Celebrate National Coming Out Day with the Best LGBTQ Books of 2019
Celebrate National Coming Out Day with the Best LGBTQ Books of 2019
If you've been on the Internet at all, you've probably seen that today is National Coming Out Day—in other words, the day when you find out who all from your high school is gay now. Jokes aside, in addition to giving closeted or questioning people an opportunity to share their identity with the world, this day also gives LGBTQ people who are already out the chance to reflect on our experiences and the people they've helped us become. In honor of today, we've put together this list of the year’s most celebrated and most anticipated LGBTQ book releases.
1) Mostly Dead Things
Tin House Books
amazon.com
$11.99
A family-owned taxidermy shop in sunny Florida may not seem like the most conventional setting for a meditation on grief and heartbreak, but Kristen Arnett isn’t exactly a conventional author. Morbid, strange, and very queer, Arnett’s debut novel is sort of a coming-of-age story for an entire family: When Jessa-Lynn Morton discovers her father dead by suicide, she steps up to take over his struggling taxidermy business as the rest of their household falls to pieces around her. Mostly Dead Things is a book that refuses to fit neatly into any boxes, making it a perfect read during a month that’s all about celebrating yourself for who you are.
2) In the Dream House: A Memoir
Graywolf Press
amazon.com
$21.31
Two years after first commanding the world’s attention with her debut collection Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado is back with In The Dream House, an engrossing memoir that blurs the lines between personal narrative and literary criticism. Revisiting a psychologically toxic relationship through the lens of assorted storytelling tropes, Machado expands an intensely intimate story into a meditation on the way that abuse takes hold in queer relationships.
Out November 5, 2019.
3) Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States
Little, Brown and Company
amazon.com
$16.81
When transgender reporter Samantha Allen walked away from video-game journalism in the aftermath of GamerGate, the gaming community’s significant loss was everyone else’s gain: Allen’s award-winning work as an LGBT journalist for platforms like Fusion and The Daily Beast is both radically empathetic and comprehensively analytical. This is a balance she has upheld admirably in Real Queer America, an exploration of queer communities in conservative parts of the country—communities that are often overlooked in conversations about what it means to be queer, American, or both. Use this title to help you chart the course of your next cross-country road trip.
4) When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History
St. Martin's Press
amazon.com
$21.07
With its thriving community and widespread air of public acceptance, 21st-century Brooklyn bears all the hallmarks of a queer Promised Land. So it should come as no surprise that the New York City borough has a vibrant, illustrious queer legacy all its own—entirely distinct from Manhattan’s own LGBT+ history. Now, historian Hugh Ryan has given us our first comprehensive survey of Brooklyn’s hidden cultural heritage. Spanning from the 1850s through today, When Brooklyn Was Queer is a chronicle for the ages.
5) Patsy: A Novel
Liveright
amazon.com
$15.68
We’ve already highlighted Patsy as one of our top summer reads, but it deserves another shout-out in honor of LGBT History Month. Dennis-Benn’s second novel follows the titular Patsy as she leaves her young daughter behind in Jamaica to reunite with her former lover Cicely in America. The result: a stirring meditation on issues of motherhood, sexuality, and belonging.
6) Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
G.P. Putnam's Sons
amazon.com
$18.47
When nonbinary artist and activist Jacob Tobia was growing up, they struggled to find their experience represented in media and society—so they decided to write a book about it. Sissy tells the story of what it was like for Jacob to grow up outside the confines of the gender binary, and how that outsider status became a source of power for them as an adult. It’s a sparkling, sensitive memoir about turning our preconceived notions of gender upside down—and inside out—for good.
7) The Stonewall Reader
Penguin Classics
amazon.com
$12.19
In 2019, the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, there’s no better way to celebrate and the history of Pride than to mark the words of the queer activists who spearheaded the fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s. Complete with a foreword by Edmund White, The Stonewall Reader is a compendium of primary sources from the early days of the contemporary LGBTQ rights movement and an essential read for any member of the community who wants to learn about those who paved the way before us.
8) Pet
Make Me a World
amazon.com
$16.19
With the publication of their debut novel Freshwater in 2018, Akwaeke Emezi redefined expectations for what an autobiographical narrative could be. This year, Emezi is poised to do the same for YA with Pet, which tells the story of a teenage girl who is determined save her town from monsters—but must first convince everyone around her that they exist.
9) Find Me: A Novel
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
amazon.com
$19.39
Looking for something lush and seductive to read? Keep an eye out for the long-awaited sequel to Call Me By Your Name, which follows Elio, Oliver, and Elio’s father Samuel as they wrestle with affairs of the heart in the years following that fateful summer. No word yet on whether any peaches are involved.
Out October 29, 2019.
10) How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
Simon & Schuster
amazon.com
$20.80
What is it like to grow up black, queer, and male in the South? Poet and former AM to DM host Saeed Jones answers that question with How We Fight For Our Lives, a haunting, sensual memoir about Jones’ experiences growing up as a young gay kid below the Mason-Dixon line. If you’re looking for something that’ll both rough you up and talk you down, this powerful, lyrical book is for you.
