Our 23 Favorite LGBTQ+ Books of 2023

Hardcore readers already have a pretty good idea what the best books of 2023 were. They don’t need me to tell them that Justin Torres’ surreal novel Blackouts won the National Book Award for Fiction, or that this was an absolute banner year for transgender memoirs like Geena Rocero’s Horse Barbie or Raquel Willis’ The Risk It Takes to Bloom that dug through the subgenre’s historical whiteness to offer fresh new perspectives. Queer book lovers tend to be fairly tuned-in folks who are up on all the latest literary trends, so instead I want to address this list to the rest of you: Remember books? Those things with pages bound between two covers? They’re still the best way to absorb information, open up your mind, and lose yourself in a new world. The best LGBTQ+ books of 2023 are certainly proof of that.

Want to learn how to fix that nagging issue in your apartment? The “Trans Handy Ma’am” Mercury Stardust is here to help with Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair. Want to take a pill-fueled journey through the underbelly of late-night Los Angeles without actually having to take a cocktail of mystery medicines? Pick up Ruth Madievsky’s All-Night Pharmacy. Or maybe you want to visit Houston with a queer ghost in tow, in which case Family Meal by Bryan Washington is the perfect read for you. You can take a book on an airplane, you can listen to it while you go on a walk, and perhaps best of all, books don’t rot your brain the way that looking at your phone does.

To be clear, I’m not preaching from a high horse here. I’ve read fewer books this year than I’d like to admit, and I work in the field. The screens in our pockets are dangerously alluring. But we’d all do well to catch up on this year’s outstanding selection of LGBTQ+ fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. Below, please find our favorite queer books of 2023 to add to your TBR — or your “to-be-read” list for those of us who are still trying to get into the whole literary lifestyle. — Samantha Allen

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

Move over, gay penguins. 2023 belongs to the genderqueer mountain lion. More specifically, it belongs to the animal protagonist of Henry Hoke’s Open Throat, who roams the Hollywood Hills, watching in curious amazement as humans pop firecrackers and cruise for anonymous sex in dark caves. (At least when he isn’t thinking about his empty stomach.) Narrated in fragmented prose, Open Throat can be quite funny, especially as the big cat struggles to make sense of what he hears and sees. (For him, LA is “ellay” and cars on the highway are simply “loud metals.”) To the lion, everyone is living in “scare city” (scarcity) and placing way too much value on “green paper.” But on a deeper level, the novel works even better as a cultural critique, using the feline’s limited understanding of human culture to intriguingly explore aspects of notoriety, climate change, and the inescapable consumerism of Tinseltown. — Michael Cuby

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa (Mac) Crane

This debut novel opens with a birth and a death: Kris’ wife dies giving birth to the couple’s daughter. Already stigmatized in this speculative, dystopian future by having an extra “shadow,” Kris is entirely unprepared to raise the kid by herself. But what choice does she have? Worse yet, the kid has an additional shadow as well, a penalty assigned by the Department of Balance for accidentally killing her birth mother. With beautiful language, epic sex scenes, and quite a few opportunities to cry, Exoskeletons is a read you’ll gobble up. — Ilana Masad

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

I never met a Bryan Washington book I wasn’t completely taken by, and this sophomore novel is no exception. Washington is exceptionally talented at showing us the interiority of his characters and the intricacies of their relationships, whether he’s describing friends, lovers, parents, co-workers, or anything in-between. He’s also so, so good at writing food, which plays a big part in his books. Family Meal circles around two childhood best friends who reunite after one of them experiences a profound loss, but the story is a much more complex web than that brief summary might suggest. There’s chosen family, sex, a ghost, estrangement, healing, grief, and love, all packed into these pages. It’s a prism of humanity, and it’s just wonderful. — Sarah Neilson

Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

I was born in New York City but moved away as an infant, so I’ve always loved a good coming-of-age adventure set in the Big Apple. As Roaming co-author Jillian Tamaki told me in an interview, it’s “one of those places that you feel like you ‘know’ even if you’ve never been there.” Zoe, Dani, and Fiona — the messy trio at the core of this gorgeous, wistful graphic novel — want NYC to become the perfect backdrop for their first adult vacation, but as Zoe tries to find herself in a whirlwind romance with Fiona, Dani realizes she doesn’t know the city or her friends as well as she thought. Roaming is a story about the terrifying but hopeful uncertainty of young adulthood. This is a book for anyone who’s tried to figure out who they are and what brings them joy while, unfortunately, acting like a total shithead in the process. And isn’t that all of us? — Samantha Riedel

The Risk It Takes to Bloom by Raquel Willis

Raquel Willis, the award-winning writer and activist who co-organized the Brooklyn Liberation march, tells her own story in this beautifully candid debut memoir, covering everything from her Georgia childhood to her journalistic career. If you came to know Willis through her incisive political voice, you’ll find that here, but you’ll also read wonderfully nuanced reflections on coming out in a Black, Southern family, among other personal stories. As an added bonus, we published an excerpt of The Risk It Takes to Bloom here at Them if you’d like to preview the book before you pick up a copy for yourself. — Samantha Allen

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky

The narrator of Ruth Madievsky’s debut novel is in thrall to her sister, Debbie, and spends her nights following her, taking mystery pills before traipsing to L.A. dive bars and strip clubs. When Debbie disappears, and the narrator is left on her own, she descends into an even more Lynchian fever-dream version of Los Angeles — until a gorgeous gay psychic decides to take her under her wing. As a big fan of messed up, queer, unreliable narrators, this novel and its poetic language drew me in from the very first line. — Ilana Masad

Blackouts by Justin Torres

I know it’s gotten all the hype, winning the National Book Award for Fiction among other honors, but it’s for good reason. Like many readers, I fell in love with Torres’s now-cult-classic debut novel We The Animals back in 2011, and that high mark was a lot to live up to after over a decade of not publishing a book. Blackouts is very different from We The Animals, but no less remarkable. It follows a young, unnamed narrator who becomes a sort of protégé to Juan, a queer elder who the narrator meets in a psychiatric institution. Juan is dying, and as the narrator becomes more involved in the elder’s archival project of parsing a blacked-out text — based on research by the real-life queer researcher, Jan Gay, that became the book, Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns — the narrative blooms into a broad exploration of queer inheritance, memory, and mortality. — Sarah Neilson

Glassworks by Olivia Wolfang-Smith

Queerness comes in many forms, and Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s time-spanning debut novel explores a stunning range of them. From the descendant of a secret lesbian power couple in 1910 to a messed-up queer millennial in 2015, the characters and relationships in this book challenge the norms and expectations of their time periods. A sweeping family saga that examines how the mistakes and tragedies of our ancestors can manifest across generations, this read is for anyone who loves rebels, juicy family drama, and finding connections between the past and present. — Ilana Masad

Of Thunder & Lightning by Kimberly Wang

In 2023, everything is yuri, but there are few things more purely yuri than obsessive murder-robots shaped like magical girls. Kimberly Wang’s protagonists are two such murder lesbians: Magni and Dimo, each a propaganda icon for their faction in a never-ending war that has decimated the planet. With a relationship forged in shared trauma and depersonalization, the two share a strong psychosexual bond that eventually threatens to destroy the artifice of the entire conflict. Through devastatingly effective two-tone cartooning, Wang weaves a gripping anti-war and anti-capitalist science fiction tale starring a couple I’ll be thinking about for years. — Samantha Riedel

I’m Never Fine by Joseph Lezza

As a card-carrying member of the Dead Dads Club, I deeply appreciated Joseph Lezza’s debut collection, which intimately explores his father’s cancer diagnoses, treatments, and eventual death. In essays that combine forms — plays, poems, and straight prose — Lezza pushes against the idea that grief is something you just get through, and death something you just “get over.” Grief is instead sticky as sap, living with us, much as death continues to impact us long after the fact. Despite the heavy topic, the essays are often hilarious, and Lezza succeeds in echoing the very real gallows humor so necessary when facing illness and death. — Ilana Masad

