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🧲 Books like this

Openly Straight

Bill Konigsberg · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

John Green, David Levithan · 331 pages

One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teens—both named Will Grayson—are about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of history’s most fabulous high school musical.Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and D

Sexual OrientationIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-Discovery
❤️

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Saenz · 368 pages

Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.

Identity FormationSexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Geography Club

Brent Hartinger · 226 pages

Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Goodkind High School.Then his online gay chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students, too. There's his best friend Min, who reveals that she is bisexual, and her soccer-playing girlfriend Terese. Then there's Terese's politically active fr

Identity FormationSexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Winger

Andrew Smith

Two years younger than his classmates at a prestigious boarding school, fourteen-year-old Ryan Dean West grapples with living in the dorm for troublemakers, falling for his female best friend who thinks of him as just a kid, and playing wing on the Varsity rugby team with some of his frightening new dorm-mates.

Boarding SchoolSexual OrientationIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Juliet Takes a Breath

Gabby Rivera · 320 pages

Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn't sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that's going to help her figure out this whole "Puerto Rican lesbian" thing.

Identity FormationSexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Becky Albertalli · 336 pages

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the bo

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
❤️

Carry On

Rainbow Rowell · 519 pages

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen. That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right. Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing

Boarding SchoolSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
❤️

Every Day

David Levithan · 330 pages

Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.

Identity FormationSexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Pink

Lili Wilkinson · 310 pages

Ava is tired of her ultracool attitude, ultraradical politics, and ultrablack clothing. She's ready to try something new—she's even ready to be someone new. Someone who fits in, someone with a gorgeous boyfriend, someone who wears pink. But Ava soon finds that changing herself is more complicated than changing her wardrobe. Even getting involved in the school musical raises issues she never ima

Identity FormationSexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

In One Person

John Irving · 448 pages

A New York Times bestselling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a "sexual suspect," a phrase first used by John Ir

Identity FormationSexual OrientationBoarding SchoolLGBTQ+ Protagonist
❤️

Luna

Julie Anne Peters · 248 pages

Regan's brother Liam can't stand the person he is during the day. Like the moon from whom Liam has chosen his female namesake, his true self, Luna, only reveals herself at night. In the secrecy of his basement bedroom Liam transforms himself into the beautiful girl he longs to be, with help from his sister's clothes and makeup. Now, everything is about to change-Luna is preparing to emerge from he

Identity FormationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSexual Orientation
❤️

Paper Towns

John Green · 320 pages

One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.

Identity FormationSelf-DiscoveryYoung AdultFirst Person Narrator
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Whatever.: or how junior year became totally f$@ked

S.J. Goslee · 269 pages

Junior year is going to be the best ever for slacker Mike until he loses his girlfriend, gets roped into school activities, and becomes totally confused about his sexual orientation after sharing a drunken kiss with a guy.

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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Girl Walking Backwards

Bett Williams · 242 pages

In Girl Walking Backwards, Skye wants what all teenagers want--to survive high school. She lives in Southern California, though, which is making that difficult. Her mother has fallen victim to the pseudo-New Age culture and insists on dragging her to consciousness-raising workshops and hypnotists. As if this weren't difficult enough, Skye falls in love with Jessica, a troubled gothic punk girl who

Sexual OrientationIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-Discovery
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Ask the Passengers

A.S. King · 314 pages

"Astrid Jones copes with her small town's gossip and narrow-mindedness by staring at the sky and imagining that she's sending love to the passengers in the airplanes flying high over her backyard. Maybe they'll know what to do with it. Maybe it'll make them happy. Maybe they'll need it. Her mother doesn't want it, her father's always stoned, her perfect sister's too busy trying to fit in, and the

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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Little & Lion

Brandy Colbert · 341 pages

When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. LA is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new; the same girl h

Sexual OrientationIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistBoarding School
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Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Rachel Cohn, David Levithan · 238 pages

Naomi loves Ely. And she's kinda in love with him. Ely loves Naomi. But he prefers to be in love with boys. Naomi and Ely have been inseparable since childhood - partially because they've grown up across the hall from each other in the same Manhattan apartment building, and also because they're best friends. Soul mates. Or are they? Just to be safe, they've created a NO KISS LIST - their l

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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The God Box

Alex Sanchez · 260 pages

When openly gay Manuel transfers to Paul's high school, Paul, a born-again Christian, begins to question his own sexuality.

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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The Beautiful Room Is Empty

Edmund White · 199 pages

When the narrator of White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel first embarks on his sexual odyssey, it is the 1950s, and America is "a big gray country of families on drowsy holiday." That country has no room for a scholarly teenager with guilty but insatiable stirrings toward other men. Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay uprising--and p

Sexual OrientationIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistSelf-Discovery
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Down to the Bone

Mayra Lazara Dole · 384 pages

Here's what it means to be a tortillera. It means you're a girl who loves girls. Which means you get kicked out of Catholic school faster than Mother Superior Sicko can say "immoral." Which means your wacko Mami finds out. Which means you're kicked to the curb with nowhere to go, and the love of your life is shipped off to Puerto Rico to marry a guy.But this is Miami, and if you have a bighearted

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Emily M. Danforth · 480 pages

In the early 1990s, when gay teenager Cameron Post rebels against her conservative Montana ranch town and her family decides she needs to change her ways, she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center.

Identity FormationSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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Annie on My Mind

Nancy Garden · 233 pages

This groundbreaking book is the story of two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school that threaten their relationship, promise to be true to each other and their feelings. This book is so truthful and honest, it has been banned from many school libraries and even publicly burned in Kansas City.

Sexual OrientationBoarding SchoolLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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Kissing Kate

Lauren Myracle · 198 pages

Kate was lissa's best friend. they've shared everything for four years. then one night at a drunken party, Kate leaned in to kiss lissa, and lissa kissed her back. And now Kate is pretending lissa doesn't exist. Confused and alone, lissa's left questioning everything she thought she knew about herself, and about life. but with the help of a free-spirit new friend, lissa's beginning to find the str

Sexual OrientationIdentity FormationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult
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Hero

Perry Moore · 432 pages

Funny, exciting novel about a teenage boy growing up with two secrets: one, that he has superpowers - two, that he's gay. And he gets to save the world... Even though Thom Creed's a basketball star, his high school classmates keep their distance. They've picked up on something different about Thom. Plus, his father, Hal Creed, was one of the greatest and most beloved superheroes of his time until

Sexual OrientationSelf-DiscoveryLGBTQ+ ProtagonistYoung Adult

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