My partner and I are one of only a very small number of queer people in our largely cis straight female book club ranging from ~25-40 y/o. We are hosting in June this year so naturally we are going to pick an LGBTQ+ book but looking for some suggestions. I don’t want anything with a lot of spice or that will shock the sensitive masses but I want them to feel something lol. 7 Husbands has already been done. Ideally, I’m looking for a memoir or fiction and nothing over like 300-350 pages. Bonus points if it has a great audiobook reading as many choose to listen.
Books I’ve read that I’m already considering:
- The Song of Achilles
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
- In The Dream House
Books I have not read but think could be good contenders:
- The Heart’s Invisible Furies
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
- Light From Uncommon Stars
- Giovanni’s Room
Books in these categories that I’ve already read and am not considering:
- Idlewild
- They Both Die At the End
- Call Me By Your Name
- Red, White, & Royal Blue
- Last Night at the Telegraph Club
- Mercury & Me
- Velvet Rage
- Lavender House
- Anything TJ Klune (sorry)
- The Great Believers
TIA for any feedback on contenders or any other suggestions!! 🙂
by ezbaxz24
3 Comments
I absolutely loved the Aristotle and Dante books. Another you might consider if the group generally likes urban fantasy is The City We Became by NK Jemisin. Lots of representation with characters that are not teenagers and a novel concept and magic basis. The feeling from that novel is not the same as Aristotle and Dante, where you contend with adolescence and romance, although there is some romance in The City We Became, but it does focus on themes like fear of the other, gentrification, and diversity.
Edited to add: The Aristotle and Dante audiobooks are wonderfully narrated by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
James Baldwin is always a good idea, highly recommend *Giovanni’s Room*. I also think it’s one of his easier reads so probably good for a book club.
Some recommendations I might give are *Swimming in the Dark* by Tomasz Jedrowski, *The Argonauts* by Maggie Nelson, and *Love in the Big City* by Sang Young Park (in descending order of my personal enjoyment). These three are some of my favourite books that I read last year.
A book you might want to keep an eye out on that is releasing on 7th January is *Mothers and Sons* by Adam Haslett, who was previously shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. It’s a queer story about an asylum lawyer in NYC who is forced to reconcile with his past and his relationship with his mother as he takes on the case of a young gay man.
*Fun Home* by Alison Bechdel is a great queer graphic memoir. That may not translate well to audiobook — I honestly have never thought about whether graphic books have audiobook versions until this moment. I love the novel *Cassandra at the Wedding* by Dorothy Baker, which is about a lesbian grad student attending her sister’s wedding, and she all but sabotages it. There’s no queer romance and the writer didn’t identify as queer either (that I know of) so that might break your selection rules. But she’s a very compelling character and I would guess she would elicit good discussion. It’s also short-ish.