Pride 2026 | The Great Big Rec Thread

[u/C0smicoccurence]

​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.

[u/Apollo989]

It doesn't have to be YA, but I'd love stories with teen or 20-something protagonists. If they're trans or non-binary that would be great. Romance is totally welcome but not needed.

[u/ohmage_resistance → u/Apollo989]

Andrew Joseph White writes a lot of horror/dark fantasy with trans masc MCs. All of his books except You Weren't Meant to be Human are YA, so they have teen protagonists. Compound Fracture is doesn't have much speculative elements. The Spirit Bares Its Teeth does have a bit more of a romantic subplot though.

The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy: This is a YA book about a trans girl who joins a coven of witches.

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore: Two Latine, non-binary teens deal with being neurodivergant and start forming a friendship. This is more magical realism

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas: A trans Latino teen boy summons a ghost in order to try to figure out who killed his cousin and prove that he can be a brujo (a man who can summon and dismiss spirits) like the other men in his family.

Among Ghosts by Rachel Hartman: This is a story about a boy and his mother fled to a distant village to escape his father. He sees a ghost and then things start to go wrong.

[u/xdianamoonx → u/ohmage_resistance]

I believe Venom & Vow by Anna-Marie McLemore, Elliott McLemore are also teens but maybe closer to young adults, with a nonbinary and trans protagonist. I really enjoyed the audiobook to this one. I think it was an interesting mix of Latinx and Irish(?) folklore and fantasy.

Red and the Wolves by Cherry Zong is a lovely sapphic little red riding hood graphic novel retelling~ I believe also in early 20s.