Wild Geese by Soula Emmanuel

This debut novel from Greek Irish writer Soula Emmanuel almost has Sally Rooney vibes, but personally I find this book much more interesting. It follows Phoebe, an Irish woman living in Copenhagen, where she moved to reinvent herself — and maybe run away from some things — after her gender transition. She’s in the middle of earning her Ph.D., but she’s lonely and somewhat anxious, and struggling to try to meet people. Then her ex, Grace, shows up at her door unexpectedly, and they spend a magical, surreal, strange, challenging weekend together in the city. This is a quiet but emotionally immersive story that I simply loved. I can’t wait to see what Emmanuel writes next. — Sarah Neilson

Horse Barbie by Geena Rocero

Geena Rocero’s Horse Barbie has possibly one of the most iconic opening lines in the history of queer literature: “I learned how to be trans in the Catholic church.” Beginning with Rocero as an effeminate 10-year-old in the Filipino city of Makati, the sprawling memoir by the now multi-hyphenate model, producer, and activist isn’t quite a story about finding oneself. Rather, it’s one of knowing exactly who you are and charging ahead whether the rest of the world is ready for you or not. More specifically, it follows Rocero through a rollicking time as a breakthrough star of the Filipino trans pageant circuit, and through migrating to the U.S. in search of an “F” gender marker only to find that where America had rights to offer, it lacked social acceptance. Ultimately, Horse Barbie is as much about transness as it is about Filipino colorism, American xenophobia, the inner-workings of the pageant and modeling worlds, and the universal power of telling your story on your own terms. With vivid descriptions and vulnerable narration, it’s an instant classic. (And for those who’d rather listen, the audiobook — narrated by Rocero herself — is a deliciously cinematic experience.) — Sarah Burke

Choosing Family by Francesca T. Royster

It’s not always easy for queer people to build the families they want to take part in or raise, and this was certainly the case for author Francesca T. Royster and her wife. Although they had a life they enjoyed and a supportive community, things got complicated when the couple decided they wanted a child in middle age. In this memoir, Royster navigates the tricky waters of adoption and new motherhood by exploring how her Black matriarchs have always been queering the notion of “traditional” family life. Equal parts inspired and inspiring, Royster shares the beautiful expansiveness of all that family can be. — Ilana Masad

Bellies by Nicola Dinan

In Nicola Dinan’s novel Bellies, Tom and Ming meet at a party during their university years. As different as two young gay men can be, the two nevertheless click and soon fall in love, beginning what turns into a years-long serious relationship. But when Ming begins to transition, the nature of her and Tom’s relationship becomes more complicated. A novel full of flawed human beings that feel so real they could be your friend group, Bellies is for anyone queer (and not!) who has navigated the vagaries of identity. — Ilana Masad

Falling Back in Love With Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom

I don’t think I’m alone in sometimes succumbing to the despair wreaked by the seemingly endless and cruel ways in which people cause harm, on every scale. (OK, I often think about this.) And while this harm is very real, reading Kai Cheng Thom’s book about finding love for the humanity in people was transformative. Each chapter, as it were, is a letter so someone — friends, exes, J.K. Rowling, queer elders, strangers — and all of them balance holding space for the reality of harm while seeking to find love. They are interspersed with reflections and questions, which help guide the reader to think and feel more deeply. It’s a tiny book but a profoundly impactful one. — Sarah Neilson

The Male Gazed by Manuel Betancourt

Growing up as a gay boy in Colombia, The Male Gazed author Manuel Betancourt was surrounded by the pressure to conform to a certain kind of masculinity. At the same time, examples of norm-bucking masculinities were all around him in the pop culture he consumed, from telenovelas to Ricky Martin to queer astrologer Walter Mercado. In this book of essays, Betancourt explores masculinities more complex than the toxic heteronormative kind so often marketed to us all. Engaging, confessional, funny, and whip-smart, this collection is for the queer pop culture nerds among us.— Ilana Masad

