12 Queer Books from the First Half of 2023 You Might Have Missed

If you enjoy family dramas, fraught coming-of-age stories, and books that are just a little bit magical but don’t feel magical at all, this quiet, unsettling novel is for you. Gabrielle has inherited the ability to change the color of her skin from her mother. She can pass from her natural brown into any other color: shimmering blue or deep yellow — or white. Her father is violent and abusive, and her relationship with her mother is turbulent. She finds refuge in the home of her piano teacher, who reminds her of her own power, and the power of music. This is an intense but beautiful read.

This is one of those books that I simply cannot stop screaming about. It’s an eerie and beautiful collection of speculative short stories, all set in slightly twisted versions of the world — past and present dystopias and utopias. The titular novella is set on a spaceship hurtling away from Earth, carrying a crew of mostly queer scientists and artists — not to settle a new planet, but simply to observe it. It’s one of the most profoundly beautiful mediations on queer aesthetics, grief, lineage, art-making, family-making, and possibility that I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.

This is a collection of memories and stories about Daniels’ experiences working as a traveling nurse, both before and during the pandemic. She writes about the racism, sexism, and homophobia she’s experienced from patients and hospital staff, and exposes the ways in which the medical system fails almost everyone, including her and other nurses like her. It’s a sobering and infuriating book, but an important one.

This is easily one of my favorite poetry collections of the year so far. Zachary writes about gender, wildness, family entanglements, being autistic, language, queer and trans sex, and so much more. They reimagine quotes from ancient philosophers as queer life advice. They write from the perspective of a coyote. They play with form in delightful and surprising ways. This collection is exuberant, defiant, and tender.

Are you looking for a fun, breezy summer romance? Something lighthearted and easy and full of teen drama? This is the book for you! Andrea is a Black queer teenager with cereal palsy who just wants to have the perfect summer with her best friend. The only problem: she maybe kinda sorta has a crush on said best friend, and she’s afraid telling her will explode their friendship. This is such a gentle, wholesome book. I especially love how Brown gives Andrea space to be her whole disabled self — her disability is a part of the story, because it’s a part of her, but it’s not the center of the story.

I devoured this in one sitting and I’m going to need everyone to read it now, please. It’s wildly good: funny, smart, disturbing, a little absurd, enraging — and, most importantly, deeply moving. I sobbed at the end. Sammie has been out as trans for a while now, but their old college friends don’t really seem to get it. So they’re apprehensive about a weekend-long bachelor party, especially since it’s happening in El Campo, an island city in the middle of the Atlantic, which is basically a shrine to capitalism. They’re right to worry, because in addition to the infuriating transphobia they face, something sinister is going on that no one else seems to notice. Lubchansky gleefully plays with horror tropes, skewering everything from tech bros to the gender binary in the process. It’s perfect.