Book picks similar to
Staged Life by Lija O'Brien
lesbian
lgbtq
ya
standalone
Sister Mischief
Laura Goode - 2011
Our heroine, Esme Rockett (aka MC Ferocious) is a Jewish lesbian lyricist. In her crew, Esme’s got her BFFs Marcy (aka DJ SheStorm, the butchest straight girl in town) and Tess (aka The ConTessa, the pretty, popular powerhouse of a vocalist). But Esme’s feelings for her co-MC, Rowie (MC Rohini), a beautiful, brilliant, beguiling desi chick, are bound to get complicated. And before they know it, the queer hip-hop revolution Esme and her girls have exploded in Holyhill is on the line. Exciting new talent Laura Goode lays down a snappy, provocative, and heartfelt novel about discovering the rhythm of your own truth.
Goddess
Kelly Gardiner - 2014
Tempestuous, swashbuckling and volatile, within two years she has run away with her fencing master, fallen in love with a nun and is hiding from the authorities, sentenced to be burnt at the stake. Within another year, she has become Mademoiselle de Maupin, a beloved star at the famed Paris Opéra. Her lovers include some of Europe's most powerful men and France's most beautiful women. Yet Julie is destined to die alone in a convent at the age of 33. Based on an extraordinary true story, this is an original, dazzling and witty novel - a compelling portrait of an unforgettable woman. For all those readers who love Sarah Dunant, Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel.
The Hour Between
Sebastian Stuart - 2009
There, in the woods of Connecticut, Arthur meets Katrina Felt, the charming, troubled daughter of a Hollywood movie star. As Arthur struggles with his sexuality and Katrina’s beauty and talent land her in a Broadway musical, the two forge a tender friendship. But while Arthur’s confidence grows, Katrina is pulled down by the heartbreaking secrets and sorrows of her past. By year’s end, their lives will be changed forever, and their friendship will be over. Set in the late 1960s, The Hour Between is a compelling portrait of a time and place, replete with drugs, sex, Andy Warhol, a cast of truly memorable secondary characters, and some of the sharpest and funniest dialogue in recent memory.Sebastian Stuart has written novels, plays, and screenplays. His last novel was ghostwritten (with acknowledgment): Charm! by Kendall Hart, a character on the soap opera All My Children. Charm! spent five weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. A native New Yorker, Stuart now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with novelist Stephen McCauley.
Eyes on the Stars
Lynn Ames - 2010
But when their nation needed experienced female pilots, their reactions were identical: heed the call. In early 1943, the two women joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots-WASP-and reported to Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas, where they promptly fell head-over-heels in love. The life of a WASP was often perilous by definition. Being two women in love added another layer of complication entirely, leading to ostracism and worse. Like many others, Jessie and Claudia hid their relationship, going on dates with men to avert suspicion. The ruse worked well until one seemingly innocent afternoon ruined everything. Two lives tragically altered. Two hearts ripped apart. And a second chance more than fifty years in the making. From the airfields of World War II, to the East Room of the Obama White House, follow the lives of two extraordinary women whose love transcends time and place.
The House You Pass on the Way
Jacqueline Woodson - 1997
As the granddaughter of celebrities and the daughter of an interracial couple in an all-black town, she has become adept at isolating herself from curious neighbors. But then her cousin, Trout, comes to visit. Trout is exactly like Staggerlee wishes she could be: outspoken, sure of herself, beautiful. Finally, Staggerlee has a friend, someone she can share her deepest, most private thoughts with. Someone who will teach her how to be the strong girl she longs to be. But is Trout really the girl Staggerlee thinks she is?
Stilettos and Steel
Jeri Estes - 2010
The counter culture revolution front lines have overrun the city. Golden Gate Park littered with nude, flower crowned hippies burning draft cards in a psychedelic haze. North Beach rocks with the San Francisco sound of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix while Otis Redding bemoans Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. Free love seduces tourists and soldiers, as topless club barkers pack ‘em in under Carol Doda’s flashing neon tits. Jessica Rawlson, an attractive middle class young lady joins the migration to the city on an adventure of sexual self-discovery and personal independence.Fate leads Jessica to the infamous red light district where a gangster/lesbian subculture thrives. The Tenderloin District is alive with sultry femme fatales, corrupt cops, hustlers and homos. Love, lust and murder share the sidewalks with queens in high heels and high hair as suburban perverts cruise on a safari of lust. Jessica embarks on a riveting journey from street prostitute to mastermind of her own empire. Her walk on the wild side offers intoxicating freedom and power. Straddling moral boundaries, shuffling lovers, appeasing mob bosses and the heat, while keeping vicious territorial predators at bay, is the price to survive at the top.
