Here are 100 books that Always the Almost fans have personally recommended if you like
Always the Almost.
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Queer community means what we make it mean—but in the end, we mostly have each other, with our varied histories and problems and capacity to care for our peers and harm them. Intergenerational community is a model for young people that the problems they’re facing aren’t new. I grew up in LGBT youth groups, in a generational moment just before gay marriage, PrEP, and increased access to healthcare for trans people transformed our sense of what “activism” and “solidarity” meant. As the political pendulum swings in the other direction, I think some of the best stories we can tell are ones where we aren’t individuals or couples in our own narrative bubbles.
I don’t usually love coming-out stories, since the coming-out narrative tends to replace anything else that happens for trans people, but this one shines—in part because Sasha Masha’s emergence precedes her contact with queer community, but only starts to actually makes sense in the context of knowing other gay and trans people.
It’s one of the only trans girl YA novels I know of, and it feels like it’s written for someone who is, like Sasha, half-out and tripping down the final steps. This is a fantastic book about how we may find our most real selves alone, but it might take a one-sided romantic friendship, a community showing of Querelle, or a couple old drag queens showing you their hallway of photos of Queer Icons to feel like you aren’t going crazy.
Alex feels like he is in the wrong body. His skin feels strange against his bones. And then comes Tracy, who thinks he's adorably awkward, who wants to kiss him, who makes him feel like a Real Boy. But it is not quite enough. Something is missing. Is the missing piece a part of Alex himself?
As Alex grapples with his identity, he finds himself trying on dresses and swiping on lipstick in the quiet of his bedroom. He meets Andre, a gay boy who is beautiful and unafraid to be who he is. Slowly, Alex begins to realize: Maybe…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
The topic of mental health, which is prominent in all the books I’ve recommended, including my own, is one I am passionate about. As a neurodivergent person, I know first-hand how difficult the teen years can be. Not only are you dealing with the issues like friends, family, and school, but you are working with other factors that can make learning and socializing especially difficult. When I was a teen, I did not have books like these to guide me and let me know I was not alone in my feelings and struggles. It is my deepest wish that all kids have books, tools, and guides to help them.
This book hits all the right points for me. A diverse cast, teens figuring out who they are, and the problem of obstacles thrown in their way. That’s real life. In this divisive climate, we see and hear a lot of arguments played out on the news. Parents arguing against this, teachers and librarians fighting for that. What we don’t see and hear enough of are the kids, the ones who are truly affected by these disagreements. What I love about this book is that we get to hear their points of views, their feelings. We see what happens when a parent refuses to accept their child for who they are and puts limitations on their love. I love this book because it gives me that perspective.
Red, White, & Royal Blue meets The West Wing in Jasper Sanchez's electric and insightful #ownvoices YA debut, chronicling a transmasculine student's foray into a no-holds-barred student body president election against the wishes of his politician father.
Optics can make or break an election. Everything Mark knows about politics, he learned from his father, the Congressman who still pretends he has a daughter and not a son.
Mark has promised to keep his past hidden and pretend to be the cis guy everyone assumes he is. But when he sees a manipulatively charming candidate for student body president inflame dangerous…
I’m an academic researcher interested in this topic but also one of the people who gets demonized in conservative media: the parent of a transgender child. I want my daughter to know that similar people have existed in history and that lawmakers are wrong to claim that we’re in a scary new world when we advocate for respect and the rights of trans people. While doing that advocacy work, I’m alarmed by positions within the LGBTQI+ movement echoing right-wing ones, including what’s known as “gender critical feminism.” My book argues a positive case for coalition in the face of pressures to fracture along distinct lines of sexuality and gender identity.
As a parent (and a researcher), I’m so happy this book exists! It’s the best response to the argument that trans kids are new and, therefore, how we raise them is dangerously experimental. Where Gill-Peterson finds such kids historically is mainly in medical archives, where treatments were directed mostly at intersex children, many of whom we’d see as trans. She shows a fascination with the “plasticity” of the body in the early twentieth century, although predictably, possibilities for transforming bodies were viewed differently across racial lines. The best counter to conservative attacks, though, is his research into Val, a 1920s teen in rural Wisconsin who went to school as the gender she affirmed and had negotiated agreements about things like which bathroom she could use, over which we’re fighting a century later!
A groundbreaking twentieth-century history of transgender children
With transgender rights front and center in American politics, media, and culture, the pervasive myth still exists that today's transgender children are a brand new generation-pioneers in a field of new obstacles and hurdles. Histories of the Transgender Child shatters this myth, uncovering a previously unknown twentieth-century history when transgender children not only existed but preexisted the term transgender and its predecessors, playing a central role in the medicalization of trans people, and all sex and gender.
Beginning with the early 1900s when children with "ambiguous" sex first sought medical attention, to the…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a teenager, I didn’t have the lack of inhibition or abundant self-confidence to excel in high school drama. Like Sadie in Bit Players, I finally wowed the directors at my senior year audition, only to learn the lead was promised in advance to someone else. I recovered and stayed involved in theater: cast, crew, and front-of-house jobs for a summer theater program; the box office for Cornell’s MFA program; and supporting my kids’ drama activities. Performing in a show is different from any other experience. If you’ve been in a show, you know this. If you haven’t, read on to enter the magical world of theatre.
