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Swimming in the Monsoon Sea

Shyam Selvadurai · 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
❤️

Dance on My Grave

Aidan Chambers · 251 pages

Hal's summer affair with Barry Goldman ends tragically when Hal discovers he is much more committed to the relationship than his friend.

Sexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of AgeFirst Love
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My Tiki Girl

Jennifer McMahon · 240 pages

Maggie was looking for a friend in Dahlia. She never guessed shed find love, too.All the tenth-grade girls hate Dahlia Wainwrighta smart, natural beauty and freaky outsider all in one. And thats exactly what Maggie Keller is drawn to, for she herself is an outsider, having withdrawn from the high school elite crowd after a car accident that killed her mother - an accident for which she blames hers

Sexual OrientationDeath of a ParentFirst LoveComing of Age
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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 OrientationComing of AgeFirst LoveLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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They Both Die at the End

Adam Silvera · 378 pages

Adam Silvera reminds us that there’s no life without death and no love without loss in this devastating yet uplifting story about two people whose lives change over the course of one unforgettable day. On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for

Sexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst LoveDeath of a Parent
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I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.

John Donovan · 189 pages

Thirteen-year-old Davy has a difficult time adjusting to his grandmother's death and life in New York with his erratic mother. He becomes close friends with a male classmate at his new school. The friendship later turns sexual, eventually causing Davy to struggle with feelings of guilt. It was one of the first mainstream teen novels to deal with homosexuality.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeen Protagonist
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So Hard to Say

Alex Sanchez · 230 pages

Thirteen year old Xio,a Mxican American girl, and Frederick, who has just moved to California from Wisconsin,quickly become close friends, but when Xio starts thinking of Frederick as her boyfriend, he must cconfront his feelings of confusion and face the fear of him might being gay.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeFirst LoveLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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Sprout

Dale Peck · 288 pages

Moving from Long Island to Kansas after his mother dies, a teenaged boy nicknamed Sprout is surprised to find new friends, a fascinating landscape, and romantic love.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistDeath of a Parent
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A Secret Edge

Robin Reardon · 304 pages

Sexual OrientationFirst LoveLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of Age
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Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World

Janet E. Cameron · 375 pages

It's the spring of 1987 and 17-year-old Stephen Shulevitz has less than three months left in high school in the small town in rural Nova Scotia where he's spent most of his life. But as Stephen prepares to leave Riverside behind he falls in love with exactly the wrong person. And just like that everything changes. What follows is emotionally devastating but Stephen survives with his compassion and

Sexual OrientationFirst LoveComing of AgeLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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Read Me Like a Book

Liz Kessler · 304 pages

Ashleigh Walker is a mediocre student with an assortment of friends, a sort-of boyfriend, and no plans for the future. Then a straight-from-college English teacher, Miss Murray, takes over Ash s class and changes everything. Miss Murray smiles a lot. She shares poetry with curse words in it. She s, well, cool. And she seems to really care about her students. About Ashleigh. For the first time, Ash

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst Love
❤️

Freshman Year

Annameekee Hesik

Sexual OrientationFirst LoveLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of Age
🙂

The Summer I Wasn't Me

Jessica Verdi · 342 pages

"Ever since her mom found out she was in love with a girl, seventeen-year-old Lexi's afraid that what's left of her family is going to fall apart for good. New Horizons summer camp promises a new life for Lexi--she swears she can change. She can learn to like boys. But denying her feelings is harder than she thinks"--

Sexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst LoveDeath of a Parent
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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 OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst Love
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I'll Give You the Sun

Jandy Nelson · 400 pages

A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three y

Sexual OrientationDeath of a ParentLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst Love
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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

Coming of AgeSexual OrientationFirst LoveLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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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.

Coming of AgeSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst Love
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Boy Meets Boy

David Levithan · 185 pages

This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance. When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows

Sexual OrientationFirst LoveLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of Age
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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 OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistFirst Love
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The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Nick Burd · 309 pages

It's Dade Hamilton's last summer at home. 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 o

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeFirst LoveLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong · 256 pages

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeFirst LoveLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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The Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller · 368 pages

This is the story of the seige of Troy from the perspective of Achilles best-friend Patroclus. Although Patroclus is outcast from his home for disappointing his father he manages to be the only mortal who can keep up with the half-God Archilles. Even though many will know the facts behind the story the telling is fresh and engaging.

LGBTQ+ ProtagonistSexual OrientationFirst LoveComing of Age
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Babyji

Abha Dawesar · 356 pages

Sexy, surprising, and subversively wise, Babyji is the story of Anamika Sharma, a spirited student growing up in Delhi. At school she is an ace at quantum physics. At home she sneaks off to her parents’ scooter garage to read the Kamasutra. Before long she has seduced an elegant older divorcée and the family servant, and has caught the eye of a classmate coveted by all the boys. With the world

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeen Protagonist
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Love Letters to the Dead

Ava Dellaira · 327 pages

When Laurel starts writing letters to dead people for a school assignment, she begins to spill about her sister's mysterious death, her mother's departure from the family, her new friends, and her first love.

Coming of AgeFirst LoveSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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At Swim, Two Boys

Jamie O'Neill · 609 pages

Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—*At Swim, Two Boys* is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill. Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shop

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeFirst LoveLGBTQ+ Protagonist




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