99 books like Lizard Radio

I love stories crammed with internal strife and triumph in the end, especially ones about finding yourself.

In this YA contemporary, teen Ben faces the worst possible reaction from their parents when they come out to them as nonbinary. Fortunately, they round up some supportive family, but this marks the beginning of a long struggle to build up their confidence and come out to everyone, not just their family. Ben may know who they are, but being honest about it is hard, especially in certain places.

There are big differences in being nonbinary or trans in conservative states versus liberal states, and also between smaller towns and bigger cities. This book reminds readers that as long as you’re safe, being true to yourself is more rewarding than hiding yourself. 

I love stories about artists, and I loved the creativity of the whole idea behind this adult fantasy set against an Asian-inspired backdrop, where art is magic and can be used to make things happen in the physical world.

But even better is the fact that the main character—a skilled artist roped into working for a corrupt entity—is nonbinary, and this is nothing more than a mundane fact. It’s a clear reminder that gender is just one part of a person’s existence—and probably not the most important one. 

Reading this graphic novel just feels good. It’s so positive and full of all kinds of sweet relationships—romantic, friends, and family.

It’s also a fantastic portrayal of numerous people with something that makes them different from most others, including wearing hearing aids, lesbian grandmas, large bodies, and last but not least, being nonbinary. None of these things is an issue in the book, and instead they’re presented as being as normal as breathing.

I just love the normalization of human differences. Add to that the fun urban fantasy elements of magic and werewolves, and it’s a perfect mix.  

I loved this nonfiction book because it puts the gender binary in the context of other things that we often falsely consider binaries.

For instance, the mind-body binary is ridiculous when you consider that experiencing emotions is not entirely in the mind, given what we know emotions and stress do to the body, both short-term and long-term. The authors also point out that feelings can be something other than completely positive or completely negative, and that the idea that emotion and rationality, or work and play, are mutually exclusive is absurd.

What makes this book especially good is that it shares practical advice for changing the binary mindset, like avoiding the either/or view by making yourself consider what possibilities are real between two extremes—or in both extremes—at the same time. Marginalized people can use these techniques to avoid judging themselves so harshly, and allies can learn better ways to understand… show more.

Mariza Kuznetsova (Something Unbelievable), Irina Reyn (Mother Country), and I all left the Soviet Union as children, before Putin and before all the changes he brought. Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry came of age in the new Russia. The Orchard is a tale of what our own lives might have been if our families had stayed. This loose retelling of Chekov zeroes in on how a childhood begun in the USSR and a young adulthood lived in Russia affected everyone who went through it, how it shaped worldviews, and how it continues to resonate even after decades of immigrant life in America.

I found myself surprisingly captivated by this present-day body horror mermaid transformation tale focused on a high school swim team.

This novel follows a gradual decline from an everyday reality towards an increasingly unhinged climax, and I appreciated how slowly this sneaks up on you. Even though the book makes no secret of where it’s ultimately going, I was still pleasantly surprised about how we got there and the weirdness of the ending.

The sapphic relationship between the protagonist and her best friend is a key throughline, with an interesting dichotomy between the best friend’s long-term adoration and the protagonist’s relative detachment and bitterness.

A contemporary YA novel, this book will still appeal to all the adults who can remember what it was like trying to figure out who you were as a teenager, how your friends fit into your life, and what it means to shake things up but still maintain who you are at your core. Main character, Codi Teller, is lucky to have two very close friends by her side through it all, but she develops an additional, unexpected friendship with cool kid, Ricky, when she stumbles upon him kissing another boy at a party. Ricky brings Codi into his world full of new experiences, late nights, and a cute girl named Lydia who Codi definitely has a crush on. 

I loved Natalia Sylvester’s tender and gripping YA novel about a young woman living with hip dysplasia yearning to be a mermaid because it reminded me of the big dreams I had as a young teenage girl.

Verónica will do just about anything to get a job as a real-life mermaid at Mermaid Cove, however her parents are not having it. They want Verónica to be a “serious” young woman and pursue jobs and opportunities that will benefit her future and they think they know what’s best for her body and her disability.

I resonated with this deeply because I too pursued goals and dreams that my parents were often not in favor of and have had to advocate for myself and what my body needs.

There’s a driving intensity to this book's narrative and atmosphere, which remains as compelling and fresh today as when I first read it years ago. Part of its power derives from Eugenides’ use of first-person plural narration through the collective voice of a group of neighborhood boys still haunted, years later in adulthood, by the untimely deaths of five adolescent sisters in 1970s suburban Michigan.

Part-detectives, part-elegists, they piece together their memories of not only the girls but of a particular place and time now vanished. I’m always struck by the book’s deft melding of pathos and humor and by the way that what is essentially a personal suburban tragedy gradually begins to speak to a wider malaise that calls into question the American dream itself.

I picked out this book because I wanted to read more indie Canadiana YA, and OMG, am I ever glad that this was my first pick!

It had music and private school drama (not the club), it was fun, I was invested, and I was really sad when it ended because I wanted to know what happened next.

I also loved the epistolary format. It made it feel like they were being written to me. I borrowed this one from the library and then bought it because I loved it so much.