My 2025 Pride Month Reading List and Recommendations
Queer people have always lived at the margins — of stories, of systems and of safety. However this year, under an increasingly hostile U.S. government, those margins have grown sharper.
Book bans, healthcare rollbacks and legislative attacks on queer and trans existence, especially targeting BIPOC and immigrant communities, have made the fight for visibility feel more urgent than ever.
So this year, my Pride Month reading list is an act of deliberate protest. I’m prioritizing queer stories that push boundaries: books by trans writers, by authors of color and by creators outside the U.S. Because the most powerful thing we can do in the face of erasure is bear witness — and keep reading.
2025 Pride Month Reading Recommendations
If you’re looking for a book (or two) to read this Pride, consider these queer-focused stories – some by queer creators, others allies.
By Queer Creators:
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
Hi, Honey, I'm Homo! by Matt Baume
Four Squares by Bobby Finger
How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones
Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives by Walt Odets
By Non-Queer Creators, But Centered Around Queer Stories:
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
Don't Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna
Call Me By Your Name and Find Me by André Aciman
Looking for even more titles? View my reading list and recommendations from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020. Plus, a little read this/not that comparison.
My Pride Month Reading List: Stories That Can’t Be Silenced
Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Huy Lemmey and Ben Miller
Genre: Historical Nonfiction
Goodreads Average Rating: 3.56
What It’s About [adapted from the dustjacket]: A subversive and sharply argued history of the queer figures we’re not supposed to celebrate. From emperors and fascists to gangsters and puritans, Lemmey and Miller explore how villainy, scandal and contradiction shaped queer identity while offering a bold counterpoint to the sanitized canon of LGBTQ “heroes.”
Here the Whole Time by Vitor Marins with Larissa Helena (translator)
Genre: Young Adult
Goodreads Average Rating: 4.21
What It’s About [adapted from the dustjacket]: Felipe is just trying to survive school break with his body image issues and his crush, Caio, the neighbor who’s suddenly moving in for two weeks. What follows is a heartfelt, funny and body-positive coming-of-age story about awkward first love, self-acceptance and emotional growth.
Bolla by Pajtim Statovci with David Hackston (translator)
Genre: Historical Fiction
Goodreads Average Rating: 3.96
What It’s About [adapted from the dustjacket]: Set in war-torn Kosovo, this novel follows Arsim and Milos – an Albanian and a Serb – whose secret love is torn apart by conflict, exile and time. Their doomed romance unfolds alongside the myth of a serpent-demon, blurring legend and reality in a devastating meditation on love, identity and war.
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel
Genre: Literary Fiction
Goodreads Average Rating: 4.15
What It’s About [adapted from the dustjacket]: A queer songwriter returns home to confront grief, guilt and the boy he once loved while his mother questions the life she gave up decades earlier. Told in dual perspectives, this raw, music-infused novel explores family secrets, early heartbreaks and the cost of being honest with ourselves.
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Genre: Poetry
Goodreads Average Rating: 4.19
What It’s About [adapted from the dustjacket]: Vuong’s debut collection weaves memory, war, love and longing into verse both intimate and epic. I may swap this one out for his new fiction release, “The Emperor of Gladness,” if I can get the library hold in time.
Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero with Mara Faye Lethem (translator)
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Goodreads Average Rating: 4.53
What It’s About [adapted from the dustjacket]:A trans girl grows up in working-class Madrid amid addiction, violence and nightlife glitter. With lyrical prose and brutal honesty, Portero paints a coming-of-age portrait that is tender, gritty and deeply rooted in gender, class, and survival.
