A Rainbow List of LGBT+ Book Recommendations for Pride

Hello friends! Sharing a rainbow list of LGBTQ+ book recommendations for June has always been something that we wanted to do, but didn’t have the chance to put together. This year, however, we started to prepare for Pride in time, and so we’ve been able to put together a pretty cool list of LGBTQ+ novels for you all.

We picked four titles for each color and, because we found it difficult to narrow down our recommendations, we also shared a small list of extra titles at the end of each color section. To make the list more valuable, we tried our best to highlight the representation contained in the titles we picked. However, we can’t guarantee that we didn’t make any mistakes, so please feel free to correct us and we’ll make the necessary changes to the post. Thank you! 💛 Final note! As you’ll see, besides the six colors of the rainbow flag, we also included the colors pink and black in our post.

Rainbow Recommendations For Pride Month

R E D

LOVE & OTHER DISASTERS: London, the first openly non-binary contestant of an American cooking show falls for their recently diverced rival, Dahlia.
rep: nonbinary protagonist, bisexual heroine

PLAIN BAD HEROINES: The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever after several people mysteriously die on the property. Over a century later, it’s back in the news when Merritt Emmons publishes a book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.
rep: multiple f/f relationships, f/f romance, f/f/f romance, lesbian protagonist, bisexual protagonists

THE GIRLS I’VE BEEN: The daughter of a con artist, along with her girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend, is taken hostage in a bank heist after five years of playing normal.
rep: bisexual protagonist, f/f romance

CEMETERY BOYS: In an attempt to prove himself to his family, Yadriel has accidentally summoned a ghost – the school’s resident bad boy, no less – who refuses leave until Yadriel helps him find out how he died.
rep: trans male lead, gay heroes, m/m romance

Something to Talk About, Ace of Spades, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Blood is Another Word For Hunger, The Bone Shard Daughter, The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting

O R A N G E

WE SET THE DARK ON FIRE: Society wife-in-training Dani has a great awakening after being recruited by rebel spies and falling for her biggest rival.
rep: f/f romance

THEY NEVER LEARN: Every year, Scarlett, an English professor, searches for the worst man at her university and plots his well-deserved demise. However, as she is preparing for her biggest kill yet, people start probing into the growing body count at campus..
rep: bisexual heroine, f/f romance

WHEN THE TIGER CAME DOWN THE MOUNTAIN: The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of tigers. To stay alive, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover and discover how truth can survive becoming history.
rep: nonbinary protagonist, f/f romance

FELIX EVER AFTER: Felix Love has never been in love.. but that is bound to change in this YA contemporary about identity, self-discovery, and falling in love.
rep: trans demiboy mc

Perfect on Paper, Iron Heart, The Falling in Love Montage, Not Your Sidekick, Fingersmith, Meet Me At The Intersection

Y E L L O W

TAKE A HINT, DANI BROWN: After a video of Dani and Zaf goes viral, making people think that these two are a couple, they agree to fake date each other in order to capitalize on their viral fame.
rep: bisexual heroine

GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER: Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years.
rep: lesbian characters, f/f relationships, nonbinary character

THE WICKER KING: When August learns that his best friend, Jack, shows signs of degenerative hallucinatory disorder, he is determined to help Jack cope. As Jack leads them on a quest to fulfil a dark prophecy in his alternate world, even August begins to question what is real or not.
rep: bisexual heroes, m/m romance, m/m/f romance

CRIER’S WAR: Ayla, a girl adamant on avenging her family by taking away something that is dear to the sovereign, becomes Lady Crier’s – the princess’ – maid. Forbidden love ensues as these two girls question what they have believed in.
rep: bisexual and lesbian heroines, f/f romance

Slippery Creatures, Goldie Vance

G R E E N

IN THE DREAM HOUSE: In this poetic, lyrical memoir, Carmen Maria Machado tackles the subject of domestic abuse in same-sex relationships through her own experience.

