The Ultimate List of LGBTQ Books for Teens

This "memoir-manifesto" tells the deeply personal story of George M. Johnson and speaks to queer Black boys—and their allies—everywhere. "An exuberant, unapologetic memoir infused with a deep but cleareyed love for its subjects" (The New York Times), this bestselling work is one you really shouldn't miss.

The 17-year-long tenure of providing and caring for their abusive, addicted, and drug-dealing mother in a small, closed-minded town is finally coming to an end for Will, but it may not necessarily bring forth the freedom they’ve been yearning for. 

Though their mother died months before their 18th birthday, her cursed words blaming them for her death not only haunts Will, but comes to life. Their mother’s drug-dealing past is coming for them, sending Will on the hunt to find their beloved former foster mom, Raz, before Child Protective Services or local drug dealers get to them first. 

This coming-of-age graphic diary centers around Tuva, a 12-year-old girl just starting seventh grade. Tuva has goals: writing out a diary, adopting a trendy new look, building the best forest fort the seventh grade has ever seen, etc. But her friends have different ideas. 

Her friend group has tragically split into rival factions: TEAM LINNEA, aka, the girls who fall in love, and TEAM BAO, the girls who never fall in love. And the two teams want Tuva to choose a side. 

While Tuva’s friends (and seemingly the entire seventh grade) are all learning how to be teenagers, Tuva confronts another problem: she develops a crush on a girl named Miriam. Can you fall in love with a girl, keep it from your friends, and survive? 

An incredibly modern story, Beating Heart Baby begins with Santi arriving in Los Angeles and attending a new school. He’s hoping to dull the pain of the loss of his childhood internet friend, and luckily, finds the community he’s been yearning for in the school marching band. 

He clashed briefly with his section leader, Suwa, but even that blossomed into friendship, and then something more. But when Suwa gets a chance at the rockstar dream the two of them share, their budding relationship is tested. 

The story of Santi and Suwa spans over years, as the two continually fall apart and fall back together. While it’s largely a coming-of-age saga, it is also proof that Santi and Suwa’s dreams are just as crucial as art and love and life itself. 

In the quaint little town of Lennon, California, one person is chosen to return from the dead for 30 days once every 10 years. Wilson Moss entered the top secret contest in the hopes of resurrecting her ex-best friend, Annie LeBlanc—but she never expected to win. 

But she did. Annie is back and Will is ecstatic, despite the fact that Annie ghosted her a year before she died. And better yet: Will discovers a loophole that could permanently keep Annie alive, and she’s desperate to do so. But in order to succeed, they’ll need the help of their third best friend, Ryan. 

The catch? Ryan openly hates them both, and she and Wilson haven’t even spoken since their awkward kiss. Will is determined to put it aside for one month while she figures this out…she just has to stop thinking about it first. Will is determined not to lose her only friends (again) and plunge back into loneliness, but that will mean confronting some truths about Annie’s past and their friendship that, along with Annie, Wilson left buried. 

A celebration of Mexican culture, family, and forging our own paths all in one, Canto Contigo is also a magnificent enemies-to-lovers romance. It begins with Rafael Alvarez who, in a 24-hour span, led North Amistad High School’s Mariachi Alma de la Frontera to their 11th consecutive Mariachi de Extravaganza de Nacional first-place win, and he met, made out with, and nearly hooked up with one of the most attractive guys he’s ever met. 

Fast forward eight months, and Rafael was on track to lead his team to another win—but that was before his family up and moved to San Antonio his senior year. Not only is he dealing with the passing of his beloved abuelo, but the group at his new school already has a lead singer, Rey Alvarez, meaning Rafael won’t be leading anyone to victory this year. 

The hardest part of it all is that Rey is the guy that Rafael made out with, so despite the fact that they’re both vying for the same spot, Rafie can’t squash his feelings for Rey. Rafie’s abuelo always believed him to be a great Mariachi—but will he choose the people he’s known his entire life, or the one just starting to get to know the real him? 

You probably know the name Hayley Kiyoko—whether it’s from Disney Channel, her killer music, or her directing career. Her viral song and music video “Girls Like Girls” inspired her debut, coming-of-age romance novel of the same name. 

Seventeen-year-old Coley, forced to move to rural Oregon after losing her mother, is looking at a lonely summer. But then she meets Sonya, and the attraction is immediate. 

Yet everyone Coley’s ever loved has left her, leaving her afraid that she’s not worthy of love. And on top of that, Sonya’s never been with a girl before. Can Coley find it in her heart to take the risk? And can Sonya overcome her fears of not being able to show up for Coley? 

A story about embracing your truth and acknowledging that you deserve to be loved, the two girls come to realize that they need to accept both the love and the fear for the song to make sense. 

Ancrum is quickly rising in notoriety as an author of some seriously intense brilliance, beginning with her marvelous and powerful The Wicker King—perfect for fans of The Raven Boys and strong mental health depictions—and continuing up through her June release, Darling, a take on Peter Pan. In between is this soft Sapphic slow-burn romance perfect for space geeks, about a girl named Ryann who dreams of traveling to the stars and ends up falling for a girl whose mother left her behind in order to do just that. 

For another queer YA with heartwarming space nerdery, check out The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper, and for more Sapphic romance, try You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson, Final Draft by Riley Redgate, Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan, Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi, The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth, Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen, The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding, Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli, and Going Off Script by Jen Wilde.