A high school production of Romeo and Juliet isn’t the focus of this plot, but the book still makes my shortlist. The concept of a trans guy acknowledging his gender identity after having been cast as a girl playing the boy Romeo is profound. Dean questions his gender as rehearsals progress. By showtime, he decides to use the production’s program to publicly announce he is trans. Friend and parental issues arise, so there’s plenty of drama on and off the stage in this one.
Theater Quotient: Medium. Gender identity is the focus, but rehearsals and performances figure prominently.
A moving YA debut about a trans boy finding his voice--and himself
Dean Foster knows he's a trans guy. He's watched enough YouTube videos
and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school
thinks he's a lesbian--including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater
director, who just cast him as a "nontraditional" Romeo. He wonders if
maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he
plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to
see him as he really is now--not just on the stage, but everywhere in…
When I was a kid, I moved from Sri Lanka to the US without any knowledge of English. I first learned the language through the stories I watched and then the ones I read. I spent hours in the library and was most strongly attracted to stories with magic and witches, which allowed me to escape my own life and find refuge in my imagination. These stories are why I became a writer, and many of these stories still hold sway over me today. When life gets hard, I love to escape into these magical worlds.
I’ve loved the magical girl genre for a long time, ever since I first watched Sailor Moon when I was eight years old. This great duology for teens flips the genre on its head with a trans boy as its protagonist and wonderfully explores the nuances of what it means to be a hero. And it’s quite funny, too.
A breathtakingly imaginative fantasy series starring Max - a trans high school student who has to save the world as a Magical Girl ... as a boy! Although he was assigned female at birth, Max is your average trans man trying to get through high school as himself. But on top of classes, crushes and coming out, Max's life is turned upside down when his mom reveals an eons old family secret: he's descended from a long line of Magical Girls tasked with defending humanity from a dark, ancient evil!
With a sassy feline sidekick and loyal gang of friends…
I’ve spent a lifetime teaching and learning. As a writer, I want teens, particularly LGBTQ+ teens, to know they are loved and accepted by exploring a variety of topics through my novels, from life in the 1960s, the world of TV sitcoms, the abuse of a holier-than-thou pastor, the restrictions of a polygamy community, dealing with a gay parent, and being Muslim and gay. Writing these led me to something I knew nothing about, but was certain it fit into my “acceptance” theme—being transgender. I poured all my passion into my novel, Bud. I think I created a character that everyone, whether transitioning or not, teenage or not, can love.
Wow! This book is filled with everything a trans teen will need to know about transitioning, dressing, finding a place in the world, dealing with the public, and where to turn to for answers.
This book is a fabulous resource for those considering transitioning, plus it is valuable for those who want to help teens who are questioning themselves. I was thoroughly “schooled” by this book, and it truly helped me understand the transgender process.
'I wish I had a book like this when I was growing up' PARIS LEES 'Wonderful and ground-breaking' MERMAIDS
Frank, friendly and funny, the Trans Teen Survival Guide will leave transgender and non-binary teens informed, empowered and armed with all the tips, confidence and practical advice they need to navigate life as a trans teen.
Wondering how to come out to your family and friends, what it's like to go through cross hormonal therapy or how to put on a packer? Trans youth activists Fox and Owl have stepped in to answer everything that trans teens and their families need…
A grumpy-sunshine, slow-burn, sweet-and-steamy romance set in wild and beautiful small-town Colorado. Lane Gravers is a wanderer, adventurer, yoga instructor, and social butterfly when she meets reserved, quiet, pensive Logan Hickory, a loner inventor with a painful past.
Dive into this small-town, steamy romance between two opposites who find love…
Alongside my professional role as Emeritus professor and former head of postgraduate medical and dental education for NHS London and the South East region, I’ve been engaged with LGBTI human rights for thirty years, working with legal teams and advising a range of government departments and stakeholders. I wrote The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes to remind us all that until the late 1960s, trans people self-identified, received affirmative medical care, corrected their birth certificates, and lived in full equality. At a time when discussion of trans lives is almost submerged by entrenched ideological dogma, the historical and scientific facts of trans experience feel particularly important. I hope you enjoy my selection on this theme.
The first trans child we know of to self-identify and receive affirmative medical care was Ewan Forbes, whose mother accessed early testosterone treatments for him in the 1920s. A hundred years later, when I’m asked by parents for one book to understand the how’s and why’s of trans kids, Diane’s is my go-to recommendation. Based on her own real-life clinical experience, she sets out a spectrum of gender diversity, and shows how parents can support their children’s explorations and decisions.
