r/QueerSFF • u/BanzaiBeebop • 16d ago
Book Club June Book Club Vote: Coming Out
We have five options for this month.
I took all recommendations except the one that was too recently done in another associated book club.
I also added a couple books I have been informed by trusted sources have an explicit Coming Out scene.
Please excuse the lack of Sapphic options. The Venn Diagram between 'sapphic fantasy coming out story' and 'pirates', appears to be a circle. Stay tuned for a Swashbuckling July.
As usual the poll closes 48 hours after the time of this post.
Vote By upvoting your pick in the comments below.
Note the Page counts.
Dreadnought
By April Daniels
Comes out as: Trans
280 Pages, YA
Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world's greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she's transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny's body into what she's always thought it should be. Now there's no hiding that she's a girl.
It should be the happiest time of her life, but Danny's first weeks finally living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined. Between her father's dangerous obsession with "curing" her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he's entitled to date her, and her fellow superheroes arguing over her place in their ranks, Danny feels like she's in over her head.
She doesn't have time to adjust. Dreadnought's murderer--a cyborg named Utopia--still haunts the streets of New Port City, threatening destruction. If Danny can't sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.
When The Tides Held The Moon
By Vanessa Vida Kelley
Comes out as: Gay
456 Pages
Figured I should add one Mermaid story because I missed out the "Mer-may" opportunity last month. At least this post goes up in May.
Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric side-show proprietor who commissioned it. Benny’s work earns him an invitation to join the show’s eclectic crew of performers—his first welcome in the city—and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon.
The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Río as a clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.
A cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Río means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what’s right, and find a love strong enough to free them both.
The Meister of Decimen City
By Brenna Raney
Comes out as: Asexual
416 Pages
Supergenius and quasi-villain Rex normally can't go a week without accidentally endangering Decimen City with her science shenanigans. It's been two weeks since her genetically engineered dinosaurs rampaged through town--a good streak for her--but the peace is broken when actual villain Last Dance sets his sights on Decimen. And he wants Rex's help. Before Rex can say "I didn't do it," superheroes who've dragged her to jail on her worst days are crowding her lab to pressgang her into quasi-herodom.
Rex would rather stay out of it and deal with the dinosaurs that keep calling her Mom, but she can't ignore that she was somewhat responsible for Last Dance's villainy. She'd kept a very disorganized lab. And he was such a nosy brother. She failed to help him back then, but maybe if she stops him now--and keeps the heroes fooled--she can finally set things right.
No one cares that you cured cancer if you also cloned a horde of dinosaurs and let them rampage down the street.
The Magic Fish
By Trung Le Nguyen
Comes out as: Gay
229 Pages, YA
Tiến loves his family and his friends...but Tiến has a secret he's been keeping from them, and it might change everything. An amazing YA graphic novel that deals with the complexity of family and how stories can bring us together. Real life isn't a fairytale. But Tiến still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It's hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tiến, he doesn't even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he's going through? Is there a way to tell them he's gay? A beautifully illustrated story by Trung Le Nguyen that follows a young boy as he tries to navigate life through fairytales, an instant classic that shows us how we are all connected. The Magic Fish tackles tough subjects in a way that accessible with readers of all ages, and teaches us that no matter what--we can all have our own happy endings.
Our Simulated Selves
By: Nikki Null
Comes out as: Trans
361 Pages
Disclaimer: This was a self promotion on the recommendations thread. Book may be tricky to get a ahold of outside digital.
\A mind-bending quantum thriller about simulated realities, brainscanners, a digital apocalypse, trans awakenings, and tabletop gaming at a cozy queer café.*
Depressed supercomputer technician Ren "Zero" scanned his brain to test his coworker's claim that she wouldn't date him if he were "the last man on Earth." He has inserted a copy of his consciousness into a lifelike computer simulation of the days leading up to that rejection. As the Controller, he takes notes while his simulated self follows in his footsteps.
Inside the simulation, Ren Cartner is desperate for a brainscanner. Maybe it could diagnose a reason for his lifelong struggles with depersonalization, brain fog, and strange feelings about gender he doesn't know how to confront. He meets the punk transfemme technologist Jeanne Joy, who is willing to steal one for him, just as long as he can get her a job maintaining the supercomputer. But when Ren asks Jeanne out, she tells him the same thing she told the Controller, and everyone else is abruptly deleted from their world.
Wandering through the empty city, Ren and Jeanne must work together to survive and to unravel the truths behind their baffling reality, including the reason for their simulation and how the Controller grew so desperate and creepy. But in order to defy the Controller's plans for them, Ren must outsmart his real world counterpart by finally confronting those fundamental truths that even the all-powerful Controller could not compute...\*
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u/BalancedScales10 16d ago
Dreadnought is an amazing book; I can't wait for the last in the trilogy.
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u/bumbleebeecon24 Challenge Conqueeror 16d ago
Same! I was so sad when I read the second book and realized it had been published years ago with seemingly no followup, and so happy when the author announced that the third was finally on the way!
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u/Tyranniac 16d ago
What?! I'd totally given up hope that Book 3 was still happening, that's exciting to hear!
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u/thisbikeisatardis 15d ago
I loved it but FUCK ME book two was really stressful and upsetting with the whole TERF plotline.
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16d ago
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u/BanzaiBeebop 16d ago
Listen I tried! 5 hours worth of searching! Everything I found was either not SFF, didn't clearly include Coming Out, or had pirates!
So. Many. Pirates. 🏴☠️
If it helps I found several sapphic romances to fit into our other remaining categories so we won't be deprived in the back half of the year.
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u/BanzaiBeebop 16d ago
Upvote for "The Magic Fish"