100 books like When We Were Outlaws

On the planet of January, one side is in permanent daylight and the other side is permanent night, with people managing to live on a strip of moderate light between the two extremes.

Sophie, a shy teenager, breaks the rules and is sent to the dark side to die, only she survives.  While she is in the dark, she meets telepathic creatures who, despite their terrifying visage, are kind-hearted—a shock to someone raised in a community who believes the creatures (and others) are awful because of the way they look.

Together with her best friend, Bianca, they decide to save the human race, against all dark odds, including secret outlaws. 

This TV series would showcase all the strange glory of Anders, along with the emotional depth that will have us rooting for our young heroines who literally go between the darkness and the light. Hey, J.J. Abrams, you listenin’?

Here is another period piece, set in the 1850s and inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Our Hideous Progeny is a Gothic, magical novel that begs to be brought (no pun intended) to life. It’s a rich, delicious adventure through time and across several countries while Mary, the name of the main character, tracks down the secrets of her great uncle, Victor Frankenstein, in an effort to build back some of the money lost by her husband, Henry, a gambler.

Like the series, Lessons in Chemistry (also an adaptation) and others, there is a feminist current running through the book, which modern audiences might appreciate, in the trials a woman had to overcome in a time when there were no “scientists”, only “men of science.” And, of course, a queer love story.

Author C.E. McGill has already ruminated on possible actors to play the key roles in an adaptation, including Sophie… show more.

James Hynes’ novel focuses on Jacob, nicknamed “Sparrow”, who’s a slave in a brothel in New Carthage at the end of the Roman Empire. Yum!

Although the book itself is too brutal for my taste, as it goes through development, perhaps they could add a thread of lightness, especially in the lives and friendships Sparrow develops with many of the “Wolves” (prostitutes).
As a series, this could be a Gladiator-meets-Harlots, with a darkness and depth that would give us insight into the lowest rung of the Roman Empire, with the possibility of a dozen sub-stories to fill out as we trod through this dark time.

I vote that this novella by Cassandra Khaw be made into an animated limited series, opening on a mermaid who leaves her two children after they’ve devoured what is left of the city that had to be burned to the ground to prevent the spread of the plague.

They devoured because they have teeth, as mermaids do. The children also have “supple lips”, as their father had, a prince who abducted and forced the mermaid to marry him then cut her tongue out.

She leaves them and their destruction behind to wander the countryside with a plague doctor who wears a vulture mask. It was the plague doctor who insisted they burn everything to the ground. The unusual pair soon find their way to a village where saints decide which people can be brought back from the dead in (on theme) Frankenstein-ian ways. A perfect animation.

This book fundamentally reshaped my notion of how biography–especially biographies of women–can be written. Shapland felt intimately connected to McCullers as a person and as a writer and also had an inkling there was more to her personhood than previous biographical treatments suggest.

By inhabiting McCullers’s spaces and putting herself in proximity to the writer’s material past, Shapland demonstrates the ways in which convention has limited both the stories we tell and, thus, the possibilities we can envision for our lives as women. 

Recently published and super accessible, this book is a modern catalogue of lesbian and bi culture for women. It looks at the recent evolution of queer female visibility in the mainstream and across pop culture, asking what material changes this visibility has for the life of queer women everywhere. It’s funny and pacey and broad in scope, as it asks: How is lesbian culture changing?

This is a story about a personal trainer charged with helping a hockey star get back on the ice. While the focus is very much on the relationship rather than the hockey, I just adored the way Kris Bryant captures the ways an athlete puts so much of herself on the line both physically and emotionally. I love the way Kris writes this “all in” sort of character who charges after what she wants, both in and out of the arena. I think she captured the kind of personality we are all drawn to in people who have the drive to reach the pinnacle of their pursuits.

The first sapphic book I ever read, over 30 years ago, still holds a special place in my heart. The two women stumble into their attraction for each other in a way that is believable and tender, and they take a journey together that is still relevant to our times. While one woman, Lane, had previously thought a same-sex relationship could be a real possibility for her, the other, Diana, had literally no idea until she meets Lane and is swept off her feet by her feelings. Simply a lovely story that I’ve re-read many times.

Melissa Brayden is one of the gold standards for sapphic romance authors. I have never once been disappointed when I’ve picked up one of her books, and this one is no exception. I love sports books that focus on lesser-known sports, and surfing definitely falls into that category, but Brayden gets bonus points for also picking a sport with the sexiness built right in. Swimsuits, beaches, wet women, it’s not hard to find the appeal, and of course you also get the trademark Melissa Brayden snappy dialog and relatable characters. 

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… show more.