Today I am going to be bringing you some queer YA book recommendations you can read during the month of June for Pride! It’s part of the FRtbr event to celebrate some older titles from Fierce Read! Are you ready for all the recommendations? Keep reading to add some more books to your TBR!
Queer Read Recommendations
Beyond the Black Door
Kamai was warned never to open the black door, but she didn’t listen …
Everyone has a soul. Some are beautiful gardens, others are frightening dungeons. Soulwalkers―like Kamai and her mother―can journey into other people’s souls while they sleep.
But no matter where Kamai visits, she sees the black door. It follows her into every soul, and her mother has told her to never, ever open it.
When Kamai touches the door, it is warm and beating, like it has a pulse. When she puts her ear to it, she hears her own name whispered from the other side. And when tragedy strikes, Kamai does the unthinkable: she opens the door.
Beyond the Black Door also examines toxic relationships, even if they smell likes roses or manifest in clutched fists. The plot is intricate and expansive, secret societies, darkness in our dreams, and desires without words. Beyond the Black Door is a rich fantasy that will captivate you and enchant your dreams.
Find Beyond the Black Door on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound & The Book Depository.
Black Wings Beating
The people of Uztar have long looked to the sky with hope and wonder. Nothing in their world is more revered than the birds of prey and no one more honored than the falconers who call them to their fists.
Brysen strives to be a great falconer–while his twin sister, Kylee, rejects her ancient gifts for the sport and wishes to be free of falconry. She’s nearly made it out, too, but a war is rolling toward their home in the Six Villages, and no bird or falconer will be safe.
Together the twins must journey into the treacherous mountains to trap the Ghost Eagle, the greatest of the Uztari birds and a solitary killer. Brysen goes for the boy he loves and the glory he’s long craved, and Kylee to atone for her past and to protect her brother’s future. But both are hunted by those who seek one thing: power.
It’s about a battle that encompasses more than villages, more than hearts, and more than sacrifices. A journey to find our home which requires us to leave it. There’s action, danger, and love all wrapped up together. This book is about the complicated mess of family, the ways they know how to wound you, to lie to you, to let you go, but to also support you, to tell you the hard truths, and to release you.
Find Black Wings Beating on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound, & The Book Depository.
Tell Me How You Really Feel
Sana Khan is a cheerleader and a straight A student. She’s the classic (somewhat obnoxious) overachiever determined to win.
Rachel Recht is a wannabe director who’s obsesssed with movies and ready to make her own masterpiece. As she’s casting her senior film project, she knows she’s found the perfect lead – Sana.
There’s only one problem. Rachel hates Sana. Rachel was the first girl Sana ever asked out, but Rachel thought it was a cruel prank and has detested Sana ever since.
I loved how in Tell Me How You Really Feel Safi challenges us to look past and defy our expectations of people. When we hate an image, an idea of someone and realizing both the cracks in the veneer of that illusion and the ways we have entirely misjudged them. If I had to pick some other themes I liked: Sana’s difficult decision to grapple with her family’s expectations of her, Rachel’s relationship with her father, Sana’s new and fraught relationship with her own father, and the entire ending.
Find Tell Me How You Really Feel on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound & The Book Depository.
Going Off Script
Seventeen-year-old Bex is thrilled when she gets an internship on her favorite tv show, Silver Falls. Unfortunately, the internship isn’t quite what she expected… instead of sitting in a crowded writer’s room volleying ideas back and forth, Production Interns are stuck picking up the coffee.
Determined to prove her worth as a writer, Bex drafts her own script and shares it with the head writer―who promptly reworks it and passes it off as his own! Bex is understandably furious, yet…maybe this is just how the industry works? But when they rewrite her proudly lesbian character as straight, that’s the last straw! It’s time for Bex and her crush to fight back.
What I loved the most about Going Off Script was how Wilde is able to balance this summer romance with a discussion about being ashamed of our roots and chasing our dreams, with a discussion about homophobia, sexism, and privilege in the media business. There’s so much nuance and layers in Going Off Script which just hits all the right spots.
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Blanca & Roja
The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan.
But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans’ spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them. Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts.
McLemore always writes enchanting books. Everything from the character’s vulnerabilities to their strengths, from the world building to the magical elements, all of it is spellbinding every time. Blanca & Roja is full of gorgeous writing with imagery of blue apples, folktales, and swans. There’s a striking lyrical quality not only to the words, but to the feelings they evoke, the ways they stroke your skin in the middle of a moonlit night.
Find Blanca and Roja on Goodreads, Amazon, Indiebound & The Book Depository.