11) A Wild and Precious Life: A Memoir
St. Martin's Press
amazon.com
$26.49
As the plaintiff in United States v. Windsor—the Supreme Court case which resulted in the federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the U.S.—Edie Windsor landed a major victory for the entire LGBTQ+ community. Now, two years after her passing in 2017, Windsor has one final gift for us. A Wild and Precious Life, a posthumous memoir named for a line of Mary Oliver’s poetry, takes readers through a tour of her life as a lesbian in 20th-century America and is a must-read for any young queers who want to know where our community came from.
12) A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities
Limerence Press
amazon.com
$7.40
Sooner or later, every queer person will encounter someone who is eager to participate in the LGBTQ+ community but completely out of their death, be they a supportive but clueless ally or a newly-out baby queer from a sheltered background. Fortunately, cartoonists Mady G and J.R. Zuckerberg are here to help. With the help of colorful comics and activities to engage readers, A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities will have you and your loved ones slinging around gender-neutral pronouns like, well, a pro nouner.
13) A Year Without a Name: A Memoir
Little, Brown and Company
amazon.com
$23.40
At age 27, Cyrus Grace Dunham has held many identities: poet and essayist; acclaimed queer activist; and, yes, younger sibling of Lena Dunham. So it’s fitting that their upcoming memoir, A Year Without A Name, is at its core a meditation on identities both imitated and earned. Charting a course through their childhood and adolescence into the present day, Dunham invites readers to bear witness to their journey of gender transformation.
Out October 15, 2019.
14) High School
MCD
amazon.com
$21.99
Be honest: who among us has not sobbed through the lyrics of “Nineteen” while struggling to process the emotional turmoil of our first queer heartbreak? By daring to be openly gay musicians making openly gay music, Tegan and Sara have earned a place of hero worship in the LGBTQ community, especially among young women and nonbinary people. Now, as adults, they are finally telling the story of how they developed their superhuman powers of queer empathy in this revelatory dual memoir.
15) On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel
Penguin Press
amazon.com
$18.60
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that the debut novel by acclaimed poet Ocean Vuong is painfully honest and achingly beautiful. Written as a letter from a man in his twenties to his mother, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a coming-of-age story about coming into one’s own as an immigrant and queer man, but it’s also something else: a deeply moving manifesto about the act of refusing to be silenced.
16) The Black Condition ft. Narcissus
Nightboat Books
amazon.com
$14.36
Both a memoir and a collection of poetry, The Black Condition ft. Narcissus is a meditation on the self at the end of the world. At least, that’s what it feels like: documenting the author’s transition alongside the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, this book is a tender and brave look at what it means to find yourself in an America that doesn’t want you to be found.
17) Bury the Lede
BOOM! Studios
amazon.com
$19.99
Bisexual internet icon, reluctant personal finance guru, and now graphic novelist extraordinaire: Like any true millennial, New York Times-bestselling author Gaby Dunn knows a thing or two about diversifying her resume. This time, she’s teamed up with comic illustrator Claire Roe to deliver a deliciously queer game of cat and mouse between a cub reporter and a potential murderess. If your tastes run femme-for-femme-fatale, this is the graphic novel for you.
18) Red, White & Royal Blue
Griffin
amazon.com
$10.29
Meg Cabot, but make it gay: that’s the vibe of Red, White & Royal Blue, a boy-meets-boy cross between The Princess Diaries and Cabot’s lesser-known series All-American Girl. When Alex, the son of the President of the United States, develops a rivalry with the British Prince Henry, the countries’ two administrations stage a truce for PR purposes. The only problem: It works a little too well, and Alex finds himself catapulting headlong into a secret romance with his former rival.
19) Her Royal Highness (Royals)
G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
amazon.com
$12.99
Red, White & Royal Blue wasn’t the only queer royal romance to hit shelves this year: Her Royal Highness is a girl-on-girl spin on the prince(ss)-meets-commoner trope that you’ll devour in seconds. When Texan Millie Quint is sent across the pond to an elite boarding school in Scotland, she soon finds herself falling for her roommate, Flora, who just so happens to be the Princess of Scotland. Hey, the only thing better than young love is young love paired with international intrigue, right?
20) Please Send Help: A Novel
Wednesday Books
amazon.com
$11.79
If neo-noir graphic novels aren’t your thing (see #17), Gaby Dunn and writing/comedy partner Alison Raskin have you covered with Please Send Help, the raucous sequel to their bestselling 2017 title I Hate Everyone But You. Best friends Ava and Gen couldn’t be more different: Ava lives her life on the straight and narrow, whereas Gen prefers the queer and chaotic. But that’s never stopped them from being best friends, not even now that they live almost a thousand miles apart. But are Ava and Gen ready tackle adulthood together—or will they find themselves going separate ways?
From moving memoirs to YA love stories, there's something in this list for everyone.