Ranking All the Queer Books I've Ever Read

As a lesbian, you'd think I would be a big fan of reading queer books. That's what I thought, too, when I first came out and decided to get my hands on as many lesbian-themed books as possible. I soon learned, however, that I do not enjoy reading queer books. Especially lesbian books. The reasons are complicated: I get jealous of the characters, or the stories hit too close to home, or they get some small detail different from my experience and it irritates me. But for the most part it's just that I get jealous of the characters. I get so jealous that I have to return the book to the library, fuming. Oh, you had your first girlfriend in middle school and it was adorable, huh? I hate you. Oh, you JUST came out and you're immediately flooded with romantic possibilities? I hate you.

My preference tends to be spec fic when it comes to queer books- if two girls are kissing on top of a dragon, my suspension of disbelief is high enough that I don't get jealous. After all, I've already dealt with my jealousy that they live in a cool magic world, so my jealousy about their rose-tinted love life is swept under the rug with that. If two girls have a messed-up relationship on the planet Etheria and they're superheroes, that doesn't hit too close to home about my messed-up relationships because they're on the planet Etheria for god's sake; how can it possibly hit close to home?

Anyway, I did end up reading a lot of queer books in my life, and I still occasionally do, when I'm emotionally stable and the book is just right. But it isn't as many as you might think. So I figured, since I want to get into book reviewing anyway, I'm going to rank all the queer books I've ever read (the ones that I actually finished, though- there are many that I read MOST of or half of and never finished. They will not be on here). They're all different so I don't know how accurate this ranking will be, but why not? Should be fun.


So, in total, I've read seventeen queer books. Told you, I really do not read a lot of them. Here they are, ranked from worst to best. This is not meant to say that any are bad, because this list is very subjective, and like I said, different genres.


17. Ship It by Britta Lundin
Amongst the worst books I've ever read, and simultaneously, absolutely hilarious. I would NEVER recommend this to its target audience, teenage participants in fan/shipping culture. But I WOULD recommend it to adults who have seen the seedy underbelly of fan culture and enjoy a good laugh. The main character is a chaotic evil teenage fangirl who will stop at nothing to make her gay ship (a THINLY veiled version of Dean/Castiel from the real-world show Supernatural) a reality. During her twisted journey to shipping canon, she realizes that she likes girls and develops an unhealthy relationship with a fellow shipper. The character is depicted as always in the right and morally good and everything she does is worth it because Teenage Girls Get Mocked For Their Interests So You Shouldn't Mock Her For Kidnapping And Blackmailing And Making Pornography Of Real People Who Didn't Consent. The relationship she has with her fellow shipper, also depicted as healthy, even though they both out each other to friends and family without consent. The best part of this book is that it's written by one of the staff writers on Riverdale, a show that is basically if this book hit Archie Comics in the face. Horrible, but funny.

16. Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Now this list immediately shoots upward into "actually good books" territory. I enjoyed this book, which I read about six months before I came out myself. It's about a teenage boy who's gay and in the closet and has been e-mailing a mysterious fellow gay classmate. He lives in suburban America and while most people he knows are generally accepting of gay people, it's still tough for him to come out because he's afraid of his life changing in ways he's not ready for. His thoughts about being in the closet were very relatable, and his friendships and eventual romance were very sweet. However, it is a bit upsetting to read (SPOILER WARNING) a character being forcibly outed and blackmailed in a book that is otherwise a fluffy coming-of-age story. I'm also meh on contemporary stories, as explained above. I did like the amount of Oreo analysis in the book!

15. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
I've actually reviewed this book on this blog before. This book has been described as a modern-day version of classic coming-of-age stories such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Catcher in the Rye. It is very well-written and the relationship between Ari and Dante is real and extremely heartwarming. For me, it was not super relatable because for many reasons, Ari and Dante's life is far removed from mine (they live in the Southwest, their Latinx identity, the fact that they're boys) but it still hits home on a lot of realities for teenagers in general, and books don't need to be relatable to me to be good lol.

14. The Dark Wife by S.E. Diemer
This is not as well-written as the two preceding it, but I liked it more because it's not contemporary, so I didn't have the issues I described above about "hey! this is the real world! I live in the real world! and it sucks here!". Also, the main characters are women, and I am biased towards women if that was not clear. This is a retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth with a couple key changes: one, Persephone went to the Underworld on purpose to escape a marriage to Zeus. And two, Hades is actually a woman, but Zeus calls her a man to make fun of her for being gender non-conforming. The book is short and cute for the most part, and I liked the aesthetics of the Underworld and all the Greek mythology references. The writing was iffy, but the concept was good. Trigger warning for anyone who wants to read it, though: there is a graphic sexual assault early in the book. It's there to illustrate the horrors of Zeus (which is accurate to the mythos, yeah) but it's very upsetting to read.

