100 Books Like Chrysalis

I love books that explore how ordinary people might react in extraordinary circumstances, and this one takes that to another level.

The main characters, Tengo and Aomame, see that the world has changed—the most obvious clue being that there are now two moons in the sky—and it is fascinating to watch how these two very different people cope with living in a new and mysterious context. Murakami has a knack for making the surreal seem believable, and in this book, he is at the top of his game.

I've always loved a steamy MM romance, so the bogus boyfriend premise was an easy sell for me. However, as a foster mom turned adoptive mother, I'll forever have a special place in my heart for BIPOC navigating child protective services. Whether the narrative focused on Carlton's traumatized niece and the therapy she so desperately needed or the number of hoops that the LGBTQ+ community jumps through to even be considered for adoption, this story hit home on multiple fronts.

It was inspiring to watch Carlton and Deion navigate the many facets of queer culture, including their newfound fatherhood. Mainly because while stories like theirs happen every day, we don't see them nearly enough. Faux couple or not, Carlton and Deion were the safe space that Olivia needed and the mainstream representation that readers like myself consistently crave.

As a pastor’s kid, this light, lyrical book about a church community gathering awakens my earliest memories: the bells and banners, candles and choir, warm greetings, and toddler wiggles. This community offers something many of us lacked: “A church for all!” From the first image of a mixed-race queer family waking early for church to the assembling “Weak and healthy/ Neat and messy/ Poor and wealthy/ Plain and dressy” chatting and worshiping together—this brightly illustrated book captures a true spirit of inclusion. Like many queer people, I had to leave my first faith community. Later I was amazed to find houses of faith like this one. I even married a pastor. Young me couldn’t have imagined living out, opening a service with a book like A Church for All.

I’ve been a big fan of James Tynion IV since his prolific run on Batman. He has a really strong understanding of how to write compelling characters while still exploring an interesting world.

In Wynd, he has created a wildly innovative world of magic creatures and political conflict. The love story is adorable and creates an interesting parallel to the exploration of Wynd’s character.

This compelling and beautifully written story begins in 1968 during the Biafran civil war in Nigeria, creating a unique setting of hardship, hunger, and death afflicting the people living in the area. Ijeoma, the 11-year-old protagonist, is sent away after a life-changing event and lives in a squalid hut when a young girl from another tribe comes to stay. Despite the difficulties surrounding them, the girls fall in love and the intensity of their desire continues as they grow. I enjoyed how Okparanta writes of the naturalness of this first love and how they cared for each other. Though the girls are separated, they reunite, but face religious repression from their community, which uses the Bible against them. The girls move on with their lives and Ijeoma finds another love, but this too, suffers from cultural and religious constraints. According to Okparanta (who lives in NY), Nigeria is a very… show more.

We’ll start with another novel (there are many) inspired in part by the Leopold and Loeb crime. This one swaps Chicago for Pittsburgh, and changes their mismatch in IQs for a stark class divide.

One of the variations I most enjoy in this retelling is that university students Paul Fleischer and Julian Fromme are both damaged when they meet. Julian is scarred physically from a car crash in his youth, and Paul is still recovering emotionally from the death of his father.

Additionally, since the book is set in the 1970s, their sexual involvement with one another is more explicit than the original story could allow (though it still comes with social stigma).

A captivating work of dark academia and crime, the obsession between these two compels them to court their own ruin.

With America's increasingly divisive political climate around LGBTQ issues, Real Queer America takes on renewed importance as Samantha Allen explores the resilient LGBTQ communities in red states.

Allen takes readers on a road trip through often-overlooked regions of the United States and challenges preconceived notions by showing LGBTQ communities thriving in places like Mississippi, Utah, and Indiana. I was inspired by Allen’s ability to curate personal storytelling alongside journalistic interviews with queer community leaders.

Allen strikes the perfect balance between travelogue and memoir – through her vulnerability in writing about her own coming out journey in America, she allows the reader to better understand what fueled the interest in red state queer communities and conveys the idea that the personal is always political.

I really enjoyed reading all the #OwnVoice short stories, several of which have intersectional representation, in Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories. The twelve authors demonstrate a wide range of writing styles, writing about different themes in a variety of genres from medieval to contemporary to dystopian. It’s a book you can return to again and again, choosing different stories to read depending on your mood and interests. 

Arisa White grew up with the looming absence of her biological father—a man whose genes and behaviors haunt her. Finally White, an award-winning poet and teacher who was “born into a bracket of boys,” decides to visit this man in his far-away country to learn more about where she came from and who she may or may not be. The book moves chronologically. It swirls with poetry. It doesn’t always make for easy reading, but every line is well designed and, often, shattering. As a memoir-in-essays, it reaffirms the power of the crystalized scene and the intentional white space.

No Straight Lines brings together multiple comic creators from four decades of comics by and about LGBTQ+ people. If you want to get a sense of how the queer community has developed and changed over time, and how comics have reflected - and impacted - that, then this anthology is definitely the place to go. 

From early underground gay and lesbian comics, through responses to the AIDS crisis, to more recent webcomics and trans memoirs, this book takes the reader on a historical journey and introduces them to many creators of fictional and non-fictional comics who they may well want to read more from.