Similarly to how recording this podcast episode went… here we are a year later and I’m posting the same subject matter. Oops!
There are a lot of forking books with queer themes coming out in 2020. March and June are apparently heavy release months. I’m not sure if that’s like, an industry thing or if it’s just a trend within this list, but there you go. Random data points that mean nothing for the win!
Each year I do this list I evolve it slightly. This year the info contained in this post includes:
- The podcast episode
- A link to my Goodreads shelf for easy shelf-ability
- A downloadable list of the books with release dates + facts
- Links to previous years’ lists
- 2020’s list
Keep reading if you wanna know what I’m most looking forward to reading in 2020!
First up, the podcast episode:
If you wanna here me blabber on about these books for 30~ minutes, click the link and listen above! I go into a bit more detail as to why I’m excited for each book and make jokes etc. 😋
My Goodreads shelves:
If you wanna head straight to Goodreads to bookmark all of these books I can’t blame you. Here are the links to this year and all previous years, as well!
Downloadable list with release dates:
Here are last years lists, explained via video / podcast:
Interesting stats about my 2020 list:
[image] (coming soon!)
The Most Anticipated LGBTQAI+ Reads 2020 list (finally!):
1. “Dark and Deepest Red” by Anna-Marie McLemore
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Feiwel & Friends
- Anticipated release date: 14th January, 2020
- Genre: YA, Fantasy / magical realism
- Why I’m excited to read it: The first part of the book blurb is: “Two girls. Five centuries. One deadly fairytale.” That sounds super interesting! There is a dancing sickness that sweeps through Strasbourg in 1518. Some people die, one of our protagonist’s families is blamed for the sickness… fast forward to one of their descendants five hundred years later when it starts to happen again.
2. “Upright Women Wanted” by Sarah Gailey
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Tor.com / Tor/Forge (Macmillan imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 4th, February 2020
- Genre: YA / Adult? (not sure)
- Why I’m excited to read it: I read something about it being set in the future American Southwest where there were bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing. This is a genre I for sure don’t typically read!
3. “Middle School’s a Drag, You Better Werk” by Greg Howard
- #OwnVoices (I think)
- Published by: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers (Penguin Imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 11th, February 2020
- Genre: Middle grade, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: For this one, the book blurb was all it took: “An enterprising boy starts his own junior talent agency and signs a thirteen-year-old aspiring drag queen as his first client.”
4. “A Home for Goddesses and Dogs” by Leslie Connor
- Published by: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 25th, February 2020
- Genre: Middle grade, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: I like the idea of the queerness in this book being the girl’s aunt, so it’s sort of queerness-adjacent in the story? Like, it isn’t a major plot point, it just sort of exists, if that makes sense. I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t know for sure for sure, but that’s what it sounds like and I’m intrigued to see how the author deals with that and with the grief this young person experiences.
5. “Docile” by K.M. Szpara
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Tor.com / Tor/Forge (Macmillan imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 3rd, March 2020
- Genre: Adult, sci-fi
- Why I’m excited to read it: Sci-fi is not my traditional genre, but I’m excited about this book. The book is described as “really gay” and seems sort of like a modern day “Dollhouse” sort of story? The blurb describes it as “A queer Handmaid’s Tale meets Gossip Girl” and that sounded like something that I’d be interested in, so here we are!
6. “The Animals at Lockwood Manor” by Jane Healey
- Published by: Mantle (Pan Macmillan imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 5th, March 2020
- Genre: Adult, historical fiction / fantasy / mystery
- Why I’m excited to read it: An adult fiction book. Another genre I don’t reach for enough. (Genre’s outside my norm is a theme with this year’s list!) This book is described as a “gothic romance” and is set during the Blitz in WWII.
7. “Super Adjacent” by Crystal Cestari
- Published by: Disney-Hyperion
- Anticipated release date: 17th, March 2020
- Genre: YA, superhero
- Why I’m excited to read it: Another superhero book? I’m game! There are two non-supers who have to team up to save the day when all of the supers suddenly disappear. I think it’s a classic frenemy turned romance? Maybe?
8. “Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit” by Lilliam Rivera
- Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 17th, March 2020
- Genre: Middle grade
- Why I’m excited to read it: This book is inspired by the Boom! Comics comic book series published under the same name and is described as being vaguely Nancy Drew-ish. I didn’t know the comic book existed and I’m curious what the young, young people are reading these days.
9. “Wow, No Thank You.” by Samantha Irby
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Vintage (Penguin Random House imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 31st, March 2020
- Genre: Non-fiction, essays
- Why I’m excited to read it: These are a collection of essays. Samantha Irby’s essays come highly recommended by The Internet and it’s a goal of mine to read more non-fiction and essays this year. Two goals, one book!
10. “Look” by Zan Romanoff
- #OwnVoices (I think)
- Published by: Dial Books
- Anticipated release date: 31st, March 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: As soon as I read that a vlogger accidentally uploads a video that wasn’t meant to be public I was like… yep, this sounds like 2020, better read it. I also liked how real the book blurb made living in the social media era sound: “It’s a deceptively glamorous, feminist, emotionally complex, utterly compelling, queer coming-of-age novel about falling in love and taking ownership of your own self–your whole self–in the age of social media.”
11. “Girl, Serpent, Thorn” by Melissa Bashardoust
- Published by: Flatiron Books (Macmillan imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 12th May, 2020
- Genre: YA, fantasy / retellings (Persian/Zoroastrian mythology)
- Why I’m excited to read it: Mythology of any kind is right up my alley. The main character is quarantined to the garden because her touch is poisonous… not going to lie to you that’s about where I stopped reading the book blurb and added it to my TBR. Mythology of other cultures is always too intriguing to pass up!
