle Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there's knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex Willa, Michelle's tormented poet-girlfriend Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama and Iris's ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart.
I’m a Pushcart-nominated writer of (mostly) young adult and adult horror and suspense. I primarily write about the fear of isolated and sparsely populated places, which makes sense: I grew up in the rural hinterlands of northeast Pennsylvania, steeped in dark cornfields, eerie quiet, and weird characters. I now live in the Philadelphia area with my husband and rescue dog in a creaky, century-old house, giving myself agita about the creepy crawlspace in the basement. I’m the author of two novels: A Misfortune of Lake Monsters (YA horror, July 2024) and The Trajectory of Dreams (adult psychological suspense, 2013).
Just after high school graduation, during the summer in which their adult lives begin, three girls who now require human flesh to survive (thanks, pandemic!) hit a music festival. But don’t worry; the world has found a way to satisfy their dietary requirements without anyone getting hurt…until someone at the festival starts dosing ghouls with an appetite stimulant, that is.
This book is a fun and campy mystery that gives me queer post-Mean Girls meets Scooby vibes and a fair amount of gore. Even though the book is light-hearted with a very sweet romance (hey, even horror fans like me get schmoopy now and then), it speaks to the heart of guilt and the trauma of recovery from substance use disorders (if cannibalism can be a stand-in for drugs and alcohol)—particularly when you’ve done something under the influence that has hurt or killed others, and that’s what made it so…
From the New York Times bestselling author of My Dearest Darkest comes another incredible sapphic horror. When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.
Five years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able…
I have loved fairy tales since I was a little girl and watched my first Disney movie. Over the years, I’ve read many fairy tale retellings, as well as the original versions. I love how writers can see a story like Beauty and the Beast and find ways to make an almost completely new story, but still hold true to the original concepts of the fairy tale. Fairy tales connect us to our childhood and when we read these new versions, it lets us relive a part of our childhood. Not many books can do that!
Bayron made the classic Cinderellafairy tale something modern girls can relate to. Black, LGBT girls will especially find a kindred spirit in Sophia. I loved how determined Sophia was to fight back against society’s expectations of her. She was willing to fight for her happily ever after, even if it didn’t look like how the world thought it should. To see Sophia’s struggles rewarded with her love story with Constance was great to read.
"Wholly original and captivating." - Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author of A Curse So Dark and Lonely
Girls team up to overthrow the kingdom in this unique and powerful retelling of Cinderella from a stunning new voice that's perfect for fans of Dhonielle Clayton and Melissa Albert.
It's 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl's display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen…
I grew up in a religion and family where being gay was most definitely more than frowned upon. Now as a queer author and parent (and former academic who studied queer lit and video games!), I’m thrilled to be bringing a “book baby” into the world during Pride Month that is pure historical romantic fantasy in which two women embrace who they are and one another. When I first started reading queer fiction, much of it was gritty and realistic, sure, but also extremely grim. I think we desperately need a balance of the grim and the gleeful and that is what I hope this little list gives you! Happy endings are possible in fiction and reality. Happy Pride Month, dear readers!
A fantastic, quick-read of a novella featuring a class-difference romance between a lady's maid/thief and a prim and proper lady's companion. When the two women find themselves forced to share a room – and a bed! – things quickly become steamy. But there is more to the story than spice. Revenge upon a villain must be enacted. And of course, Alice and Molly must work to achieve their happy ever after.
I loved my first foray into Cat Sebastian because it is pure historical fantasy, yes, but it's tingly, heart-warming wish-fulfillment of the best kind. We don't need more dead Dumbledores. We need stories that show queer love is possible and can win the day. Amiright?!
Lady’s maid Molly Wilkins is done with thieving—and cheating and stabbing and all the rest of it. She’s determined to keep her hands to herself, so she really shouldn’t be tempted to seduce her employer’s prim and proper companion, Alice. But how can she resist when Alice can’t seem to keep her eyes off Molly?
Finds her own heart
For the first time in her life, Alice Stapleton has absolutely nothing to do. The only thing that seems to occupy her thoughts is a lady’s maid with a sharp tongue and a beautiful mouth. Her determination to…
Allan D. Hunter came out as genderqueer in 1980, more than 20 years before “genderqueer” was trending. He decided that women's studies in academia was the proper place to discuss these ideas about gender, so he headed to New York to major in women's studies as one of the first male students to do so.
This book is a feminist memoir about being in a groundbreaking organization that proclaimed to the world that lesbians exist, refusing to be erased.
They used street theatre to draw attention (the "fire eating" to which the book title refers). The participants faced a lot of litmus testing, such as being targeted as racially offensive for using the phrase "freedom ride" for non-race centric activity; and the author testifies to both misogyny and homophobia in the left in the US, Paris, and Cuba.
