14 Summer season Queer Books for Your June TBR

Do you want some summer time queer books to brighten up your June TBR? Whether or not you’re searching for a light-weight and breezy romance, a coming-of-age story, a lush fantasy, or a darkish literary novel, we’ve received you coated. A few of these books are pleasant and enjoyable, some are bittersweet, and a few are straight-up miserable. They’re all queer, and so they’re all set in summer time. If you happen to’re eager for tank tops, inexperienced grass, heat nights, summer time flings, and ice cream dates, these books will ship.

Roll up your sleeves, put in your floppy hat, discover a sunny spot, and calm down with one in every of these summer time queer books.

YA Summer season Queer Books

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix is a Black, trans, queer teenager attending a summer time arts program at his NYC highschool. When somebody hangs a transphobic exhibit displaying previous photographs of him within the college foyer, he hatches an elaborate plan for revenge. It doesn’t go as anticipated. That includes loads of New York Metropolis summer time scenes (together with Pleasure!), it is a lovely, messy, difficult e book about falling in love, queer friendship and group, and self-discovery.

Music From One other World by Robin Talley

In the summertime of 1977, two youngsters are assigned to be pen buddies as a part of a college mission. Tammy is a closeted lesbian residing along with her conservative spiritual household in Orange County. Sharon goes to Catholic college in San Francisco; she’s serving to her brother maintain his sexuality a secret from their mom, and simply discovering punk music. Set towards the backdrop of Anita Bryant’s “Save the Kids” marketing campaign and the homosexual rights activism of the 1970s, this e book is queer coming-of-age story, a celebration of friendship, and a summer time romance all rolled into one.

Class ID: 9969

Class ID: 476

Verify Your Shelf E-newsletter

Signal as much as obtain Verify Your Shelf, the Librarian’s One-Cease Store For Information, Guide Lists, And Extra.

Thanks for signing up! Regulate your inbox.

By signing up you comply with our phrases of use

Juliet Takes A Breath by Gabby Rivera

Juliet is a 19-year-old Puerto Rican lesbian from the Bronx. Making an attempt to determine the right way to be a homosexual feminist, she takes a summer time internship along with her feminist idol, a white lesbian author residing in Portland. What follows is a summer time of self-discovery. Juliet learns that her hero isn’t every part she’d dreamed, however she additionally finds her individuals, her voice, and her energy. It’s a joyous summer time romp of a e book.

When We Have been Magic by Sarah Gailey

Romance, friendship, and magic collide on this novel a few tight-knight group of buddies who all have magical powers. When Alexis unintentionally makes use of her magic to homicide a boy, her greatest buddies rally round her within the aftermath. The entire e book takes place over the past month of highschool, and it’s stuffed with lush summer time evenings, afternoons on the quarry, and magical adventures within the woods.

Summer season of Salt by Katrina Leno

Set on the tiny island of By-the-Sea, this smooth, lovely novel tells the story of two sisters in the summertime earlier than their 18th birthday. The ladies in Georgina’s household have all the time been gifted with magic, however as her birthday approaches and her twin sister’s magic blossoms, she begins to doubt hers will ever present up. This e book is a coming-of-age story crammed romance, humor, disappointment, quiet magic, and a setting that really shines. Each web page is crammed with the scents and sounds of summer time by the ocean.

The Summer season of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding

Enjoyable, lighthearted, body-positive, homosexual summer time romance anybody? Abby is 17 and obsessive about style when she lands a summer time internship at one in every of her favourite boutiques. She’s trying ahead to a summer time of onerous work, to not point out persevering with her quest to search out the most effective burger in L.A. However the summer time has extra in retailer for her than style and burgers when she falls onerous for her co-intern, Jordi.

What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli

A pleasant love story that begins with a meet cute on the Put up Workplace, this e book undoubtedly captures summer time in New York. Ben and Arthur meet on the Put up Workplace, have a Time looking for one another once more, after which proceed so far with all of the tender awkwardness of youngsters. This e book delves into so many strange (however critical) issues that folks typically stumble over originally of a relationship—it’s an ideal stability of actual points and summer time enjoyable.

The whole lot Results in You by Nina LaCour

Film-obsessed teenager Emi is spending the summer time after graduating highschool residing  along with her greatest buddy, working as a set design intern for a giant studio, and making an attempt to recover from her ex-girlfriend. A observe in a document on the property sale of a well-known actor leads her to a Hollywood thriller, new friendships, and new romance. It’s a magical, queer, joyride of a e book, a love letter to the films, and brimming with the liberty and risk of summer time.

Late to the Get together by Kelly Quindlen

Stuffed with summer time events, summer time jobs, basement film marathons, skinny-dipping, and late-night hearth pits, it is a quintessential queer coming-of-age story. Codi has had the identical two greatest buddies eternally, and she or he loves them, however when she makes a brand new buddy the summer time earlier than her senior 12 months, she realizes there’s extra to life than the identical previous routine. This lighthearted story captures the messiness of first loves, new friendships, and previous friendships, all whereas celebrating queerness in its many types.

Grownup Summer season Queer Books

The Home within the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Are you in want of a feel-good summer time fantasy? This imaginative, humorous, and heartwarming novel will transport you to a land of lush forests, blue seas, sandy seashores, and gardens overflowing with flowers. Linus is a middle-aged man working as a social employee for magical youth. When he’s despatched to analyze an orphanage on a distant island that’s residence to 6 uncommon and harmful youngsters (and their guardian), he finally ends up discovering the household he didn’t know he was searching for.

Actual Life by Brandon Taylor

This isn’t a cheerful summer time e book. Set over the course of 1 summer time weekend, it takes a tough, typically painful take a look at racism in academia, intimacy, queer need, and grief. Wallace is a queer Black grad scholar getting his PhD in biochemistry at a college in a small Midwestern city. His father has not too long ago died, and he’s each intensely lonely and carrying loads of previous trauma. Over the course of the weekend, he meets up together with his largely white group of buddies, works on the lab, and falls right into a strained relationship with one in every of his classmates.

The Metropolis We Turned by N.Okay. Jemisin

On this fascinating fantasy, New York Metropolis comes alive within the type of 5 individuals, every one embodying a unique borough. They not solely must get used to their new identification, however discover one another and battle off the creeping evil that’s making an attempt to convey the entire metropolis down. Set solely in New York over the course of per week on the finish of summer time, it is a e book through which the setting is as vibrant and alive because the characters.

Name Me By Your Identify by Andre Aciman

Heartbreaking and bittersweet, this coming-of-age love story is about towards the backdrop of a 1980s Italian summer time. As 17-year previous Elio falls in messy, difficult love for the primary time, you’ll be capable of really feel the warmth in your face and the the cool ocean water in your pores and skin.

Limbo Beirut by Hilal Chouman

If you happen to’re searching for a novel tackle the summer time learn, why not do this considerate and haunting novel by Lebanese author Hilal Chouman? Set in Might 2008 (it counts!), the e book depicts the violent occasions that occurred in Beirut over the course of some days. Narrators embody a homosexual artist, a former militia member, a pregnant girl, a struggling novelist, a medical intern, and an engineering scholar. Whereas not a standard summer time novel, it captures the concern and upheaval of a selected time and place on the sting of an unsure summer time. The characters and the setting come alive in Chouman’s lovely prose, translated from the Arabic by Anna Ziajka Stanton.

Can’t resolve what queer e book to learn this summer time? We’ve received a quiz that will help you determine it out.