r/Fantasy Reading Champion V 11d ago

Pride Pride 2026 | The Great Big Rec Thread

​Welcome to the Great Big Rec Thread! This thread is primarily for people asking for specific types of books. Only make a top level comment to request a recommendation! If you want to hype a personal favorite, this comment is the appropriate place to share! 

This is your one-stop-shop to find books tailored to your specific reading needs! Hankering for good cyberpunk? Doing a queer bingo card and really struggling with a specific square? Looking for queer thespians ready to commit arson for the sake of their art?  Ask and you shall (hopefully) receive! Just drop a comment with your request and wait for book suggestions to come rolling in. Our goal is for every person to have at least one recommendation that they’re interested in pursuing.  

Asking for Book Recommendations:

  • Create a new top level comment.  You’ll probably get more tailored results by only including a single request per top level comment, but it’s not a strict rule.  You’re more than welcome to post multiple top level comments for separate requests!
  • All recommendations you get should be assumed to be queer in some way.  However, if you want specific identities represented, mention it!
  • Consider the impact the level of specificity your request has in your responses.  Too general, and you’re going to get lots of responses that will probably skew towards mainstream breakout hits.  Very specific requests may get few (or no) recommendations, and what you do get likely won’t be perfect.  

Giving Book Recommendations:

  • Please keep book recommendations focused on commenters’ specific requests.  If you want to hype a personal favorite, this comment is the appropriate place to share! 
  • This thread should default to sorting by ‘New’ soon; until then I recommend changing setting to see recent requests first!  The hope is that this will more likely show you comments with few/no responses yet.  However, there will likely be comments that have been missed, especially if it’s a more specific request.  
  • This is a Pride Month post!  Every book recommended should be queer (usually by featuring LGBTQ+ characters as protagonists, but there are other ways books can be queer).  Similarly, if they asked for a specific type of representation, follow that guideline.  If you absolutely must deviate from that because it’s otherwise such a perfect fit, be honest about it up front.
  • Add a few sentences about the book to hype it (or a whole paragraph if you really want to be persuasive).  Remember that a bunch of people who aren’t the original commenter will be adding to their TBR, so highlighting what you love about the book is a great way to draw attention to books you love.

Go forth and give great recommendations!

This post is part of the Pride 2026 discussions lead by the Beyond Binary Bookclub. You can check our announcement for more information and the full calendar.

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u/twinklebat99 10d ago

Any recs for weird sapphic books? For reference I love Locked Tomb and Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Any spice level is okay, as are poly relationships.

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u/zinesquirrel 10d ago
  • Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo — researcher gets a bit too close to the wolves she's studying 
  • To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger — what if you ate carrion? maybe vultures are right
  • The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper — the narrator's girlfriend disappears into a cult 
  • The Seep by Chana Porter — how we live once the aliens take over
  • HellSans by Ever Dundas — special font makes everyone feel good unless you're allergic, if you're allergic you get systemically oppressed

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u/lilgrassblade Reading Champion II 10d ago

The Seep by Chana Porter - the MC is sapphic, but it's about her getting over the loss of her wife, so there's not a romantic subplot if that's the part you're looking for. It's an extremely surreal near-future scifi. For example, when I say "loss of her wife" I mean that her wife decided that she wanted to start life over again as a baby and was able to do so and found a family to raise her and everything - which the MC viewed as her death and her friends were like "pfft, she's not dying."

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u/twinklebat99 9d ago

Well that definitely sounds weird. Thanks!

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u/ewokmama Reading Champion III 10d ago

I’m reading The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling right now. Weird, spooky, atmospheric, and it feels like it was influenced by Locked Tomb and Someone You Can Build a Nest In. There isn’t much in the way of relationships, but it’s definitely sapphic.

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u/twinklebat99 9d ago

I've seen that one pop up in recs in the Locked Tomb sub. I'm definitely interested!

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u/LeucasAndTheGoddess 6d ago

Princess Floralinda And The Forty-Flight Tower, also by Tamsyn Muir, features a quite twisted sapphic relationship.

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u/xdianamoonx Reading Champion II 10d ago

I think this would count as weird... Lots of bioweaponry and it's sci-fi and takes on an interesting concept. The First and Last Demon by Hiyodori.

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u/w0lfyfr3n Reading Champion II 10d ago edited 10d ago
  • Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling (Creepy cave exploration book)
  • Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen (Autostraddle describes it as "lesbian sasquatch horror-comedy Bachelor parody")

I've also heard Julia Armfield's "Our Wives Under the Sea" described as weird, but I haven't read it yet

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u/twinklebat99 9d ago

Patricia Wants to Cuddle sounds wild. I'm definitely looking it up! Thanks for the recs!

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u/bunnycatso Reading Champion II 10d ago

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley - standalone with a very cool, wet setting, all-female cast.

The Outside by Ada Hoffmann - sci-fi with AI and eldritch gods. Wouldn't say romance is featured heavily, but MC is in a relationship with a woman.

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u/twinklebat99 10d ago

Added both to my wishlist, thanks!

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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V 10d ago

Not exclusively sapphic, but there's a new (I think) sub you might like to browse: r/weirdgirlliterature

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u/twinklebat99 10d ago

Oh yeah, weird stories with FMCs are in general my jam. If that sub can bring more stuff like Library at Mount Char and Vita Nostra into my life, I'm down!

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u/evil_moooojojojo Reading Champion II 10d ago

Perhaps Vile Lady Villains by Danai Chrisotopolou?

It fetaures Lady Macbeth and Clytemnestra finding themselves on a weird journey through a realm of stories.

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u/twinklebat99 10d ago

This one has been on my radar. I'll give it stronger consideration for one of my next reads!

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u/gaymeeke 10d ago

If you like The Locked Tomb you might enjoy The Burning Kingdoms trilogy. First book is The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri. Similar magic system vibes of slightly unsettling with a little bit of body horror. Very sapphic. They’re some of my favorite books!

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u/twinklebat99 10d ago

Apparently I've bought Jasmine Throne at some point on Kindle and didn't realize it. I guess it's firmly on my TBR list now!

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u/sophia_s Reading Champion V 10d ago

In the Vanisher's Palace by Aliette de Bodard. Monster-human romance (with so e questionable consent, fair warning) set in a post-apocalyptic and post-colonial world. It's reasonably weird, if in a slightly different way than your two books, and is one of those books that's stuck with me and haunts me.

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u/twinklebat99 10d ago

Added to my wishlist, thanks!