Safe and Sound by Mercury Stardust

Mercury Stardust is a burlesque performer and maintenance technician who gained a huge following on TikTok, where she posts videos about how to make a plethora home repairs, with a focus on renters. Her tagline — “You’re worth the time it takes to learn a new skill” — sums up her ethos that there are no bad questions, and that everyone has a right to feel comfortable in their own home. This book is a gorgeous hardcover version of her content, with lots of information and illustrations showing how to make various repairs and improvements, complete with QR codes that take you to videos that demonstrate the skills. It’s empowering, beautiful, and kind-hearted, but above all it’s incredibly useful. — Sarah Neilson

Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurts

With a doting girlfriend and a flashy New York journalism gig, Homebodies protagonist Mickey seems to have it all — despite the anti-Blackness that often crops up in the media world. But after she’s replaced at work, conversations about the future place her at odds with her partner, prompting a burnt-out Mickey to head back to her hometown. It’s there that she’s forced to confront bygone dyke drama and reckon with the aftermath of a viral open letter she writes about her former employer. In her debut novel, Tembe Denton-Hurst crafts an instantly memorable portrait of a queer, Black twentysomething figuring out how to use her voice in an industry where identity is prized, but only as far as it toes the company line. — Abby Monteil

People Collide by Isle McElroy

Eli and Elizabeth are married and living in Bulgaria when one morning Eli discovers his wife has disappeared. Well. Kind of. Her body is still present, and he’s inside it. But her consciousness — and his own body — have gone off somewhere, to some unknown place. Eli knows if he tells anyone what has happened they’ll think he’s lost it; but at the same time, he also knows he can’t inhabit Elizabeth’s body the same way she did. Hella queer, trans, sexy, and funny, Isle McElroy’s People Collide is a swift read that challenges all the things we think we know about our most beloved, and about ourselves. — Ilana Masad

The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher

I’m personally a sucker for stories about stories — how and why we tell them — so I knew immediately that Sarah Cypher’s debut was extremely up my alley. The Skin and Its Girl is narrated by Betty, a young Palestinian American woman, and told at the foot of her Aunt Nuha’s grave. The novel follows Betty as she tries to understand the women in her family, the traumas that bond them, and how she might both love them and free herself from their constraints. Unearthing the kernels of truth in Aunt Nuha’s mythology and uncovering the lies that were constructed to cover secret shames, Betty unravels and then reweaves her family’s story. — Ilana Masad

The Last Catastrophe by Allegra Hyde

This short story collection from the author of last year’s novel Eleutheria is one of the most compelling books I’ve read in years, and even though it received plenty of critical acclaim, it still flew under too many radars. All of Allegra Hyde’s stories in The Last Catastrophe deal with climate change and/or the absurdities of capitalism, but they’re also about longing, love, courage, and grief. Some are on the longer side, others are as short as a page or two, but the book flies by either way, with a balance of speculative and more grounded offerings. This was a no-skips collection for me, and I can’t recommend it enough. — Sarah Neilson

Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn

In Gabrielle Korn’s futuristic novel, the Inside Project is a program set up to protect a small percentage of the human race while leaving the rest to flounder in the worsening global climate. Jacqueline Millender, the richest woman in the world, has decided to turn the American Inside into her idea of feminist utopia. The novel follows her assistant Shelby, new recruit Olympia, and Inside member Ava, as they leave their respective lives behind for the privilege of surviving. If you’re into dystopian fiction, lesbians, and critiques of girlboss feminism, you’ll love Korn’s debut. — Ilana Masad

Confidence by Rafael Frumkin

I’m endlessly fascinated by the twin pillars of American commerce: faith and grift. In that sense, Rafael Frumkin’s sophomore novel Confidence is absolutely everything I want out of a book. Confidence is a deeply American gay love story about two conmen, Orson and Ezra, who first meet at Last Chance Camp, a program for troubled teenage boys. Together, they work to make big bucks and, along the way, start a cult together, because why not? Think of the empty charisma of NXIVM’s Keith Raniere combined with the financial grift of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and even then, you’ll have only half the power of Orson and Ezra, the queer kings of scam-landia. — Ilana Masad

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