Love That Queer Book? Read This Queer Comic!

If you’re still thinking about the unusual structure of In the Dream House, and the way Machado interrogates the ideas of storytelling, narrative, history, and art-marking, I highly recommend this fascinating book. After Shraya started receiving violent messages and death threats on the internet, she decided to write about it. This graphic memoir includes the sender’s messages, repurposed. It’s an unsettling but powerful book about what it means to be an artist and the purpose and meaning of art itself.

This beautiful YA graphic novel has some of the same themes as Cemetery Boys: a teenager discovering truths about his history and his family, a sweet love story, and an emphasis on the importance of friendship. There’s just a little big of magic, too. Like Cemetery Boys, this book is a lovely blend of coming-of-age drama and romance, and Sanchez handles the complicated family dynamics so thoughtfully.

The layered and ever-shifting relationship between two queer woman is at the heart of A World Between, and it is also the heart of this beautiful story about queer and bio family, aunthood, mental health, and partnership. Ray and Bron find joy in their playful, magical afternoons with Ray’s niece Nessie, but the way they both feel about her can’t fix the underlying problems in their relationship.

Old magic, a life-changing summer, a small island community, and a sapphic love story: what more could you want from a book? Like Summer of Salt, this graphic novel about a girl who falls in love with a selkie is a quiet, character-driven novel. The rhythm of the sea permeates every page, and every illustration.

This collection of slice-of-life comics about Julia Kaye’s life as a trans woman is hilarious and observant, sometimes silly and sometimes serious. Kaye captures so many ordinary moments so perfectly, and she gives equal weight to moments of struggle and heartache and moments of queer and trans joy. Like Life as a Unicorn, this is a book that doesn’t always take itself too seriously, but also doesn’t shy away from the hardest parts of life as a trans or nonbinary person.

Becky Chambers is one of the reigning queens of found family in space — and so is Tillie Walden. Mia is determined to find her first love, a woman she knew at boarding school, and so she joins the crew of a spaceship that travels the galaxy, renovating old, deserted buildings on distant planets. On the spaceship, she finds something she didn’t know she was looking for: queer family.

A Lesson in Vengeance is mostly vibes: creepy and unsettling, with a dark undercurrent of mystery and violence running through the whole story. The Low, Low Woods is like that, too. Best friends El and Octavia set out to discover why they suddenly have no memory of a whole afternoon they spent at the movies, and discover the terrifying secret of their hometown.

Anna-Marie McLemore weaves stories like no other writer I know. When the Moon Was Ours is a lush, lyrical novel about stories: the stories we tell about ourselves, the stories other people tell about us, the stories we grow up with, and the stories we create. The Magic Fish is also about the power of stories. Tien is a Vietnamese boy who doesn’t know how to tell his parents that he’s gay. So he uses a language that they all understand intimately: fairy tales. The book has a magical, otherworldly feel, but it’s deeply grounded in the contemporary experiences of Tien and his immigrant family.