Here are 100 books that Out of the Blue fans have personally recommended if you like
Out of the Blue.
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When I was a teenager, I didn’t have romance in my life. I was so extremely shy that I could barely look at people I thought were cute, let alone talk to them. I lived vicariously through books. Now that I’m older (and way less shy), I still love reliving that time of my life through books. How would I have reacted differently in the same situation? How would things have been different if I had been more outgoing? Only recently, I realized that I was queer, and I’ve been slowly dipping my toes into that world as well.
I adored this book from the moment I read the first page of the first graphic novel! I fell in love with Nick and Charlie and related so hard to the struggles that they were going through, even though I’m older than they are. It brought me back to how I felt in high school.
Charlie’s eating disorder, especially, really struck a nerve, and I thought it was handled with such beautiful rawness. Note: I read it before watching the TV show, which I also love.
*Now an acclaimed live-action Netflix series!* Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. A bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between.
'Absolutely delightful. Sweet, romantic, kind. Beautifully paced. I loved this book.' RAINBOW ROWELL, author of Carry On
Charlie and Nick are at the same school, but they've never met ... until one day when they're made to sit together. They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn't think he has a chance.
But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is more…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
When I was a teenager, I didn’t have romance in my life. I was so extremely shy that I could barely look at people I thought were cute, let alone talk to them. I lived vicariously through books. Now that I’m older (and way less shy), I still love reliving that time of my life through books. How would I have reacted differently in the same situation? How would things have been different if I had been more outgoing? Only recently, I realized that I was queer, and I’ve been slowly dipping my toes into that world as well.
I picked out this book because I wanted to read more indie Canadiana YA, and OMG, am I ever glad that this was my first pick!
It had music and private school drama (not the club), it was fun, I was invested, and I was really sad when it ended because I wanted to know what happened next.
I also loved the epistolary format. It made it feel like they were being written to me. I borrowed this one from the library and then bought it because I loved it so much.
Sixteen-year-old Dale Cardigan is a loner who’s managed to make himself completely invisible at his all-boys high school. He doesn’t fit with his classmates (whom he gives nicknames in his head), his stepbrother (whom nobody at school knows he’s related to), or even his mother (who never quite sees how gifted a musician Dale might be)—but they don’t fit with him, either. And he’s fine with that. To him, high school and home are stages to endure until his real life can finally begin.
Somewhat against his will, he befriends his classmate Rusty, who gets a rare look at Dale’s…
I grew up in a time when it was nearly unheard of to be out in high school. This led to a very lonely and isolating childhood, with few role models and almost no queer fiction. I'm dedicated to making it easier for the next generation by providing joyful stories about queer people living their best lives. My stories feature proud queer people, where being queer is simply an aspect of their personalities and doesn't dominate the plot. People imitate art, and by providing positive examples of happy queer people, I hope to make the world a more accepting place, one story at a time.
This book is solid queer joy, filled with the sweetest and most loveable characters. While the book is short and written in the hi-lo style, it's still filled with true emotion and a wonderful message.
I read this book in a single sitting in an afternoon and loved it so much that I went right back to page one and read it again. Sometimes, books should simply be written as an example to others of how they should act. If the whole world were as caring and sweet as these two boys and their families, it would be a much happier and more accepting place.
"…hilarious and an all-around enjoyable read... Highly recommended for hi-lo readers who loved Heartstopper." ― ★ starred review, School Library Journal
Stuck With You is a story of Queer joy and a playful teen romance, following two frenemies as they fall for each other while stuck in adjacent seats on a day-long train trip.
Ben is on a train back to Ottawa after a visit with his dad in Toronto when he runs into the last person he wanted to see: Caleb, the handsome, confident boy who recently and accidentally broke Ben’s phone. Preoccupied by worrying about whether he should…
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…
When I was a teenager, I didn’t have romance in my life. I was so extremely shy that I could barely look at people I thought were cute, let alone talk to them. I lived vicariously through books. Now that I’m older (and way less shy), I still love reliving that time of my life through books. How would I have reacted differently in the same situation? How would things have been different if I had been more outgoing? Only recently, I realized that I was queer, and I’ve been slowly dipping my toes into that world as well.
I love summer camp books, and I was not disappointed. The vibes were excellent in this book and I wanted to attend this camp! (Not in reality; I am NOT an outdoorsy person!)
