92 books like Paper Girls

To put this on a list of gay coming-of-age graphic novels feels potentially like a spoiler, but in the hopes that I’ll convince at least one other person to read this near-perfect book, I’ll take the risk!

A decade after its publication, few, if any, graphic novelists have managed to match the quality of this brilliantly written, elegantly drawn, subtly rendered, and wonderfully atmospheric book about two girls whose sexualities start to manifest during a summer vacation with their families.

Mariko and Jillian Tamaki are always brilliant, but this book remains, in my opinion, their best work.

(If it wasn't obvious by the cover, this book has adult content in it - so it's not for young readers!)

I relate so heavily to this book! Since it’s an autobiography, it’s such a raw and honest look at what it can be like to explore your sexuality as an adult, all while struggling with mental health and self-image.

I feel that the author’s tone of voice and inner monologue throughout the story is so relatable and humorous. Just like Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, I would recommend this book for the art alone! It has an incredibly charming and simplistic art style that suits it so well.

Let me start by saying…this book is gorgeous. Each page is so beautifully illustrated—I would genuinely recommend this book for the art alone.

The story, however, is just as much of a treat. I love this book because it features a wide variety of lesbian characters and tackles an important topic: representation of toxic relationships and the struggle to break out of them! I’ve certainly been there myself, and it made this story very relatable and meaningful for me.

This book was recommended to me by my mentor, so it was one of the first queer graphic novels I ever got to experience. I love this book because it goes through so many of the hardships of being openly yourself. It’s nostalgic, it’s relatable, and it’s incredibly heartfelt.

While the main focus of Kiss Number 8 is exploring queer identity in young adulthood, my favorite part of this book is the relationship the main character has with her father and how that relationship struggles, changes, and grows over the course of the book.

Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood famously rocketed this book to the top of the bestseller list four years after its publication. Whatever you’ve heard about this inventive epistolary time travel romance, I promise you that it lives up to that hype. It won me over immediately with its lyrical prose, clever sci-fi conceit, and charged romantic tension between dueling protagonists.

I love dystopian fiction, but there’s something even more impressive about well-written utopian fiction. I’m even more impressed when authors remember that our various visions of utopia can be in conflict with one another and with our own individual connections and desires. Time War weaves poetry out of the multiverse and had me sobbing over two women who would rather burn down every world than lose each other.

I love books that can take me to places I have never been and where good can overcome evil. This story follows several mythical creatures who call upon Meg to face her lack of self-confidence and venture into a quest to save her father (a scientist experimenting with time travel).

They tell her he is caught in a realm of unbelievable beauty and ambiguity on a distant planet. However, there is a real risk of never returning home, as the evil entities that are holding her father captive also jeopardize the entire universe with the threat of total obliteration.

Another reason that I liked this book is the invented mythology of several characters and the universe mixed with mathematical theory to weave a story of unconditional love and unwavering courage.

I used to say there were certain characters I wanted to be when I grew up, but that isn’t exactly true. It’s more like I want to be the book as a whole: its wisdom, humor, intricacy, plot, its ability to transport me utterly, to inhabit my mind with new, lifelong friends (or enemies), and to teach me—not only a single lesson upon the first reading, but many different lessons through the years. Cordelia’s Honor (sometimes sold separately as Shards of Honor and Barrayar) is one of those books. It’s the first book of the mighty Vorkosigan Saga by Bujold, which I have read. But if I’d never read the rest, this book alone would still gleam in my mind as something necessary, generous, and strangely infinite. 

Although this book is only 16 pages long, it tells a story that could easily have been a novel, which is that she is capable of condensing something so dense down to so few words without making it feel like anything was left out. Here we see a rather fantastical time travel tale, but one that, although at first seems quite light-hearted, ends up being one of the darkest of such tales I've ever read...and the most thought-inducing.

I loved this book and have a very difficult time reviewing it without giving too much away, but if you've got a spare thirty minutes (you know, for you slow readers), I'd highly suggest you pick this one up immediately.

Zenna Henderson's entire The People series is worth reading, including the original short stories. These were all published at a time when very few female sci-fi authors were published. There is also a film that is fairly faithful to the books. Her creativity, her understanding the experience of immigrants and those who are “different,” and her depictions of the ways humans and immigrants are likely to re/act are timeless, offering stellar insights into our modern-day experiences. Sci-fi authors would do well to read all her books to learn how to do world-building, draw parallels between non-human species and humans, and analogize modern dilemmas as speculative fiction plots.

I discovered Clive Barker's collection of short stories which gave me an introduction to one of the world's best horror writers and film directors. There are so many varied stories within the Books of Blood that it's difficult to highlight some over others.

The Midnight Meat Train was astounding in its detail of visceral butchery, whilst In the Hills, the Cities is fantastic in its imagery of something impossible, which Barker relates with such skill to make you believe the events within are entirely feasible. The Hellbound Heart lets you into a world of new villains and was made into one of my favorite horror films, Hellraiser. I was also lucky to meet and interview Clive, who inspired me to continue writing, saying, "Keep going; you will get better."