The Best Queer Books of 2024, According to THE NEW YORK TIMES

In the Notable list, The New York Times categorizes this literary fiction title with a bisexual main character as “Sexy Perimenopause Fiction” and recommends it for fans of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin. The top 10 list describes it as “the talk of every group text — at least every group text composed of women over 40” and “the first great perimenopause novel.”

This queer litfic is categorized as “Uncategorizable” on the 100 Notable Books of 2024. The Top 10 list describes it as an “indelible affirmation of life, rife with inventive beauty, vivid characters and surprising twists of plot.” This one also made Book Riot’s own Best Books of 2024 list. Laura Sackton says, “It’s a brilliant, funny, deeply moving novel about addiction, history, art, empire, love, dreams, language, martyrdom, and what it means to make meaning. With a multitude of POVs that orbit the story of Iranian American poet and recovering addict Cyrus Shams, Akbar has shaped a novel that stretches the bounds of form. It’s a love letter to aliveness. It has changed the way I move through the world. No other fiction published this year comes close.”

This memoir is about a renowned cultural and literary critic transitioning at the age of 66. In it, she mourns the “parallel life” as a younger woman that she never got to have: “Fifty years were under water, and I’d never get them back.” The top 10 list says, “Sante fearlessly documents a transformation both internal and external, one that is also a kind of homecoming.”