25 LGBTQ+ Books You'll Want To Add To Your TBR List In 2023

When a New Orleans-based Catholic school becomes a target for arson, heavily tattooed and chain-smoking Sister Holiday decides to take investigative matters into her own hands, leading to shocking revelations among friends and colleagues. Author Margot Douaihy, a self-described "queer artist," earned a Ph.D. in Creative Writing which focused on the critical/craft study of lesbian crime fiction, "view[ing] constraints as generative-invitations to innovate within genre expectations and deepen reader engagement." On Instagram, Douaihy told followers: "As a lesbian, seeing myself represented in the media & culture is life-affirming. This need informed my crime novel, 'Scorched Grace'. It's vitally important for queer people to tell our own stories & push genre."

In Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut novel "Homebodies" we meet Mickey Hayward, a young Black writer who abruptly loses her fancy media job, despite feeling like she was finally proving herself as a storyteller. As the manifesto she writes exposing racism in the industry as a response initially gets ignored, she is forced to reckon with her uncertain relationship and life in general in NYC. When her manifesto eventually affords her the public platform she once so wanted, complexity rears its unavoidable head. In her own words, Denton-Hurst says of this book: "It's a love story. It's a work story. It's a story about friends, about losing yourself, and the road back home. I wrote this one for the girls who look and love like me, but I hope anyone who reads it will find themselves in its pages."

This memoir is comprised of essays, beginning with Lamya's childhood and then covering her move to the US for college, followed by her early-adult life in New York City. This work recounts how this queer Muslim immigrant uses stories from the Quran to reckon with her own coming-of-age. Lamya (a pseudonym) now lives and works in NYC where she also engages in organizing work focused on creating spaces for LGBTQ+ Muslims, fighting Islamophobia, and abolishing prisons.

Manuel Betancourt grew up in Bogotá, Colombia where he experienced constant social pressure to be big, strong, "manly", and straight. As he consumed pop culture, coming across many different ways of being a man, he found himself asking, "Do I want him or do I want to be him?" In this memoir-in-essays, Betancourt wrestles with the complexities of masculinity, from its frailties to its erotic potential, and ultimately warns against "internalizing too many toxic ideas about masculinity as a gay man."

After moving to Brooklyn and realizing that she was surrounded by brief mentions of queer stories, Possanza decided to return to the archives and uncover the personal histories of seven twentieth-century lesbians. Her journey takes Possanza from drag shows in Bushwick to the home of activists in Harlem, and along the way, these historical figures evolve from stories on the page to role models in her own life. Possanza subsequently adds her own story to the archive. "Lesbians," Possanza writes, "invent their own systems of love, even when they are at risk of losing everything." And it is these stories, both hers and her seven subjects, that have been so frequently overlooked by history.

Oscar-nominated lead from the film Juno, Elliot Page, has penned a memoir full of intimate personal stories chronicling his journey from childhood, through success, to the persistent pursuit of self. After years of silence and withstanding public pressures to perform, Elliot decided to seek out his place in this world. "Pageboy" is described as "a love letter to the power of being seen." Of the book, Page said, "The act of writing, reading, and sharing the multitude of our [trans] experiences is an important step in standing up to those who wish to silence and harm us. Books have helped me, saved me even, so I hope this can help someone feel less alone, feel seen, no matter who they are or what path they are on."

From National Book Award-nominee and Michelin star-winning chef, we get this memoir of Iliana Regan's life as a forager, with its roots among ancestors in Eastern Europe, through her childhood in rural Indiana, and into her more recent life in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where she and her wife opened an Inn serving forage-based meals. The book ultimately explores how the author's gender identity informed her work as a chef and her experience of the natural world. Announcing the release of the memoir to followers on Instagram, Regan shares that it took 17 drafts to complete, explaining that "a big part of my process is to re-write." 

Dawn Levit is a bookbinder who works in conservation at the Met. It's the early 2000s and both her artistic endeavors and her gender identity feel off. Her queer relationship is falling apart, and her workplace makes her feel increasingly performative. One day, she finds something hidden in an old book: the torn-off cover of a '50s lesbian pulp novel, Turn Her About, with a love letter attached to the back. As Dawn searches for the author of the letter, she also begins a search for herself, all the while suspecting that the mysterious author has guidance to offer her. One bookstore staff member had this to say about the book: "[It is] a beautiful rumination on art and purpose, gender and expression, sexuality and attraction, and the importance of continued connection to queer history."

This debut novel by Priya Guns, an actor and writer raised in Toronto, is a social satire inspired by the 1970s film Taxi Driver. The protagonist, Damani, is living paycheck to paycheck in a basement, caring for her mother in the aftermath of her father's passing, and driving for an app that keeps slashing her pay. One day she gives a ride to Jolene, a self-proclaimed ally who also happens to be white and wealthy. Their romance builds until Jolene crosses a line, and things spiral from there. Priya wrote, "We're seeing more working-class stories in fiction that are not holding back ... giving us the invitation to think outside the box about what our futures could look like, and I hope my book can make people think outside of their usual perspective."

Doris Fish (born Philip Mills) was born in Sydney, Australia to a middle-class Catholic family in 1952. He proved himself a successful performer in Sydney with a troupe of drag queens, before moving to San Francisco in the '70s where he became something of a queer legend. Author Craig  Seligman uses interviews with Fish's friends and family to bring this icon's story to life. He weaves in the history of drag performance and its intersection with the AIDS epidemic, ultimately making a case for drag as "political theater" with the potential to not only "rail against society, but to change it."

Not long after moving to Berkeley, California, Jason's Adderall addiction morphs into a crystal meth binge. Under the pretense of conducting research, Jason becomes a meth dealer, only to find that he is surprisingly good at this new 'gig,' eventually taking over the entire meth market for San Francisco's gay community. As concerned friends and family attempt to intervene, Jason continues to chase the enticing underground of Tweakerworld. About the memoir, Jason explained, "This book is not about recovery. It's about the scourge that meth is becoming on today's gay community, its intersection with unsafe sex practices and mental illness ... We all make mistakes. The ones I made could've been deadly. But I survived. And thanks to help from so many, I now have the proud honor of sharing my journey and shining a bright light on this muzzled epidemic."

Written by the author of "The Town of Babylon" (a finalist for the National Book Award), this collection of humorous and quirky stories addresses issues such as parenting, long-term relationships, systemic and interpersonal racism, and class conflict. "The People Who Report More Stress" skillfully portrays the frustration of knowing both the problems and solutions to our society's inequities, while remaining unable to change them. Of the 13 pieces in this collection, Varela wrote, "They're all about class jumping and the disorientation of landing in the unfamiliar. They're neurotic, sexy, annoying, and, hopefully, funny."

As five friends face a new decade, 28 years since they all graduated together from college, they do what they've done many times over the years: reunite in Big Sur, California. It had become something of a tradition, throwing each other "living funerals" as a way of celebrating their lives now. But this year, something is different. Instead of honoring a recent wedding or pulling someone back together after a divorce, one friend is hiding a secret that could change their overall relationship for good. This tribute to adult friendship is at times funny and witty, and at others sobering and honest.