13. The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
This is a very cute, short graphic novel set in a pseudo-European fairytale-like country. It tells the tale of a genderfluid prince who lives as a regular, awkward prince by day, and goes out dressed as a woman to live as a dramatic socialite by night. He hires an eccentric dressmaker to make his alter ego's costumes and dresses. The book explores gender and love in a very gentle way, and I liked the cute story. However, near the end, the prince is forcibly outed in a horrible way. There is a happy ending, but that scene can be upsetting, and I've heard criticism of it from trans readers.

12. Ash by Malinda Lo
This book is a classic for fans of lesbian YA books. It came out over 10 years ago, and I came across it in the library as a wee 13-year-old closeted baby idiot, read the back cover, hyperventilated, shoved it back on the shelf, and went to the children's books to catch my breath and calm down. Years later, in college, I decided to finally read it. It's a simple lesbian retelling of Cinderella involving a darker version of the fairy godmother and a happy ending. It was a fun read and I really enjoyed it.

11. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova
I have reviewed this book before as well, on a short-lived YouTube channel that I will NOT be linking here. It's a very good story, book one of a trilogy, that tells the story of a bruja, a Latina witch, living in Brooklyn, who discovers that she has more power than she ever imagined- and has to use it to rescue her family from a terrifying magic dimension full of dark creatures and an evil witch called the Devourer. The main character is a bisexual girl who has a love triangle with a guy friend and her best girl friend. I enjoyed the story, though I sometimes felt that the writing and plot structure were a bit weaker than some of the other books on this list. However, definitely worth reading.

10. Spinning by Tillie Walden
Honestly, this book would be higher on the list if I wasn't such a baby who gets mad when I see people who are cooler than me. This is an autobiographical graphic novel with a really nice art style, about the author's experiences being a competitive ice skater and coming out as a lesbian. It's a really interesting story, full of emotion, well-written and well-drawn, and explores a lot of experiences common to young queer people. However, since I did not share those experiences myself, I got annoyed and threw the book across the room and went to sulk, so my memory of reading it was a bit tainted by that.

9. Screaming Down Splitsville by Ennis Rook Bashe
Ennis is one of my good friends from college, so I may be biased towards their writing, but I think this novella would be enjoyable for anyone to read! It's the story of two girls who've been damaged by a system trying to weed out supernatural powers. One of them was rescued by an organization that helps those that have powers; the other is still held in an oppressive institution. Turns out, they used to be cell neighbors that had a small crush on each other back in the day, and now one of them is back to rescue the other. It's basically a whole bunch of hurt/comfort lesbianism and cool powers and it's heartwarming as hell.

8. George by Alex Gino
I think this is the only children's book on this list. It's a book about a young trans girl, I believe she's in third grade, named Melissa. She's not out to anyone yet, so she has to go by George, which is where the title comes from. (The author, by the way, didn't want Melissa's deadname [deadname is another word for a name that a trans person doesn't want to go by anymore] as the title, but they were convinced by the editor or publisher or someone). The book explores the story of how she slowly comes out to her friends and family by secretly taking the role of Charlotte in her class's performance of Charlotte's Web, and by the end of the book (SPOILER WARNING) she gets to put on a dress and go to the zoo with her best friend. It is such a cute book and while Melissa does have to deal with some mild transphobia, it mostly comes from a place of misunderstanding, and she has a great support system and ends up being fully accepted. I think it's a good book for parents and kids to read to learn about trans identity or just to read a good story about a kid dealing with self-discovery.

7. Rescuing Her Redeemed Omega by Lia Meyers
This is another one from Ennis (Lia Meyers is their pen name). I also reviewed this one on my Goodreads, so you can go there for a longer review. (No, I have not used my Goodreads much, don't judge me, I only made it recently). It's the only erotica book on this list, so I wouldn't recommend it if you don't like erotica, but if you do, or if you are neutral towards erotica, I would definitely recommend it! It's a Star Wars-esque story of a polyamorous couple and their entire polyamorous group who work together to fight an evil empire in space, and the two main characters both have cool psychic powers. Everyone recovers from trauma together and loves each other and has a lot of emotions. It's fun, emotional, sweet, sexy at times, very well-written, and generally excellent. It also explores gender dynamics and sexual dynamics in a great way- in this world, there's no such thing as gender roles or assigned genders, so the way the characters interact and exist is kind of freeing and interesting to read.

