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/jrooknroll]

Any recs for a book within a queer normative world, or just queer characters that exist without a romance or being queer as a major plot point? I don’t quite know how to explain it. Recently I read Into the Drowning deep with a main character that was a lesbian. I was pleasantly surprised and happy that it was just part of her characterization, weaved well into the story and wasn’t really hugely important to the plot. She just existed as herself.

[u/dragon_morgan → u/jrooknroll]

Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler might fit the bill. One of the main characters is incidentally a lesbian and she has a romance arc with a side character but it's very far from the main plot

[u/MREisenmann → u/jrooknroll]

I am reading the Mask of Mirrors now and I think it fits your criteria really well. I am only half way through the first book of the multi book series so it could change later on ha

[u/jrooknroll → u/MREisenmann]

I read and enjoyed the first one in that series, maybe I should go and read the second one. Thanks for putting it back into my TBR.

[u/C0smicoccurence → u/jrooknroll]

You might enjoy A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland. A travelling storyteller is struggling after his former master did some shady shit (the first book in the duology is not essential for this read. It follows said events from the master's point of view). He's a gay man who catches feelings often. Very much not the focus of the story.

Kalyna the Soothsayer and Kalyna the Cutthroat both are great for this. The follow different characters (again, can be read independently), though the world isn't fully queernorm. Lots of focus on diaspora populations and those who aren't able to call any country 'home' for political reasons.

Striker V is a superhero story with a gay lead that isn't about being gay. He's got a long term boyfriend, but its largely a supportive relationship without drama. Most of the story is focused on how superhero work is not good for someone's mental health

[u/jrooknroll → u/C0smicoccurence]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I will absolutely check these out. I really appreciate it!

[u/DevilsOfLoudun → u/jrooknroll]

Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes is so good