The poor choices that were made (lying is bad, kids) made me cringe hard, but it made me realize that I was incredibly invested in the characters and didn’t want them to have their relationship explode in their faces. I forgot that I was reading, not inside the book.
The message of self-discovery and exploration of what it means to be queer was incredible and really helped me in my own journey. Great variety of queer rep, too.
1
author picked
Camp
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
15,
16, and
17.
What is this book about?
'The gay summer camp romp of my dreams' - Cale Dietrich, author of The Love Interest
Sixteen-year-old Randy Kapplehoff loves spending the summer at Camp Outland, a camp for queer teens. It's where he met his best friends. It's where he takes to the stage in the big musical. And it's where he fell for Hudson Aaronson-Lim - who's only into straight-acting guys and barely knows not-at-all-straight-acting Randy even exists.
This year, though, it's going to be different. Randy has reinvented himself as 'Del' - buff, masculine and on the market. Even if it means giving up show tunes, nail…
I grew up attending Catholic school in conservative Indiana. Sex—especially if it was of the homosexual variety—was the ultimate taboo. I can’t overstate how damaging it is to believe that one of your natural urges is proof of your depravity. Books that depict queer sexual relations, be they fleeting or romantic, gave me my first glimpse of a wider world where my sexual identity could be expressed. These books liberated me. Even now, I find that sexy and subversive novels help me understand parts of myself that can still be difficult to discuss in polite company. We all need our boundaries pushed.
I’m a gay Black man, and I’ve worked as a television writer (The Chi, Bel-Air) for more than a decade, so I know from experience the burdens of representation. There is tremendous pressure to make sure we craft Black and/or gay characters that remain relatable or sympathetic. Otherwise, we risk losing the general audience.
That’s why it brought revolutionary joy to my heart when I read 100 Boyfriends in 2021. With this story collection, Brontez Purnell lays our collective burdens down and gives us Black queer men with messy lives. The result is characters that can be infuriating, endearing, disturbing, and hilarious. The book challenges readers to recognize the facets of humanity—commendable, questionable, and despicable—in Black queer men. It feels like the dawn of a new age.
Winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. One of Buzzfeed's Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2021, NBC's 10 Most Notable LGBTQ Books of 2021, and Pink News' Best LGBTQ Books of 2021.
"This hurricane of delirious, lonely, lewd tales is a taxonomy and grand unified theory of the boyfriend, in every tense." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
"I loved this book—raunchy, irreverent, deliberate, sexy, angry, and tender, in its own…
I'm a cartoonist with a transgender-biography and I write trans characters into my stories. Even though I value the growing awareness of transgender representation by all writers, those that were written by people with trans-experience carry special significance. I've written a graphic novel and many autobiographical, fictional, and documentary short stories. These works have centered on the themes sexual identity, gender roles, youth culture, family, social structures, and social history. With my work I aim to shed light on issues that are lesser known, with a strong social focus and the intention of using the storytelling medium and the comic format as a way of making the complex understandable.
Body Music is a lyrical compilation of short stories that play in the city life of Montreal. Each story is a small insight into the intimacy shared between two or more people. Very tenderly the author shows how love and connection are as unique and personal as people are different. It was heart-warming to read trans characters who were just one more way in the myriad of ways of being human.
Julie Maroh's first book, Blue Is the Warmest Color, was a graphic novel phenomenon; it was a New York Times bestseller and the controversial film adaptation by French director Abdellatif Kechiche won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Maroh's latest book, Body Music, marks her return to the kind of soft, warm palette and impressionistic sensibility that made her debut book so sensational.
Set in the languid, European-like neighborhoods of Montreal, Body Music is a beautiful and moving meditation on love and desire as expressed in their many different forms?between women, men, and gender non-conformists alike,…
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…
I am, first and foremost, an avid reader. And romance, especially romantic comedy, is my go-to choice. And if that romantic comedy has a fake-dating theme…YAY! It was only natural that I write that theme. I believe that life throws you love at the most unexpected times and unexpected places. I love writing character-driven stories, and what better way to have them show off their true selves than by pretending to be in a relationship with a stranger?
This was the first book by Alexis Hall I’ve read, and I fell in love with his writing. It’s witty and charming and perhaps a bit ridiculous at times. But that’s what makes it charming.
