* means non-white protagonist, $ means disabled protagonist, # means trans protagonist, % means aro/ace spectrum protagonist, & means protagonist of a marginalised religion (Jewish, Muslim, etc)
• Under the Lights - Dahlia Adler *
• Starting From Here - Lisa Jenn Bigelow
• Dare Truth or Promise - Paula Boock
• Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit - Jaye Robin Brown
• Between You & Me - Marisa Calin
• Style - Chelsea M. Cameron
• Fat Angie - E. e. Charlton-Trujillo $
• Lunaside - J. L. Douglas
• Annie on My Mind - Nancy Garden
• Being Emily - Rachel Gold #
• My Year Zero - Rachel Gold &
• The Flywheel - Erin Gough
• No One Needs to Know - Amanda Grace
• Tell Me Again How A Crush Should Feel - Sara Farizan *
• Ask Me How I Got Here - Christine Hepperman
• A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend - Emily Horner
• Ask the Passengers - A. S. King
• Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour *
• You Know Me Well - Nina LaCour and David Levithan
• Taking Flight - Siera Maley
• Dating Sarah Cooper - Siera Maley
• Time It Right - Siera Maley
• Colorblind - Siera Maley
• On the Outside - Siera Maley
• Girl Friends - Milk Morinaga * (five volume manga)
• Kisses, Sighs and Cherry Blossom Pink - Milk Morinaga * (manga short story collection)
• This Is Where It Ends - Marieke Nijkamp *
• Keeping You a Secret - Julie Anne Peters
• She Loves You, She Loves You Not - Julie Anne Peters
• Lies My Girlfriend Told Me - Julie Anne Peters (protagonist’s ex girlfriend dies before the book starts)
• Boyfriends with Girlfriends - Alex Sanchez *
• Wandering Son - Takako Shimura *# (twelve volume manga)
• Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before - Karelia Stetz-Waters
• The Space Between - Michelle L. Teichman
• The Summer I Wasn’t Me - Jessica Verdi
• Afterworlds - Scott Westerfeld *%
• Dirty London - Kelley York
Please suggest books and I will update this!
radfemidol: Do you know of any lesbian YA fiction, preferably with an Asian MC?
Yes, I do! For a general list of lesbian YA, check out this goodreads list. You can find my favourites here, under YA and SFF YA (they’re bisexual women and lesbian recs).
Here are the lesbian Asian main characters in YA that I know of, though I haven’t read all of them:
This is for some reason still realllly rare, so alas I don’t have much, but check out Spy Stuff by Matthew J. Metzger for m/m and Being Emily and Just Girls by Rachel Gold for f/f. To add to the list a bit, the protags of Coffee Boy by Austin Chant and Defying Convention by Cecil Wilde (which is m/nb) aren’t too much older. (I haven’t read the latter, but I’m assuming from the blurb. The protag of Coffee Boy is early 20s.) Ditto Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver, if you’re looking for some non-contemp. Dreadnought by April Daniels does star a trans lesbian, but I’m halfway through and there’s no romance, and it doesn’t seem from the blurb of the sequel as if there will eventually be one.
I really, really hope we’ll see more soon, and when we do I’ll make sure to be loud about it!
For anyone looking for trans f/f romances that aren’t YA, I also know about Cinder Ella by S.T. Lynn and Roller Girl by Vanessa North though I haven’t read them yet. A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett includes the short story Lizzy & Annie, which is a romance between two trans women and is amazing (I have the zine-style, illustrated copy of just this story and I love it).
I do! Sara Farizan is a personal fave, YA author-wise: check out her If You Could Be Mine (Iranian MC, set in Iran) and Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel (Iranian American MC, Romance set in the US). There’s also Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis (YA), and I haven’t read Bright Lines by
Tanwi Nandini Islam (Adult), but I know it has to do with explorations of sexuality and gender, among other things. Finally, there’s A Love That Disturbs by Medeia Sharif, but I mention this with the caveat that it left my friend who is a queer Middle-Eastern Muslim girl herself angrier than I’ve ever seen her at a book.
In truth, I know they’re almost all books with pretty rough depictions; if you’re looking for lightness (which I know you aren’t necessarily), TellMe Again How a Crush Should Feel might be your only bet for now. Unless anyone else has recs they love?
Anonymous: Do you know of any Fantasy books (preferably in a medieval setting, but anything is cool, just not a real life type thing ^_^) that is centred around a girl with another girl love interest(s)? (The Dark Wife is one of my favourites, so that sort of thing is cool too)
Man, this is one of the most popular questions I get; authors, get on writing more of these! Until then, make sure you check out Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst, Noble Falling and Noble Persuasion by Sara Gaines (I don’t know why I can never remember which comes first - sorry!), The Cursed Queen by Sarah Fine (second in a trilogy but can be read alone, I think, although I do recommend the Impostor Queen as well - it has an unrequited f/f Romance and ends up being m/f, but the MC is bi and it’s great), and if you like The Dark Wife, check out About a Girl by Sarah McCarry, which also has an f/f romance and is similarly centered around Greek mythology. (It’s the third in a trilogy but you can read the books individually.) I think you’ll also like Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis and Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova, which are set partially in the real world but mostly in others.