A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT: The life of the tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honour the centuries old promise of checking in on the human world.
rep: nonbinary protagonist

THE MAGIC FISH: Tiến loves his family and his friends, but he has a secret he’s been keeping from them, and it might change everything.
rep: gay mc

PROPER ENGLISH: Pat, who is attending her friend’s shooting party, finds herself being more interested in her friend’s fiancée, Miss Fenella Carruth, than the programs the party has to offer.
rep: lesbian MCs, f/f romance

The Worm and His Kings, Silver in the Wood, Heartstopper: Volume One, Glitterland, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

B L U E

LAST SEEN LEAVING: Flynn, whose girlfriend has recently disappeared, leaving him with a lot of questions, decides to get to the bottom of the mystery, even if it means revealing his own secrets.
rep: gay main character, m/m romance

PETER DARLING: Years after leaving, Peter decides to return to Neverland, only to realize that the way he perceives certain things – for example, his rival, Captain Hook – has drastically changed.
rep: trans male lead, m/m romance

SUMMER BIRD BLUE: Thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life.
rep: asexual heroine

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR: An unlikely correspondence begins between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions.
rep: f/f romance

Under the Whispering Door, A Dark and Starless Forest, The Love Hypothesis, Written in the Stars, Conventionally Yours, Peter Cabot Gets Lost, Not My Problem, The Intimacy Experiment, Only Mostly Devastated, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, The Boy From the Mish, The Weight of the Stars, Girl Made of Stars, The Mermaid the Witch and the Sea, Elatsoe

P U R P L E

LOVELESS: Georgia, a fanfic obsessed romantic, has always believed that she will find love and passian one day, despite never having a crush before. Loveless follows Georgia as she questions and discoveres her identity.
rep: aro/ace heroine

YOU SHOULD SEE ME IN A CROWN: The only thing that makes running for prom queen halfway bearable for Liz is the new girl in school, Mack. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams or make them come true?
rep: f/f romance

THE WITCH KING: To save a fae kingdom, a trans witch must face his traumatic past and the royal fiancé he left behind.
rep: trans male mc, m/m romance

IF THIS GETS OUT: Ruben and Zach, best friends and members of a famous boyband, find themselves unexpectedly falling for each other in this YA contemporary novel about friendship, fame, exploitation and love.
rep: gay hero, bisexual hero, m/m romance

The Dead and the Dark, Miss Meteor, Once Ghosted, Twice Shy, Let’s Talk About Love, The Afterward, Delilah Green Doesn’t Care

P I N K

THE HENNA WARS: When their competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, making them rivals.
rep: lesbian main character, bisexual love interest

DATING SARAH COOPER: Best friends Sarah and Katie decide to pretend to be together after they are mistaken as a couple. To their surprise, this leads the girls down on a path of questioning their sexuality and realizing their feelings for each other.
rep: lesbian main character, bisexual love interest

THE FIRE NEVER GOES OUT: In a collection of essays and personal mini-comics that span eight years of their young adult life, author-illustrator N.D. Stevenson charts the highs and lows of being a creative human in the world.

TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM: Gifty turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family’s loss and still finds herself hungering for her childhood faith.
rep: bisexual mc

Between Perfect and Real; Girl, Serpent, Thorn; Queens of Geek, We Are Okay, The Fire Never Goes Out, All The Bad Apples, Everything Leads To You, Pumpkin’

B L A C K

TASH HEARTS TOLSTOY: After a shout-out from a successful vlogger, webseries-maker Tash and her adaptation of Anna Karenina is thrust into the spotlight.
rep: heteroromantic asexual heroine

A DOWRY OF BLOOD: A lyrical and dreamy reimagining of Dracula’s brides, A Dowry of Blood is a story of desire, obsession, and emancipation.
rep: bisexual characters, polyamorous relationship

EVEN IF WE BREAK: A group of friends are tied together by a game and the deadly weekend that tears them apart.
rep: nonbinary mc, trans male mc, bisexual mc

THINGS WE SAY IN THE DARK: A shocking collection of dark stories, ranging from chilling contemporary fairytales to disturbing supernatural fiction.
rep: wlw narrator

Radio Silence, Monstress, Silver in the Wood, Gideon the Ninth, If We Were Villains, The Dark Tide

LET’S CHAT!

What are some of your favorite LGBTQ+ novels? We’d love to hear about them! Have you read any of the titles we recommended here?