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Dryland

Sara Jaffe · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

A Boy's Own Story

Edmund White · 218 pages

Edmund White is a patriarch of gay American literature. *A Boy's Own Story* is the first of his trio of autobiographical novels (followed by *The Beautiful Room Is Empty* and *The Farewell Symphony*). It begins with experiments and realizations of adolescence and proceeds through his firsthand account of the Stonewall uprising.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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 AgeCharacter-DrivenLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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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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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 AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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Tipping the Velvet

Sarah Waters · 480 pages

Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-h

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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 AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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.

Sexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of AgeTeen Protagonist
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Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Carol Rifka Brunt · 384 pages

It is 1987, and only one person has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus -- her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June's world is turned upside d

Coming of AgeSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeen 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 OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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 AgeCharacter-DrivenSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ Protagonist
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Rubyfruit Jungle

Rita Mae Brown · 246 pages

Born a bastard, Molly Bolt is adopted by a dirt-poor Southern couple who want something better for their daughter. Molly plays doctor with the boys, beats up Leroy the tub and loses her virginity to her girlfriend in sixth grade. As she grows to realize she's different, Molly decides not to apologize for that. In no time she mesmerizes the head cheerleader of Ft. Lauderdale High and captivates a g

Coming of AgeSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeen Protagonist
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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.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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 OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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The Last of the Wine

Mary Renault · 386 pages

The Last of the Wine is Mary Renault's first novel set in ancient Greece, the setting that would become her most important arena. The novel was published in 1956 and is the second of her works to feature male homosexuality as a major theme. It was a bestseller within the gay community.

Sexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of AgeCharacter-Driven
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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+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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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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 OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeen 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+ ProtagonistTeen Protagonist
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The IHOP Papers

Ali Liebegott · 250 pages

Liebegott's debut novel is a coming-of-age coming-out in the tradition of Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, but here, the portrait of an artist as punk waitress is more a celebration of sexuality than humanity.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistLiterary Fiction
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The Necessary Hunger

Nina Revoyr · 365 pages

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistLiterary Fiction
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To the Moon and Back

Eliana Ramage · 448 pages

Coming of AgeSexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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 OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistTeen Protagonist
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My Education

Susan Choi · 352 pages

Regina Gottlieb had been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur long before arriving as a graduate student at his prestigious university high on a pastoral hill. He's said to lie in the dark in his office while undergraduate women read couplets to him. He's condemned on the walls of the women's restroom, and enjoys films by Roman Polanski. But no one warned Regina about his exceptional physical b

Sexual OrientationLGBTQ+ ProtagonistComing of AgeCharacter-Driven
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Stir-Fry

Emma Donoghue · 240 pages

Een jonge studente in Dublin vindt een kamer bij twee vrouwen; hun vriendschap komt in een ander perspectief te staan als het meisje de ware relatie tussen haar twee huisgenoten ontdekt.

Sexual OrientationComing of AgeLGBTQ+ ProtagonistCharacter-Driven

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