6. The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
This book is SO GOOD. It's the first book in a two-part series (I still haven't gotten my hands on book two because of quarantine, ugh!). (yes, I know ordering online exists, but I keep forgetting to- it's easier to remember things when I'm allowed to go to the library). It's a dark romantic-esque story of a creepy little small town in upstate New York that harbors a terrible Beast in the woods, trapped by the town's founders in a dark dimension called the Gray. The four founding families were given powers that allow them to keep the Beast and the Gray at bay and protect the people of the town. In this story, four teenagers from the four families work together to try and stop more terrible things from happening. Two of the four are bisexual (possibly more? I haven't read book two as I may have mentioned) and their bisexuality is neatly integrated into the story, just a fact of life, and the representation is very good. The author is bi as well, which makes the writing of their identities very real and well-written.

5. The Abyss Surrounds Us by Emily Skrutskie
For a while, this was my favorite lesbian book. It's another first book in a two-part series, and I did read the second book this time, haha. The worldbuilding is what really makes this book. It takes place in a future where much of the earth has flooded and some countries have split up, but humanity has carried on pretty normally, albeit with a more marine bent towards living. The main character trains Reckoners, aka giant genetically engineered sea monsters, and is out on her first mission with her giant sea turtle Durga when pirates attack the ship she's on. She's supposed to work with her turtle to defend the ship from the pirates, but things go awry and she gets kidnapped. That's when the pirates reveal their true plan: they've gotten their hands on a baby Reckoner turtle, and she's gonna train it to defend the pirate ship. Doesn't that sound amazing? It's written captivatingly as well, and the main character is a lesbian who has a romance with a hot pirate girl. Really fun for fans of sci-fi or giant turtles or lesbians.

4. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
My favorite writing professor in college gave us this book as an assignment, and I am very grateful. When I read it, all I could think was "now THIS is what I needed to read when I was a repressed baby gay in high school." It is extremely literary-fiction, which is not usually my thing, and I have the attention span of a toddler these days, so I had trouble staying focused on it since there weren't any giant turtles or anything, but it's worth the read. It's basically Gay Repression: The Novel, and it's about a closeted gay man staying in Paris in the 1950s while his fiance, a very modern woman, goes off traveling elsewhere. He takes the opportunity to have an illicit affair with the more open and passionate Giovanni, which he breaks off in order to pursue his clear-cut heterosexual lie of a life. But by the end, his fiance discovers his secret and he ends up broken and alone. The book is told nonlinearly as the main character reminisces and regrets. James Baldwin wrote it specifically about a white gay man in Paris to show that his own (Baldwin's) experience with repression and societal pressure as a black gay man was not specific to himself, but could happen even to a privileged guy. Baldwin is an amazing writer and this book is fantastic.

3. Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire
This series currently has five books and they're all fairly short and all absolutely excellent. They explore the question: what happens when the kid who went to a magical world comes home from their adventure? And what happens when they never wanted to come home and now they want to go back? It takes place at a boarding school for these kids, with the pretense of "rehabilitating" them into being "normal" again, but secretly run by an old woman who went to a fairyland herself and wants to help these kids deal with their grief and, hopefully, find their way back if they can. Each book focuses on a different kid's adventure (I say kid, but they're all teenagers, really) although many of the other students get turns in the spotlight as well. The creativity of the worldbuilding in these books is astounding, and the characters are all fantastic. There's also a huge amount of queer representation: Nancy, who went to the Halls of the Dead, is openly asexual and talks about it a lot in her narration. Cade, the "goblin prince" who now works as a sort of assistant principal, is a trans boy. Jack, one of two twins who went to a twisted vampire world, is a bisexual girl who ends up marrying a girl from the other world. There's plenty of other representation, too. I especially liked Cora, who is mocked for being fat in our world, but whose body is an advantage in the mermaid world she goes to. There's plenty more I could talk about because the books are chock-full of amazing writing and cool characters, but honestly, you should just read them.

2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Another classic for lesbians, this nonlinear coming-of-age graphic novel has been turned into a hit musical which, no, I have not seen, although I do like the song "Ring of Keys." The autobiographical book explores Bechdel's childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood; how she dealt with being a tomboy while being pressured to be feminine, how she discovered her lesbianism in college, her father's own homosexuality that she got to commiserate over with him briefly before his death, and the titular topic, the funeral home or "Fun Home" where her family worked. It's fantastically written and gets really deep into concepts of gender and sexuality. Bechdel is also famous for her series of comics "Dykes to Watch Out For," which are classics in the queer community, and which I own an anthology of, but I've been having trouble reading it due to my aforementioned Annoying Jealous Baby nature.

