100 books like The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams

One of the darkest events in gay history has been brought to light in Johnson’s book. During the late 1940s and ’50s, the Federal Government engaged in a purge of gay men (and women) who worked in its offices by linking them to communism, an association politicians strengthened as the Cold War progressed. Fueled by their lies and guided by FBI Director (and closeted gay) J. Edgar Hoover, the persecution, called the “Lavender Scare,” spread from Washington, D.C. across the U.S. The government-sanctioned homophobia cost thousands their jobs, families, and friends when their sexuality was made public. Some committed suicide. Having this book at hand helped me understand the complexities of gay men’s lives during this horrific period.

Cervini’s biography of Frank Kameny shows that gay militancy began years before the iconic riots at the Stonewall Inn. In 1965, Kameny led pickets for gay civil rights in front of the White House and the State Department. He was soon teaching people who lost their jobs because they were “homosexual” how to fight and win in the courts. Understanding that as long as homosexuals were considered sick, gay people would never be granted civil rights, Kameny organized the first protests against the American Psychiatric Association that led to the declassification of “homosexuality” as a mental disorder. Cervini situates Frank Kameny in his rightful place as the father of America’s first militant gay movement. 

First published in 1993, Kennedy and Davis focus on working-class women who were part of the butch-femme lesbian bar culture in Buffalo, New York from the 1930s to the 1960s. Through 45 oral histories, Kennedy and Davis allow their subjects—Black, white, and Native American—to speak poignantly for themselves. They help the authors argue that far from emulating traditional heterosexual relationships (which had been an accusation often hurled at butch-femme couples), these women were pioneers of resistance; and that far from living lonely lives (drowning in a “well of loneliness”) they formed a vibrant community.  

If you’re wondering in practical ways how to do trans history, Manion’s book is a great place to start. It takes one of the categories that preceded a transgender identity (the name typically given to people affirmed female at birth who identified as men and married women) and reimagines how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century lives might look with the benefit of the tools of our modern politics. The book is boldly inclusive, resisting deciding ahead of time how the category should be defined and who should be ruled in or out. Manion is also a role model in respecting the ambiguities of the past, mostly using neutral pronouns and offering non-judgmental speculations about what these subjects and their partners might have thought at key moments in their courageous and inspiring lives. 

I stumbled upon Milk Fed by accident, and boy am I glad I did. A protagonist after my own heart, Rachel has control issues, which for her manifest in disordered eating, over-exercising, seeking approval and acceptance in the wrong places, and yearning. Ohhh, so much gloriously unhealthy, obsessive yearning. Broder includes a level of grit and physical descriptors that some reviewers deemed “gross,” but to me those details added to the story and made me love it even more. Milk Fed made me laugh, cringe, gasp, and groan.

I personally like this book because there are very few picture books representing two women falling in love and getting married. This book celebrates two women, a courageous maiden who attends a royal party, and while there, she ends up finding love with the princess.

This fairytale is written with themes of acceptance and love. 

Andrea Gibson’s spoken word poems are gut-wrenching testaments to the power of vulnerability and tenderness, weaving anecdotes into fervent pleas for empathy, connection, and social justice. The magic of their pieces lies in the both/and of beauty and pain, unflinchingly facing trauma while clinging to hope. This collection’s strongest poems include “Ashes” (about a gay soldier burned to death) and “Somewhere, a Carpenter” (about the artist’s love for their grandmother). If you want to be truly spellbound, look for the recorded versions of these poems—I’ve attended two of Gibson’s live performances and had goosebumps all over and/or tears streaming down my face from start to finish.

Abby finds herself in a miserable position. She must go home for the holidays. Normally, not a dreaded situation. After all her entire family will be there. Including her brother and his fiancé. The only hiccup is her brother’s girlfriend is her ex-girlfriend. She doesn’t trust her ex who lures her into bed every chance she gets. Abby comes of with a sure fire plan to stop that from happening, she brings a pretend girlfriend to keep things from getting out of hand. A perfect plan she just hadn’t planned on falling in love.

As with most of Dorothy Allison's work, Two or Three Things I Know For Sure lives in the dramas and intersections around abuse and anger and hope, fueled by her gritty, emotional lyricism. With this explosive, unapologetic narrative about herself and her “trash” family, Two or Three Things has the southern pacing that creeps up and swallows you. And in it we really learn who Allison is: a gritty, rugged, loving survivor in the truest sense.

Anna Birch’s I Kissed Alice is an enemies-to-lovers story about two gifted artists, Rhodes and Iliana, at a school for the arts who despise each other in person but fall hard for each other’s online fanfiction personas. Rhodes’s depression and anxiety consume her in the race to win a prestigious scholarship and navigate a complicated dynamic with her alcoholic mother. I found Rhodes’s on-page therapy sessions incredibly refreshing and relatable, something I don’t see enough of in YA fiction. The characters in this story are unlikeable and flawed—extremely so—but for that reason, my heart clenched often at their actions, assumptions, and reactions. Bonus points for the beautiful fanfiction graphics illustrated by Victoria Ying.