Maude’s Recommendations: Pride Month
Pride Month is a celebration of grand proportions for the queer community to love who they are and share that love with others. Over the years, queer representation in media has skyrocketed. Those who have felt seen on the big screen or in novels for years won’t understand the importance of new voices. Many books have explored sexual preference and identity so readers can connect with the characters and see them as an extension of themselves. Anyone’s queer individual journey can be challenging because those feelings can be difficult to understand. And that’s why representation in media with various stories from multiple perspectives is important.
This month, Maude Garrett gives us her favourite novels with strong queer representations that vary across genres.
Best LGBTQ+ bOOKS foR rEPRESENTATION
GAY
A heartbreaking love story that is intertwined with Greek mythology. Love and acceptance overpower those who are afraid of the unknown.
Non-Binary/Bisexual
A novel that incorporates gender fluidity. There is not much indication of the sexual orientation of the characters with the little bit of romance that is in the novel.
TRANS
When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo.
Best LGBTQ+ Relationships
Jesper and Wylan
Also known as “Wesper”. Wylan and Jesper met at a tannery in Ketterdam. After thinking Wylan died, Jesper confessed that maybe he liked his stupid face.
XIALLA AND WHOMEVER THE HECK SHE WANTS
She defines pansexuality.
Achilles and Patroclus
The Strongest Warrior unashamedly falls in love with a man.
BEST LGBTQ+ Authors
V.E. Schwab
“I should also think that sometimes with fantasy, it's telling me who's writing it. If you design a fantasy that looks exactly the same power dynamics that our world already has, what that says is you already see yourself at the centre of the story. So my stories tend to be aggressively more queer. They tend to be aggressively less white. They tend to like to take characters who are often fringe characters in those traditional white male, straight narratives, and they take them out of the periphery, and they give them centre stage. My fantasy is that you got to love whom you wanna love. So instead of the power dynamic is on your identity or your sexual orientation, it is literal power in who has more magic.”
Check out the full interview with Maude Garrett here.
He is a Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it's important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.
Tamsyn Muir
She is the bestselling author of the Locked Tomb trilogy, which begins with Gideon the Ninth. The series is about lesbian necromancers and Gideon was brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons. It is a mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror with some religious undertones as well.
Have you read any of the books listed above? If you have, let us know which one is your favourite! Which book has your favourite queer relationship? If you have any recommendations drop them in the comments below.
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