One of my favorite trilogies in all of YA SFF, London’s epic fantasy series revolves around a pair of twins who practice falconry in a society overshadowed by the threat of war. Kylee, who’s aromantic asexual, is the gifted one of the two, but she’s not interested in exploiting that power. 

Meanwhile, Brysen would kill to have her magic with birds and land the boy of his dreams. When he sees his chance in the quest to capture the all-important and majorly deadly Ghost Eagle, Kylee insists on going along to keep him safe. But neither could possibly imagine what lies ahead. 

For more great queer epic YA fantasy, check out The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski, The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco, and The Brilliant Death by A.R. Capetta, and for one specifically with an aroace main character, try This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria.

CeCe is a major social media influencer, something she built up together with her girlfriend, Sylvie. But when Sylvie breaks up with her, CeCe’s unsure who’ll still be interested in her as a solo project. And when she starts dating a guy, things get even more fraught. 

Despite the fact that she’s always been open about being bi, now people are calling her a fraud for wanting to participate in Pride and rock the rainbow. To keep the guy and the gig, she’ll have to come clean to him about her internet fame and stand up for who she is in the community, with or without a girl by her side. 

For more new YAs taking on biphobia, check out Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales and Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar. 

Callender’s cross-category talent is unmatched; in the same year they released King and the Dragonflies, a stunning Middle Grade novel that won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, they also managed to drop this groundbreaking YA. Felix Ever After is about a trans boy (who ultimately comes to identify as a demiboy through some continued questioning) named Felix who gets targeted by a bully insistent on exposing his deadname and pre-transition photos and decides to take revenge. 

But Felix’s plan doesn’t go quite as planned when he starts to feel something for the very boy he’s trying to catfish.

For more great realistic contemporary YA starring trans boys, check out Between Perfect and Real by Ray Stoeve, All Kinds of Other by James Sie, The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons, and Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee.

It’s impossible to have a discussion about sex in queer YA that doesn’t include this brave, wildly honest, and wholly necessary YA debut. Not for the faint of heart, it revolves around a gay boy named Jack who finds himself running an online sex advice column, and getting badgered by a homophobic stalker as a result. 

While he tries to figure out who’s attempting to destroy him, he helps a lot of other kids along way, with unfiltered conversations about blow jobs, asexuality, BDSM, fetishization of queer guys by straight girls, and more. (I also highly recommend Rosen’s sophomore novel, Camp, which continues to tackle tough in-community conversations with a delightfully summery setting.) 

For some more favorite contemporary gay YA, check out The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters, Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig, By Any Means Necessary by Candice Montgomery, Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass, History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera, and Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan. 

Talley is one of queer YA’s most prolific authors, jumping genres from historical to contemporary to paranormal and back again. This one is my personal favorite of hers, a brilliant dual-narrative with one timeline exploring the lavender scare and origins of lesbian pulp fiction in the American 1950s and one in the present day. 

The latter stars Abby Zimet, who’s doing a school project on said fiction, and falls down the rabbit hole researching author Marian Love, who seems to have disappeared after writing some of Abby’s favorite work. And back in history, a girl named Janet is inspired to write lesbian romance after stumbling upon one such novel, but knows it means taking a risk that might be too big to handle. 

For more brilliant queer YA historicals, check out Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian, a must-read set in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, set in 1950s Chinatown. Or go back even further with Aden Polydoros’s upcoming historical fantasy thriller, The City Beautiful, set at the World’s Fair in 1893, or Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin, set in 1926.

Emezi’s literary brilliance is well documented, and this short, brilliant speculative novel deserves all its acclaim and then some. It stars Jam, a trans girl living in the city of Lucille, where the children have been told monsters no longer roam. But if that’s the case, then why has one emerged from one of her mother’s paintings and taken up residence in their room? What is Pet there to show her and her best friend, Redemption? Together, they’ll quest to find out, and learn that monsters come in many forms. 

For more speculative trans YA, check out the excellent paranormal Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and fantasy The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon.

A very welcome new voice in queer YA fiction, Salvatore’s debut is an ode to nonbinary identity and Mariah Carey, who gives our lead their name. Carey Parker is genderqueer; if you want to know what pronouns to use that day, you can check the bracelet on their wrist. (Or look at the chapter openings.) Carey’s also talented as hell, and when they decide they want the role of Elphaba in the school play, it sets off a chain of transphobic reaction that forces them to stand up for what they know they deserve.

For more contemporary YA with nonbinary leads, check out I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, Even if We Break by Marieke Nijkamp, and in speculative YA, try the upcoming The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta, Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller and Out of Salem by Hal Schrieve.

Want a little something of everything? Saundra Mitchell has got you covered. In addition to Mitchell’s own queer books, including All the Things We Do in the Dark and Looking for Group (as Rory Harrison), she’s also the editor of the all-queer anthology All Out—a collection of all-queer, all-historical short stories from authors like Tess Sharpe (The Girls I’ve Been), Anna-Marie McLemore (The Mirror Season), Kody Keplinger (Run), Sara Farizan (Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel), and more (including yours truly). There's also an all-contemporary (though not all realistic) follow-up, Out Now, which features Mark Oshiro (Anger Is a Gift), Katherine Locke (The Spy With the Red Balloon), C.B. Lee (Not Your Sidekick), Meredith Russo (If I Was Your Girl), and more. 

And yes, there’s a third coming—Out There, which is all futuristic queer fiction, with stories from a whole new collection of authors including Kalynn Bayron (Cinderella is Dead), Naomi Kanakia (We Are Totally Normal), Z Brewer (Into the Real), and Nita Tyndall (Who I Was With Her).