1. We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Key Mejia
Maybe it's blasphemy to put a YA genre book above literary classics on a queer book ranking list, but it's my list so I get to do whatever I want. Besides, this book's exploration of gender roles is on par with some of the Literary Queer Theory books on here. This book takes place in a fictional kingdom where upper-class men traditionally take two wives: the Primera, who runs the household finances and domestic chores, and the Segunda, who is the husband's romantic partner and births and raises their children. Daniela, the protagonist, has been training in boarding school to become a Primera, and despite her origins in poverty, she's been chosen by the big-deal Garcias to marry their son Mateo, the future general of the nation's army, due to her high class ranking. One problem: she's secretly an "illegal" immigrant. Her mother snuck her across the border as a toddler, and her papers are faked. The night before her wedding, her school is inspected, and she's almost caught before a mysterious guy hands her a new, more up-to-date set of fake ID papers. All she has to do in return is some light spying for his resistance movement. Dani has to choose: the fancy life that she's trained for that her parents sacrificed everything for, or the justice that this resistance movement offers? All the while, she has to deal with her grossly sexist and classist husband. Oh, and another thing she has to deal with: her old school rival, Carmen, is her husband's Segunda. And Daniela might also be a Giant Lesbian, but that's sort of secondary to dealing with this minefield of messed-up gender roles... or is it? See what I mean? Aaaahhhh this book is so good and I haven't even mentioned the food descriptions! That's right, the food descriptions in this book are heavenly. This book knows the way to my heart. There's a second book coming out soon, and I'm super excited aaaahh.

So YEAH... I tend to go on, as you might remember! Like I said, I really wanted to get into book reviewing, so these sort of function as book reviews, hence how LONG they are. I also wanted to add six extra books at the end here, which aren't "queer books" per se, but have queer characters or themes. Those are (in no order):

1. The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater- REFRAIN from your eye-rolling, friends; I know how annoying I used to ("used to") be about these books. They do have excellent world-building and the characters are FANTASTIC. Their representation of mental illness and trauma is very good. And there are two queer characters, Adam and Ronan, and their relationship is very well-written.
2. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo- There are six main characters, and two of them, Wylan and Jesper, are in a gay relationship by the end. They're very sweet and the two books in the series are fantastic in general. Basically just a magic-filled heist story with a bunch of kids dealing with trauma.
3. The House of Hades by Rick Riordan- part of the stellar Percy Jackson books, I include this because I projected hard onto Nico di Angelo as a teen and the scene where he comes out really had an effect on closeted little me.
4. The Cruel Prince by Holly Black- READ THESE BOOKS. If you like fairy worlds or fantasy, READ THEM. I primarily like them for the fascinating plot and the relationship (which is straight) between Jude and Cardan, but Jude does have a bisexual sister who has a very messed-up relationship with a human girl and I liked the rep of f/f relationships that aren't all sunshine and butterflies.
5. Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey- This book answers the question "What if Aunt Petunia wasn't a horrid person, but a bitter private detective? And Lily was a lesbian Hogwarts professor? And Hogwarts was actually in California and less castle-y and more high-school-y? And there was a murder and bitter-but-nice Petunia was the only person who could solve it? And the author wasn't a racist transphobe?"
6. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson- No, not a canonically gay book, but it IS about Victorian repression, and the author was believed to be gay, and it's heavily coded as being about sexuality. And when I was in eighth grade, I projected so hard onto this book that I lost my mind and started calling myself "Hyde" when I had Gay Thoughts.

Anyway, you're welcome for the long, rambling post that is extraordinarily dull for anyone but me (and perhaps huge fans of these books, I guess) to read. Welcome back to the hell of my blog!

Restarting My Blog

Hey all! Yes, much like some of my favorite YouTube channels, quarantine has given me an opportunity to restart some personal projects. Not anything to do with work, the organizations I volunteer with, or school (I did graduate college but I'm working on an online master's in education), not anything productive, of course, but lots of personal projects. My book, helping in the garden, cooking, reading, etc. So I thought I'd return to this blog as well. Obviously it's been... 5 years? 4 years? At least? Since I updated, more since I updated regularly. So, you know, don't expect the same sort of content. Although it will still be sarcastic and such. I live at home now. I WAS working as a Hebrew school teacher but a) it's summer vacation now and b) quarantine. I'm looking to become a high school English teacher. Also, I don't care about being out as gay on here anymore. Lots of changes in how the blog may function, yeah.

EDIT: Turns out I can't selectively unsubscribe people from this blog or block anyone, so welcome, relatives! Surprise! Deal with it.

Generally, I'll probably post about recipes, book reviews, and miscellaneous stuff. But I don't have any ideas for a schedule or anything, plus I have no idea how long I'll keep up actually posting, so I'm not gonna make a fuss about it. Don't expect anything.

OK, thanks for reading!