Some of my favourite lesbian & bi fantasy books are:
If you’re into reading Plays, check out Cherrie Moraga! It’s Chicanx and LGBTQIA
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces by Juana Maria Rodriguez
Las Hociconas by Adelina Anthony is a must! Like Son by Felicia Lemus Spit & Passion by Cristy C. Road Performing Disidentifications by Jose Esteban Munoz A Cup of Water Under my Bed by Daisy Hernandez We Came All the Way from Cuba so You Could Dress Like That? By Achy Obejas
Willing to send people books if purchasing is an issue!
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
“Casi Una Mujer” by Esmeralda Santiago and “How the García Girls Lost Their Accent” by Julia Alvarez
THE CURSED QUEEN- Sarah Fine: The sequel to THE IMPOSTOR QUEEN featuring a protagonist that wields ice and fire magic. (Jan 3rd, 2017, Margaret K. McElderry)
OUR OWN PRIVATE UNIVERSE - Robin Talley: A bisexual girl goes on a youth mission trip to Mexico and falls in love. (Jan 31st 2017, Harlequin Teen)
WE ARE OKAY - Nina La Cour: A contemporary tackling grief and the power of friendship. (Feb 14th 2017, Dutton Books for Young Readers)
10 THINGS I CAN SEE FROM HERE - Carrie Mac: A girl with anxiety falls in love with a girl that’s not scared of anything (Feb 28th 2017, Afred A. Knopf Books For Young Readers)
QUEENS OF GEEK - Jen Wilde: A bisexual girls falls in love during Comic Con. (Mar 14th 2017, Swoon Reads)
MEG & LINUS - Hanna Nowinski: When a girl breaks up with her girlfriend she gets invested in getting her best friend together with his boy crush. (Apr 18th 2017, Swoon Reads)
NOTEWORTHY - Riley Redgate: A bisexual girl in a capella camp! (May 2nd 2017, Amulet Books)
HOW TO MAKE A WISH - Ashley Herring Blake: A bisexual abuse survivor falls in love with a girl that’s struggling with grief. (May 2nd 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
not pictured:
RAMONA BLUE - Julie Murphy: From the author of DUMPLIN’ comes a novel set in the Mississippi Gulf Coast. (May 9th 2017, Balzer + Bray)
THE GALLERY OF UNFINISHED GIRLS - Lauren Karcz: Set in a mysterious gallery that combines painting with magic, a Latina falls in love. (July 25th 2017, HarperTeen)
LITTLE & LION - Brandy Colbert: A bisexual Black and Jewish girl is trying to be there for her stepbrother who’s been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she falls in love with his ex-girlfriend. (Aug 2017, Little, Brown Books)
THE YOU I’VE NEVER KNOWN - Ellen Hopkins: A girl finds out she’s been kidnapped by her dad and her mother isn’t dead but has been searching for her ever since. (Jan 24th 2017, Margaret McElderry Books)
DRESS CODES FOR SMALL TOWNS - Courtney C. Stevens: A girl comes to terms with the gray areas of love, gender, and sexuality. (2017, HarperCollins)
RIPTIDE SUMMER - Lisa Freeman: A contemporary set in the 70s about a bisexual surfer girl that secretly spends the nights with another girl (May 2nd 2017, Sky Pony Press)
THE SEAFARER’S KISS - Julia Ember: A bisexual retelling of The Little Mermaid. (May 2017, Interlude Press)
KISS/KILL - Amy Rose Capetta: A teen wins a Broadway role and falls in love with a lighting designer. (2017, Candlewick)
KALEIDOSCOPE SONG - Fox Benwell: Set in South Africa, a girl who loves music falls in love when she sneaks out to see live radio broadcast (2017, Simon & Schuster)
LIKE WATER - Rebecca Podos: A bisexual girl tries to forget that she may inherit a genetic illness by becoming a performing mermaid. (2017, Balzer and Bray)
THE CERULEAN - Amy Ewing: In a sapphic Utopia everyone has three mothers and a girl is sacrificed every 100 years to be abandoned on a planet. (2017, HarperTeen)
THAT INEVITABLE VICTORIAN THING - E.K. Johnston: Set in a near-future this is about online dating and has a bisexual protagonist. (2017, Dutton Children’s Books)
I need more short books that have lesbians who don’t die in them, I’ve realized I can read books if they’re under 300 pages, and I’ve finished all of the books I have.
anyone have recommendations?
Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon is definitely under 300, The Belle vs. the BDoC by AJ Cousins and Looking for a Complication by Tamsen Parker are both novellas, Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera is 276, The Final Rose by Eliza Lentzski is 226, and if a pansexual MC with a lesbian love interest is cool, then Out on Good Behavior by Dahlia Adler (me) is 268. And no one dies in any of them! Happy endings for all!
I definitely have recs! These aren’t all completely happy, but they don’t have any deaths in them, as far as I can remember, and they’re all under 300 pages. Starting with the happiest:
I’m also reading It Had To Be You by Clare Lydon right now. It’s a Christmas novella with a great dramatic romantic comedy-style premise. And you can get it for free right now!
![[image description: a graphic labelled Bi & Lesbian Books New In January/ In the background are the covers of the books listed below.]
“Solace: Writing, Refuge, and LGBTQ Women of Color edited by S. Andrea Allen & Lauren Cherelle
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