Nevada


Imogen Binnie - 2013
    When she finds out her girlfriend has lied to her, the world she thought she'd carefully built for herself begins to unravel, and Maria sets out on a journey that will most certainly change her forever.

The Half You Don't Know


Peter Cameron - 1997
    Focusing on characters both young and old, gay and straight, single and married, he discovers the dramas that are obscured by life's daily struggles. These beautifully crafted stories depict the surface of the world we all know, but go on to reveal the mysteries lurking beneath life's deceptively placid surface - the half we don't know.

Annie on My Mind


Nancy Garden - 1982
    The book has been banned from many school libraries and publicly burned in Kansas City. Of the author and the book, the Margaret A. Edwards Award committee said, “Using a fluid, readable style, Garden opens a window through which readers can find courage to be true to themselves.”

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.

The Bigness of the World


Lori Ostlund - 2009
    In “Upon Completion of Baldness” a young woman shaves her head for a part in a movie in Hong Kong that will help her escape life with her lover in Albuquerque. The precocious narrator of “All Boy” finds comfort when he is locked in a closet by a babysitter. In “Dr. Deneau’s Punishment” a math teacher leaving New York for Minnesota as a means of punishing himself engages in an unsettling method of discipline. A lesbian couple whose relationship is disintegrating flees to the Moroccan desert in “The Children beneath the Seat.” And in “Idyllic Little Bali” a group of Americans gathers around a pool in Java to discuss their brushes with fame and ends up witnessing a man’s fatal flight from his wife.In the eleven stories in The Bigness of the World we see that wherever you are in the world, where you came from is never far away.

The Vast Fields of Ordinary


Nick Burd - 2009
    He has a crappy job at Food World, a "boyfriend" who won't publicly acknowledge his existence (maybe because Pablo also has a girlfriend), and parents on the verge of a divorce. College is Dade's shining beacon of possibility, a horizon to keep him from floating away. Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet - and, ironically, ignites a ruthless passion in Pablo. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer, and Dade will use every ounce of strength he's gained to break from his past and start fresh with the future.

Sugarless


James Magruder - 2009
    His mother’s second husband is a licensed psychologist who eats like an ape, his stepsister is a stoner slut, and his father is engaged to a Southern belle. Rick’s only solace is his growing collection of original Broadway-cast LPs, bought on the sly at Wax Trax.    After he brings two girls in speech class to tears by reading a story aloud, Rick is coaxed onto the interscholastic forensics team to perform an eight-minute dramatic interpretation of The Boys in the Band, the controversial sixties play about homosexuality. Unexpectedly successful at this oddball event, Rick begins winning tournaments and making friends with his teammates.    Rick also discovers the joys of sex—with a speech coach from a rival school—just as his mother, reacting to a deteriorating home environment, makes an unnerving commitment to Christ. The newly confident Rick assumes this too shall pass—until the combined forces of family, sex, and faith threaten to undo him at the state meet in Peoria.    James Magruder’s Sugarless offers a ruefully entertaining take on the simultaneous struggles of coming-out, coming-of-age, and coming-to-Jesus.  A selection of InsightOut Book Club Finalist, Lambda Book Award for Gay Debut Fiction, Lambda Literary Foundation Finalist, TLA Gaybie Award for Best Gay Fiction Semi-finalist, James Branch Cabell First Novelist Award, Virginia Commonwealth University Semi-finalist, William Saroyan International Prize For Writing, Stanford University

Boundless


Jillian Tamaki - 2017
    An anonymous music file surfaces on the internet and a cult springs up in its wake. A group of city animals briefly open their minds to us. Helen finds her clothes growing baggy, her shoes looser, and as she shrinks, the world around her recedes. A lifetime of romantic relationships are charted against the rise and fall of the celebrity cast of a classic film.Jillian Tamaki brings her characteristic blend of realism and humor to her first collection of short stories. Boundless explores the lives of women and how the expectations of others influence their real and virtual selves. Mixing objective reality, speculative fiction, out-and-out fantasy, and a deep understanding of the contemporary world's contradictions, Tamaki shows herself to be a short story talent equal to her peers Adrian Tomine and Eleanor Davis. Tamaki's styles shift from story to story, each delicately setting the mood for her characters' inner turmoil: thick chunky blocks of ink become hyper-realist detailing which become brushy drawings of plants, all effortlessly rendered in Tamaki's distinctive hand.

Odd Girl Out


Ann Bannon - 1957
    With Odd Girl Out, Bannon introduces Laura Landon, whose love affair with her college roommate Beth launched the lesbian pulp fiction genre.

Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America


Ibi ZoboiJustina Ireland - 2019
    From a spectrum of backgrounds—urban and rural, wealthy and poor, mixed race, immigrants, and more—Black Enough showcases diversity within diversity.Whether it’s New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds writing about #blackboyjoy or Newberry Honor-winning author Renee Watson talking about black girls at camp in Portland, or emerging author Jay Coles’s story about two cowboys kissing in the south—Black Enough is an essential collection full of captivating coming-of-age stories about what it’s like to be young and black in America.

Pray the Gay Away


Michael Zakar - 2017
     Coming out is hard. The struggle is ongoing, a daily part of life whether to a new friend, a co-worker, or most importantly yourself. Pray the Gay Away chronicles Michael and Zach as they face awkward sexual encounters, drug-fueled escapades, coming out to each other, and their biggest foe - Mom, a woman who not only gave birth to what she calls one regret - but two. The memoir hilariously and poignantly explores what it’s like growing up as gay, Iraqi twins in modern America. Pray the Gay Away was inspired the night Mom snuck into their bedroom and force fed them “holy grapes,” determined to “de-gay” them. The Zakar Twins are new voices speaking out against generations, particularly within the Iraqi culture, who look down on being gay. This book is not only for the LBGTQ community, but for young adults, looking to achieve normalcy.

Dreadnought


April Daniels - 2017
    But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny’s body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl. It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny’s first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father’s dangerous obsession with “curing” her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he’s entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she’s in over her head.She doesn’t have much time to adjust. Dreadnought’s murderer—a cyborg named Utopia—still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can’t sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.

I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.


John Donovan - 1969
    Between alcohol-infused lectures about her self-sacrifice and awkward visits with his distant father, Davy's only comfort is his beloved dachshund Fred. Things start to look up when he and a boy from school become friends. But when their relationship takes an unexpected turn, Davy struggles to understand what happened and what it might mean.

City of a Hundred Fires


Richard Blanco - 1998
    This distinct group, known as the Ñ Generation (as coined by Bill Teck), are the bilingual children of Cuban exiles nourished by two cultural currents—the fragmented traditions and transferred nostalgia of their parents' Caribbean homeland and the very real and present America where they grew up and live.

Proud


Juno DawsonJess Vallance - 2019
    Each story has an illustration by an artist identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Compiled by Juno Dawson, author of THIS BOOK IS GAY and CLEAN.A celebration of LGBTQ+ talent, PROUD is a thought-provoking, funny, emotional read.Contributors: Steve Antony, Dean Atta, Kate Alizadeh, Fox Benwell, Alex Bertie, Caroline Bird, Fatti Burke, Tanya Byrne, Moïra Fowley-Doyle, Frank Duffy, Simon James Green, Leo Greenfield, Saffa Khan, Karen Lawler, David Levithan, Priyanka Meenakshi, Alice Oseman, Michael Lee Richardson, David Roberts, Cynthia So, Kay Staples, Jessica Vallance, Kristen Van Dam and Kameron White.Following A CHANGE IS GONNA COME, winner of the YA BOOK PRIZE SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2018