Those Who Wait
Peggy J. Herring - 1999
Secretly in love with Cheryl for years, Elaine hopes she'll finally have a chance to win Cheryl's heart. But will she? Mickey's fling will soon be over and she'll want Cheryl back...in the worst way.
Rose of No Man's Land
Michelle Tea - 2005
While her mother lies on the couch in a hypochondriac haze and her sister aspires to be on The Real World, Trisha struggles to find her own place among the neon signs, theme restaurants, and cookie-cutter chain stores of her hometown. After being hired and abruptly fired from the most popular clothing shop at the local mall, Trisha befriends a chain-smoking misfit named Rose, and her life shifts into manic overdrive. A “postmillennial, class-adjusted My So-Called Life” (Publishers Weekly), Rose of No Man’s Land is brimming with snarky observations and soulful musings on contemporary teenage America.
Down to the Bone
Mayra Lazara Dole - 2008
What if you don't follow the rules and it radically alters the course of your life?What if you get kicked out of the house and lose all your friends and everyone you love? Will you turn the corner into a world filled with unusual friends and create a new kind of family or self-destruct?BOOKLIST *STARRED* REVIEW
Girls I've Run Away With
Rhiannon Argo - 2013
I couldn't put this book down!” --Michelle Tea, author of Mermaid in Chelsea Creek
Shy Girl
Elizabeth Stark - 1999
a young woman confident, even nonchalant, about her sexual conquests of other women. She works as a body piercer at a full-service tattoo parlor, rides a motorcycle, and has slept with every girl in San Francisco who is so inclined. But none can replace Sasha "Shy" Mallon, the next-door neighbor from her girlhood. As teenagers, they discovered themselves together; then Shy fled to Seattle and entered a relationship with a man. Now Shy has returned, pregnant, to be at her dying mother's bedside. Alta joins her there; and soon they are tending toward intimacy again, in a way that shakes up their notions of who they are, as well as opening up the secrets of their mothers' lives.
Karen Memory
Elizabeth Bear - 2015
See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me."Set in the late 19th century—when the city we now call Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello. Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house—a resourceful group—and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in their rubbish heap—a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.
Fire Logic
Laurie J. Marks - 2002
Shaftal's ruling house has been scattered by the invading Sainnites. The Shaftali have mobilized a guerrilla army against these marauders, but every year the cost of resistance grows, leaving Shaftal's fate in the hands of three people: Emil, scholar and reluctant warrior; Zanja, the sole survivor of a slaughtered tribe; and Karis the metalsmith, a half-blood giant whose earth powers can heal, but only when she can muster the strength to hold off her addiction to a deadly drug.Separately, all they can do is watch as Shaftal falls from prosperity into lawlessness and famine. But if they can find a way to work together, they just may change the course of history.
Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was
Sjón - 2013
But it is also Sjón's most realistic, accessible, and heartfelt work yet. It is the story of a young man on the fringes of a society that is itself at the fringes of the world--at what seems like history's most tumultuous, perhaps ultimate moment.Máni Steinn is queer in a society in which the idea of homosexuality is beyond the furthest extreme. His city, Reykjavik in 1918, is homogeneous and isolated and seems entirely defenseless against the Spanish flu, which has already torn through Europe, Asia, and North America and is now lapping up on Iceland's shores. And if the flu doesn't do it, there's always the threat that war will spread all the way north. And yet the outside world has also brought Icelanders cinema! And there's nothing like a dark, silent room with a film from Europe flickering on the screen to help you escape from the overwhelming threats--and adventures--of the night, to transport you, to make you feel like everything is going to be all right. For Máni Steinn, the question is whether, at Reykjavik's darkest hour, he should retreat all the way into this imaginary world, or if he should engage with the society that has so soundly rejected him.