by Krista Hutley, teen librarian
Gone are the days when books with LGBTQ+ characters were few and far between. They're no longer hard to find; in fact, we're in somewhat of a renaissance these days, with books featuring queer characters in every genre. Here are a few favorites for young adults in a few favorite genres: contemporary reads, science fiction and fantasy, and suspense and mystery.
Contemporary
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callendar
Felix Love, a transgender seventeen-year-old, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.
Call Number: High School Callendar, K.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/4884301
Y
ou Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
The queer prom romance you didn't know you needed -Kirkus reviews
Call Number: High School Johnson, L.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/5280164
Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
A studious girl and a quiet, straight-A boy start a controversial podcast together that challenges their courage and forces them to confront issues in the form of backlash and censorship.
Call Number: High School Oseman, A.
Digital Library audiobook: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/2841858
Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen
At Camp Outland, a camp for LGBTQIA teens, sixteen-year-old Randall "Del" Kapplehoff's plan to have Hudson Aaronson-Lim fall in love with him succeeds, but both are hiding their true selves.
Call Number: High School Rosen, L.
The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper
When his volatile father is picked to become an astronaut for NASA's mission to Mars, seventeen-year-old Cal, an aspiring journalist, reluctantly moves from Brooklyn to Houston, Texas, and looks for a story to report, finding an ally (and crush) in Jeremy, the son of another astronaut.
Call Number: High School Stamper, P.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/5066275
Science Fiction and Fantasy
The Brilliant Death by Amy Rose Capetta
A young shapeshifter has to learn to control her powers, while simultaneously using them to disguise herself as a boy and confront the people who murdered her father.
Call Number: High School Capetta, A.
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
In a near-future society that claims to have gotten rid of all monstrous people, a creature emerges from a painting seventeen-year-old Jam's mother created, a hunter from another world seeking a real-life monster.
Call Number: High School Emezi, A.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/4617793
When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey
When Alexis accidentally kills a classmate on prom night using magic, her best friends Roya, Iris, Paulie, Marcelina, and Maryam join in using their powers to try to set things right.
Call Number: High School Gailey, S.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/4815623
Reverie by Ryan La Sala
While recovering from an attack that leaves him without his memory, gay teenager Kane Montgomery stumbles into a world where dreams known as reveries take on a life of their own, and it is up to Kane and a few unlikely allies to stop them before they spillover into the waking world.
Call Number: High School La Sala, R.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/5008330
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski
Nirrim endures a grim and punishing life as a Half Caste until she encounters Sid, a rakish traveler from far away who whispers rumors that the High Caste possess magic and tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself.
Call Number: High School Rutkoski, M.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/4229567
Suspense and Mystery
All Eyes on Us by Kit Frick
In alternate chapters, Amanda faces family pressure to marry Carter, knowing he cheats, and Paulina pretends to date Carter to alleviate family and church pressure about being a lesbian.
Call Number: High School Frick, K.
A Line in the Dark by Malinda Lo
When Chinese American teenager Jess Wong's best friend Angie falls in love with a girl from the nearby boarding school, Jess expects heartbreak. But when everybody's secrets start to be revealed, the stakes quickly elevate from love or loneliness to life or death.
Call Number: High School Lo, M.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/3136271
Swipe Right for Murder by Derek Milman
Finding himself alone in a posh New York City hotel room for the night, Aidan does what any red-blooded seventeen-year-old would do--he tries to hook up with someone new. But that lapse in judgment leads to him waking up next to a dead guy, which sparks an epic case of mistaken identity. Now he's on the run from federal agents--and a cyber-terrorist group who will stop at nothing to find him.
Call Number: High School Milman, D.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/4455353
White Rabbit by Caleb Roehrig
Rufus Holt gets a call from his sister April, begging for help. He and ex-boyfriend Sebastian find her, drenched in blood and holding a knife beside the dead body of her boyfriend. April swears she didn't kill Fox. Rufus knows her too well to believe she's telling him the whole truth, but April has something he needs. Her price is his help. Now, with no one to trust but the boy he wants to hate yet can't stop loving, Rufus has one night to clear his sister's name...or die trying.
Call Number: High School Roehrig, C.
Digital Library: https://dlil.overdrive.com/nsls-wilmettepublic/content/media/3590179
Keep This to Yourself by Tom Ryan
After high school graduation, Mac focuses on finding the serial killer who murdered his best friend the previous summer, while working through his own feelings for the deceased.
Call Number: High School Ryan, T.