When Kelly Cogswell plunged into New York's East Village in 1992, she had just come out. An ex-Southern Baptist born in Kentucky, she was camping in an Avenue B loft, scribbling poems, and playing in an underground band, trying to figure out her next move. A couple of months later she was consumed by the Lesbian Avengers, instigating direct action campaigns, battling cops on Fifth Avenue, mobilizing 20,000 dykes for a march on Washington, D.C., and eating fire-literally-in front of the White House.
At once streetwise and wistful, Eating Fire is a witty and urgent coming-of-age memoir spanning two decades,…
I’ve been a part of the LGBTQ+ community my whole life and have always been passionate about advocating for the people who identify as such. Furthermore, I have always had a fascination with emotional stories and the combination of a lack of many LGBTQ+ books with an abundance of romance and emotional thrillers out there makes it a ripe topic for stories. As a lesbian myself, it is very hard to write stories that don’t have those kinds of couples, so I tend to stick to that genre and I’m absolutely addicted to lesbian books.
By inserting the book into a time when the very essence of the story is dangerous, the people are made to be in a situation where I was turning one page after the next to find out what would happen to them.
Each question that arose in my mind made me urgently attempt to find answers and the smile that came to my face at each happy moment felt amazing. The emotions that echoed through the book found their way into me and made me feel as if I was along for the ride as well right beside the characters.
"That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "Have you ever heard of such a thing?"
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall…
It’s hard not to be passionate about sapphic spec fic when that’s entirely what I write. These books may all differ from my book in their own ways, but these authors and I all wrote fantastical stories of women who love women. These are the kind of stories I want to put out there, and it’s a space that could always use more occupying it.
A book that really puts the enemies in enemies-to-lovers. The only thing Scarlett and Quin want more than to kill each other is to bed each other, and they’re not sure it actually takes priority.
This results in some of the funniest romance and fight scenes I’ve read and a relationship that’s hard not to root for. My girlfriend recommended this book to me, and we loved sharing its absurd romance.
Allan D. Hunter came out as genderqueer in 1980, more than 20 years before “genderqueer” was trending. He decided that women's studies in academia was the proper place to discuss these ideas about gender, so he headed to New York to major in women's studies as one of the first male students to do so.
This story is the memoir of a very butch lesbian, which is an identity that juxtaposes very oddly and awkwardly against how our culture thinks of motherhood and pregnancy.
This tongue-in-cheek depiction makes for a clever skewering of the tension between one's internal identity and the perceptions of others, and the complexities of stepping outside the identity role that one has chosen to occupy.
First pregnancy can be a fraught, uncomfortable experience for any woman, but for resolutely butch lesbian Teek Thomasson, it is exceptionally challenging.
Teek identifies as a masculine woman in a world bent on associating pregnancy with a cult of uber-femininity. Teek wonders, “Can butches even get pregnant?”
Of course, as she and her pragmatic femme girlfriend Vee discover, they can. But what happens when they do? Written and illustrated by A.K. Summers, and based on her own pregnancy, Pregnant Butch strives to depict this increasingly common, but still underrepresented experience of queer pregnancy with humor and complexity—from the question of…
As a historical romance reader, I’m a sucker for stories about the glamorous aristocracy falling in love. While Regency and Victorian romances have explored feminism for at least the last two decades, the genre often falls short of asking more of itself. Of course the debutante shouldn’t need a man – but while the story liberates her, it doesn’t take any notice of the non-aristocratic, non-Anglican, non-White, less-abled, and/or non-cishet straight characters around her. I yearned for stories that required my favorite aristocrats to acknowledge, examine, and leverage their privilege. All five of these authors deliver – without forgetting our favorite tropes and genre conventions!
When I want a historical romance that knows exactly what it is and how to hit the right notes with each of its tropes, I turn to Erica Ridley.
Take the opening conceit of The Perks of Loving a Wallflower: It felt so familiar to read about a shy heroine who has a secret group of bluestocking friends and who is trying to avoid her parents’ matchmaking schemes.
From there, however, Ridley uses the conceit of a missing cipher to match Philippa with Tommy, a master of disguises and rejecter of labels.
Through a very fun, comforting historical romance plot, we get to explore gender roles, identity, and class snobbery.
As a master of disguise, Thomasina Wynchester can be a polite young lady-or a bawdy old man. She'll do whatever it takes to solve the cases her family takes on. But when Tommy's beautiful new client turns out to be the highborn lady she's secretly smitten with, more than her mission is at stake . . .
Bluestocking Miss Philippa York doesn't believe in love. Her heart didn't pitter-patter when she was betrothed to a duke, nor did it break when he married someone else. All Philippa desires is to decode a centuries-old manuscript to keep a modern-day villain from…