Key to this is letting children define their own social presentation and activity, for as she puts it, ‘if we want to know a child’s gender, it is not for us to say but for the child to tell’. Diane demonstrates that this approach allows both child and parent to identify whether their gender expression is ‘insistent, consistent, and persistent’, in other words, the direction in which the…
Developmental and clinical psychologist Diane Ehrensaft, PhD, has devoted her career to the care of children and teens who do not abide by the gender binary, either in their gender identities or expressions. In her first book, Gender Born, Gender Made, she coined the phrase "gender creative" to replace what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, at the time, still officially termed a "disorder." Now, in The Gender Creative Child, Dr. Ehrensaft gives families, teachers, and therapists a totally up-to-date, comprehensive resource to caring for children whose gender expression is fluid or who question the gender they were assigned at birth.…
When I was growing up, I played everything my older brother, Joe, played. Including all the “boy” games. So they called me a “tomboy” and teased me. I wish my library had had books that showed how fun, play, games, pets, colors, kites... are not “for boys only” or “for girls only.” They would have made me feel better and, hopefully, opened the door to some interesting discussion of how imagination and creativity are gender neutral. These five picture books explore those established gender rules with humor and heart and great stories!
I love bugs, baseball, and playing in the mud, and was often teased or called a “tomboy” because of it. How I wish the adults in my life had had a book like Jack (Not Jackie).
A big sister realizes that her little “sister” doesn't like dresses or fairies—but likes ties, bugs, and the name Jack. This book takes the concepts of gender expression and makes them simple to understand from a youngster's point of view—this can be a great book to kick off discussion!
In this heartwarming picture book, a big sister realizes that her little sister, Jackie, doesn't like dresses or fairies-she likes ties and bugs! Will she and her family be able to accept that Jackie identifies more as "Jack"?
Susan thinks her little sister Jackie has the best giggle! She can't wait for Jackie to get older so they can do all sorts of things like play forest fairies and be explorers together. But as Jackie grows, she doesn't want to play those games. She wants to play with mud and be a super bug! Jackie also doesn't like dresses or…
Becoming a mother rocked my world in countless ways, drawing me to books that explore the raw, unfiltered truth about how challenging motherhood can be. The complexities—the love, guilt, and frustration—resonate deeply with me. Motherhood is also why I started writing; initially, I wanted to process the overwhelming emotions I was feeling. When I began sharing my writing with friends, their “Yeah, me too's” made me realize I wasn’t alone. I have deep respect for authors who can capture the messiness of motherhood so honestly, and I’m inspired by their ability to put into words what so many of us experience.
This doubles as one of my favorite novels and also a treasured parenting how-to book. It’s a poignant reminder that motherhood is pure on-the-job learning and that you’ll probably never get it just right. I learned so much about parenting my own children from the story of Rosie and her husband, Penn, who are parents to a little boy, Claude, who wants to be a girl.
This book captures the true essence of parenting: Rosie and Penn love Claude fiercely and do what they believe is best to support their child—only to discover later that their choices were deeply flawed. This is something I really relate to! Overall, this book is a heartfelt, hilarious testament to the messiness of motherhood and the imperfect love we have for our kids.
'A very special book about a family with a secret. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think.' Liane Moriarty, No. 1 bestselling author of THE HUSBAND'S SECRET
Laurie Frankel's THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS IS the 'fascinating story of a thoroughly modern family and the giant, multifaceted love that binds them... Sparkles with wit and wisdom' (Maria Semple). Perfect for readers of WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES and THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY.
This is how a family keeps a secret...and how that secret ends up keeping them.
A fake date, romance, and a conniving co-worker you'd love to shut down. Fun summer reading!
Liza loves helping people and creating designer shoes that feel as good as they look. Financially overextended and recovering from a divorce, her last-ditch opportunity to pitch her firm for investment falls flat. Then…
I’ve spent a lifetime teaching and learning. As a writer, I want teens, particularly LGBTQ+ teens, to know they are loved and accepted by exploring a variety of topics through my novels, from life in the 1960s, the world of TV sitcoms, the abuse of a holier-than-thou pastor, the restrictions of a polygamy community, dealing with a gay parent, and being Muslim and gay. Writing these led me to something I knew nothing about, but was certain it fit into my “acceptance” theme—being transgender. I poured all my passion into my novel, Bud. I think I created a character that everyone, whether transitioning or not, teenage or not, can love.
Arin Andrews tells of his journey—from his confusion to his decision to make his transition. Along the way, I was drawn by his tales of acceptance by his mother, his brother, and some very religious cousins.
The book not only taught me about transgender issues and feelings, but it is also full of heart. And it is funny at times!
Seventeen-year-old Arin Andrews shares all the hilarious, painful, and poignant details of undergoing gender reassignment as a high school student in this winning first-of-its-kind memoir. Now with a reading group guide and an all-new afterword from the author! In this revolutionary first-of-its-kind memoir, Arin Andrews details the journey that led him to make the life-transforming decision to undergo gender reassignment as a high school junior. In his captivatingly witty, honest voice, Arin reveals the challenges he faced as a boy in a girl's body, the humiliation and anger he felt after getting kicked out of his private school, and all…
