Book picks similar to
Avowed by Julie R. Enszer


poetry
lgbt
queer-lit
author-female

A Fem's Playground


Shatika Turner - 2013
    After her father’s, mother’s, and lover’s selfishness prevented them from giving her what her heart desired, she said “The Hell w/them!” Patience began doing her own thing and that was breaking the hearts of many.... Will her hoeish ways cause her playground to crumble?A Fem's Playground is jaw dropping, heartbreaking, and drama filled. Are you ready to Play?

Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson


Emily Dickinson - 1998
    Open Me Carefully invites a dramatic new understanding of Emily Dickinson's life and work, overcoming a century of censorship and misinterpretation.For the millions of readers who love Emily Dickinson's poetry, Open Me Carefully brings new light to the meaning of the poet's life and work. Gone is Emily as lonely spinster; here is Dickinson in her own words, passionate and fully alive.

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead


Emily R. Austin - 2021
    Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman, who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

Everything Leads to You


Nina LaCour - 2014
      A wunderkind young set designer, Emi has already started to find her way in the competitive Hollywood film world.   Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met. She has a tumultuous, not-so-glamorous past, and lives an unconventional life. She’s enigmatic…. She’s beautiful. And she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

Redwood and Ponytail


K.A. Holt - 2019
    Told in verse in two voices, with a chorus of fellow students, this is a story of two girls, opposites in many ways, who are drawn to each other; Kate appears to be a stereotypical cheerleader with a sleek ponytail and a perfectly polished persona, Tam is tall, athletic and frequently mistaken for a boy, but their deepening friendship inevitably changes and reveals them in ways they did not anticipate.

Dragula (Drag Queen Classics)


Ma'am Stoker - 2018
    They shout out to him: 'good luck, and don't get slurped up!'. It's about to get even weirder at the castle where there is a battle of wills going on between the mysterious Count and what he terms, the 'blood-sucking b*tches!' in the village, led by the infamous van High-Heelsing. But who will prevail on the runway? As each kween sashays towards the jugular, the reader is taken on a journey to the ultimate lip sync for your life finale.

Love Is Love: A Comic Book Anthology to Benefit the Survivors of the Orlando Pulse Shooting


Marc AndreykoPhil Jimenez - 2016
    Co-published by two of the premiere publishers in comics—DC and IDW, this oversize comic contains moving and heartfelt material from some of the greatest talent in comics, mourning the victims, supporting the survivors, celebrating the LGBTQ community, and examining love in today’s world. All material has been kindly donated by the writers, artists, and editors with all proceeds going to victims, survivors, and their families. Be a part of an historic comics event! It doesn’t matter who you love. All that matters is you love.

Women


Chloe Caldwell - 2014
    The book is an urgent recall of heartbreak, a stark portrait of an identity in crisis.

Butch Heroes


Ria Brodell - 2018
    Brodell offers a series of twenty-eight portraits of forgotten but heroic figures, each accompanied by a brief biographical note. They are individuals whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine, who did not want to enter into heterosexual marriage, and who often faced dire punishment for being themselves.Brodell's detailed and witty paintings are modeled on Catholic holy cards, slyly subverting a religious template. The portraits and the texts offer intriguing hints of lost lives: cats lounge in the background of domestic settings; one of the figures is said to have been employed variously as "a prophet, a soldier, or a textile worker"; another casually holds a lit cigarette. Brodell did extensive research for each portrait, piecing together a life from historical accounts, maps, journals, paintings, drawings, and photographs, finding the heroic in the forgotten.

Bite Hard


Justin Chin - 1997
    In Bite Hard, poet Justin Chin explores his identity as an Asian, a gay man, an artist, and a lover. He rails against both his own life experiences and society's limitations and stereotypes with scathing humor, bare-bones honesty, and unblinking detail. Whether addressing "what really goes on in the kitchen of Chinese restaurants" or a series of ex-boyfriends, all named Michael, Chin displays his remarkable emotional range and voice as a poet.His raw, incantatory, stream-of-consciousness poems confront issues of race, desire, and loss with a compelling urgency that reflects his work as a performance artist, speaking directly to an audience. Throughout this collection, Chin showcases his ability to convey thought-provoking viewpoints on a variety of controversial subjects. As R. Zamora Linmark of Rolling the R's says, "He plugs the stage microphone into the page and lyrically blasts the heart of our fears, rage, and import-export nightmarish dreams".

The Bermudez Triangle


Maureen Johnson - 2004
    But the threesome faces their first separation when Nina goes away the summer before their senior year. And in ten short weeks, everything changes.Nina returns home bursting with stories about Steve, the quirky yet adorable eco-warrior she fell for hard while away. But when she asks her best friends about their summer romances, an awkward silence follows.Nina soon learns the shocking truth when she sees Mel and Avery...kissing. Their friendship is rocked by what feels like the ultimate challenge. But it's only the beginning of a sometimes painful, sometimes funny, always gripping journey as three girls discover who they are and what they really want.

Girl Unwrapped


Gabriella Goliger - 2010
    Toni Goldblatt's awakening to taboo desire conflicts with her Holocaust-scarred parents' expectations. Yearning to reinvent herself, she flees to Israel in the wake of the 1967 war, but the Zionist dream doesn't save her; only on her return, when she discovers kindred spirits in the underground lesbian bar scene, does Toni begin to find her own path. Girl Unwrapped is a novel about love, isolation, and the search for personal truth despite the stranglehold of family.

Terminal Event


Ali Spooner - 2011
    A near-fatal accident, at age twelve, makes her visions clearer, but not the reason for them. As she matures, Lisa, a spirit, enters her visions to guide her in using her gift, but still not the reason why. After Tally’s gift helps locate the body of a murdered teen, she realizes her gift is to help lost souls find their peace.When it’s discovered, a serial killer murdered the teen, Blair “Spooky” Cooper is the Agent in Charge assigned to the case. A task force of local detectives and FBI forms to track the killer. Blair enlists the aid of Tally, and together with the team, Tally helps them piece together the puzzle of murders spanning twenty years throughout the Deep South.Even with the complication of the case, Blair and Tally have an undeniable attraction to each other. As they close in on the killer, the killer focuses on Tally, jeopardizing her bond with Blair and everyone around her. For the sake of the case, they put their attraction on the back burner until the killer is caught. Will the killer be caught or continue to evade authorities? Can Tally and Blair’s budding romance survive the possibility? Read this intense murder mystery romance and find out.

Claire of the Moon: One Woman's Journey into Her Sexual Identity


Nicole Conn - 1993
    Every detail of the beautifully erotic, haunting tale of one woman's journey into her sexual identity.

The Night Watch


Sarah Waters - 2006
    Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching. Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret. Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover. Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. War leads to strange alliances…Tender, tragic and beautifully poignant, set against the backdrop of feats of heroism both epic and ordinary, here is a novel of relationships that offers up subtle surprises and twists. The Night Watch is thrilling. A towering achievement.