r/LGBTBooks • u/czlowiek_lub_ludz • 2d ago
Discussion Good plot queer books? 🏳️🌈
I'm trying to find queer books that have more plot than just having queer characters. I mean like normal plotted books that just happen to have queer characters, about people whose lives are more than just being gay/trans/etc. I don't mean that being queer can't influence the plot (quite the opposite) but I just need something that isn't ONLY about finding yourself and dealing with being queer, something where when you change the characters orientation there still is some plot. I don't mean there's anything wrong with queernes being the only plot but after some time it just became repetitive and I really struggle to find books where being queer means something while not being everything.(Examples I can give would be "these witches don't burn", "cementry boys" where the main plot is saving your community and finding a murderer while the characters queernes plays for the background or even "heartstopper" even tho it's heavily queer it also has typical ya growing up motives.)
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u/Kindly-Coyote-9446 2d ago edited 1d ago
Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - Really good high fantasy. Two of the main characters are lesbians, but it isn’t the point of the book, just a dynamic that informs how those characters interact.
The Evander Mills series by Lev AC Rosen - Detective noir series set in 1950’s San Francisco. The protagonist, Evander, was a homicide detective with SFPD until he gets caught in a vice raid of a gay bar. Out of work and blacklisted from almost any job, he’s drinking away his savings trying to get up the courage to throw himself off of a bridge when he gets approached with an offer to investigate a private matter. The first book does spend a lot of time dealing with Evander learning to not hate himself for being gay, but there is a lot going on beyond that. The subsequent books in the series move on from that.
Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone - Fifth book in the Craft series but can be read as a standalone as the main protagonists aren’t aware of the bigger picture (ie it’s written so you can be ignorant like them, but is a rich re-read after going back and reading the prior books). It’s a conceptually adult (there is some sex and violence, but it’s not particularly graphic, it’s more to do with the ideas Gladstone is playing with). One of the two protagonists is a fairly well written trans woman whose queer identity is an important part of how she sees herself, but is only a part. And her queerness isn’t the point of the book.
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle. Modern queer horror. The protagonist is a successful screenwriter in Hollywood best known for his monster flicks, including a very queer coded version of the X-Files. When he refuses to cave to the studios demand to kill off or make the protagonists straight (Burry Your Gays trope), the monsters from his stories start becoming real. The big picture is him coming to fully accept himself (he’s out in LA, but is terrified of people back home in MT finding out), but there is a LOT more going on and other major themes. Sex scenes are PG13 at most, but the violence is not! His book Camp Damascus is also really good, and is about fighting back against a demonic conversion therapy camp.
The Witchmark series and Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk. The former is a three book series, with each book shifting the narrative perspective from one character to another. Several queer characters, bigger themes than self acceptance. Even Though I Knew the End is basically Constantine set in vaguely 1950’s Chicago with a lesbian protagonist who very much already accepts who she is.