i don't even know what to call this genre but i’m obsessed with it and i need more.
i’m looking for books that don't try to fix anything. i want the stories that map the uncharted, ugly spaces between people, books that just map the exact shape of their loneliness. i’m craving that tension between the beautiful and the brutal.
the mood i crave: heavy, nostalgic, devastatingly tender, detached, sparse, gritty, physical, raw, blue, inevitable, deeply human… you name it!
books i reeeeally enjoyed:
- bellies / nicola dinan
- sunburn / chloe michelle howarth
- a language of limbs / dylin hardcastle
- the anthropologists / aysegül savas
- boulder / eva baltasar
- lie with me / philippe besson
- greta & valdin / rebecca k. reilly
- dogs of summer / andrea abreu lópez
- the end of loneliness / benedict wells
by kelisova0000
3 Comments
You might like Holding Still For As Long As Possible by Zoe Whittall.
But I would really recommend going to your local queer bookshop and get some reccs from them 🙂
If you’re looking for raw, gritty queerness that deals with loneliness, one of my favorite reads of 2025 was the **very** surprising *Stag Dance* by Torrey Peters, in particular the titular novella in the volume.
Maybe The Miseducation of Cameron Post, but be sure to read content warnings first as this has some very dark and painful themes and isn’t a light read.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt might also be of interest.