12. “Felix Ever After” by Kacen Callender
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins in print)
- Anticipated release date: 12th May, 2020
- Genre: YA
- Why I’m excited to read it: This book features a transgender main character (MC) and deals with a LOT of stuff. There’s transphobic messages being sent to the MC, posting of our MC’s deadname and photos before their transition, catfishing… it’s a lot. Honestly I just want to see how the author tackles all of these heavy topics with a not-so-perfect-themselves MC.
13. “The Henna Wars” by Adiba Jaigirdar
- #OwnVoices (POC)
- Published by: Page Street
- Anticipated release date: 12th May, 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: The two main girls in the novel end up as rivals when they both choose henna arts as their business for their class assignment. One of them has always had a crush on the other and so the assignment proves challenging in more ways than one.
14. “Date Me, Bryson Keller!” by Kevin van Whye
- Published by: Random House for Young Readers
- Anticipated release date: 19th May, 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: This is another one where I read the blurb and added it to my TBR. What can I say? I’m a sucker for feel-good, contemporary rom-coms: “What If It’s Us meets To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before in this upbeat and heartfelt boy-meets-boy romance that feels like a modern twist on a ’90s rom-com!”
15. “I Kissed Alice” by Anna Birch
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Macmillan/Imprint
- Anticipated release date: 26th May, 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: The author posted a long thread on Twitter about why / how they went about writing this book and why they wrote it how they did. I thought that was fascinating. The two main characters escape the pressures of their school lives (where they are fierce competitors) on a fanfic site where they are unknowingly collaborating on a graphic novel. Their screen names are I-Kissed-Alice and Curious-in-Cheshire and that’s too cute I just can’t even.
16. “Something to Talk About” by Meryl Wilsner
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Berkley
- Anticipated release date: 26th May, 2020
- Genre: Adult, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: This was one where, in doing my research for this blog post / episode, I read about the author and wanted to read it. The about blurb on their site says: “Meryl writes love stories about women who take so long to kiss you want to fling yourself into the sun.” The two women in this novel work in Hollywood and are flung into the limelight when rumors about the nature of their relationship start flying. In the end, maybe the rumors aren’t so off-base after all?
17. “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Leah Johnson
- #OwnVoices (POC)
- Published by: Scholastic Press
- Anticipated release date: 2nd June, 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: This one is about a girl who wants to go to college, play in the school orchestra, and become a doctor. Turns out college is expensive, so they turn to a new plan: win homecoming queen and land that scholarship. They aren’t the only one gunning for the crown, though. Another frenemy story.
18. “The New Queer Conscience” by Adam Eli, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Penguin Workshop
- Anticipated release date: 2nd June, 2020
- Genre: Non-fiction
- Why I’m excited to read it: This one is a non-fiction, take action sort of book. I hope it will be a resource I can refer people back to. Here’s a short blurb about it: “In The New Queer Conscience, LGBTQIA+ activist Adam Eli argues the urgent need for queer responsibility — that queers anywhere are responsible for queers everywhere.”
19. “The Falling in Love Montage” by Ciara Smyth
- Published by: HarperTeen
- Anticipated release date: 9th June, 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: This is another cheesy, rom-com feel good book. The MC plans a summer of perfect dates, one where the two girls will be able to say goodbye at the end and part ways no problem. She plans the summer of dates based on cliché movie dates. Only thing she doesn’t consider is the Falling in Love Montage. When the summer ends it’s not so easy to say goodbye.
20. “I’ll Be the One” by Lyla Lee
- #OwnVoices (POC)
- Published by: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 16th June, 2020
- Genre: YA, contemporary
- Why I’m excited to read it: I am most excited about this cover, yes I am! The MC enters a search for the next K-pop star, how specific and adorable is that? It gets better… “Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.” And seriously, look at that cover.
21. “Cinderella Is Dead” by Kalynn Bayron
- #OwnVoices (POC)
- Published by: Bloomsbury YA
- Anticipated release date: 7th June, 2020
- Genre: YA, fantasy / Cinderella retelling
- Why I’m excited to read it: I love me a good fairytale retelling and this one sounds sooo good. Listen to this: “It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.” Can you say DRAMA?! Ack, I am SO in.
22. “Cattywampus” by Ash Van Otterloo
- #OwnVoices
- Published by: Scholastic
- Anticipated release date: 4th August, 2020
- Genre: Middle grade, fantasy
- Why I’m excited to read it: Okay now it just seems like since we’re at the end of the list I’m getting lazy and quoting book blurbs, that’s not it, some of these are just too good!: “Two young witches—one grappling with the revelation that she is intersex, the other with her father’s abandonment—accidentally resurrect a graveyard full of feuding ancestors, and must work together to perform a counter-curse to save themselves and the rest of their Appalachian community.” I SO desperately want to read this middle grade book about intersexuality etc.
23. “The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks” (Montague Siblings #3) by Mackenzi Lee
- Published by: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins imprint)
- Anticipated release date: 18th August, 2020
- Genre: YA, historical / fantasy
- Why I’m excited to read it: There isn’t too much to say about this other than it’s just more of the freaking Montague siblings! This book follows the wee one Adrian as he goes off in search of Monty and Felicity, the siblings he never knew he had. Also, in true Mackenzi Lee fashion there is always a big topic to tackle. For Adrian; he was diagnosed with hysteria at a young age. She does a really great job of taking complex character traits like this and making them feel so natural and relatable.
*Anticipated release dates are subject to change because that’s how the cookie sometimes crumbles in the publishing world. Don’t take these dates as set in stone!
Here’s a link to my bookshelf on GoodReads if it makes it easier to add them to your “to read” shelves! ♡