Luc’s job is in danger unless he begins to get his life together. What job? He works for a nonprofit charity whose goal is to save the dung beetle—Coleoptera Research or Protection Project, or CRAPP. The solution? A fake boyfriend.
I love the large supporting cast this book has, each quirky enough to get their own story one day.
Hall is a master of comedic writing, but more than that, I love that he can also write poignant moments. This book is one of my all-time favorites.
"It's a fun, frothy quintessentially British romcom about a certified chaos demon and a stern brunch daddy with a heart of gold faking a relationship."-New York Times bestselling author Talia Hibbert AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH Named a best book of the year by Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Goodreads, The Washington Post, and more! WANTED: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially-and reluctantly-famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making…
I am a multi-award-winning African Australian writer, and have a deep passion for stories by people of colour, stories that engage with difference. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt.
This book arrives with a profound introduction on "writing ourselves into being," and casts a crucial gaze on writing from the margins.
It invites the reader to engage with difference, whether the difference is queer or skin colour or cultural heritage or whichever form of diversity. Contributors share with the reader their art, craft, and lived experience, where "writing oneself in," as Octavia Butler did, is fundamental self-creation, snatching space that has been stolen or withheld.
This anthology of personal truths, as authors unskin to their innermost selves, is as startling as it is introspective.
In Ex Marginalia, 20 authors of speculative fiction explore what it means to create at the intersections of their multiple marginalities. A gay man pens a letter to his departed muse, an African woman ruminates on the end of a marriage, a Filipino writer defends romantic villains.
These essays chart identities and perspectives systematically excluded by a field that has failed to deliver on its promise of progress. But these voices cannot—will not—remain in the margins any longer.
Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father. He has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières and other international organisations in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, and Egypt. His first novel, Guapa, is a political and personal coming-of-age story of a young gay man living through the 2011 Arab revolutions. The novel received critical acclaim from the New Yorker, The Guardian, and others. It was awarded a Stonewall Honour and won the 2017 Polari First Book Prize. His directorial debut, Marco, premiered in March 2019 and was nominated for the 2019 Iris Prize for ‘Best British Short Film’.
Written from the perspective of one of the victims of the infamous 2001 Queen Boat scandal, when 52 men were arrested and put on trial in Egypt during a raid on a gay party, In the Spider’s Room is an intense depiction of living in a society that fears and rejects any form of queerness. Unflinching, claustrophobic, and suffocating, Abdelnaby does not shy away from exploring what happens when one is presented with no avenues for expressing their desires and sense of self.
A sensitive and courageous account of life as a gay man in Egypt and Winner of the 2019 Prix de la Littérature Arabe
Hani was out for an evening stroll near Cairo’s Tahrir Square when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. An informant had identified him, and he was thrown into the back of a police truck. There began a seven-month nightmare as he was swept up, along with fifty other men, in the infamous Queen Boat affair that targeted Egypt’s gay community.
Finally free, but traumatized into speechlessness, Hani writes down the events of his life―his first sexual…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m an autistic writer with a passion for neurodiversity representation in fiction. As a child, I struggled to get into reading because I couldn’t see myself in any of the characters. That changed when I discovered Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip about a precocious boy with a big imagination who struggles with making friends and is always getting in trouble for his poor self-control. Finally, I thought—a character just like me! For people who are neurodivergent, discovering fictional characters who resemble themselves can be a powerful experience. That’s why I think neurodiversity representation in fiction is incredibly important.
Maya MacGregor, like Corinne Duyvis, is autistic, and like Corinne, Maya nails this aspect of their protagonist, Sam Sylvester. Sam is also non-binary, so there are multiple forms of minority representation in this book, which I love to see.
Unlike On the Edge of Gone, which features an end-of-the-world scenario, this book is more grounded, focusing largely on Sam’s struggles to find their place at a new school in a new town while confronting demons from their past. That’s not all the book has going on—there are also paranormal elements and a thirty-year-old mystery waiting to be solved. I found these aspects of the book to be intriguing as well.
An Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction Nominee
"Look no further for your next favorite read, because The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester has it all: a gripping murder mystery that will keep you turning pages, ghosts, romance, and a treasure trove of queer characters with depth and heart. Here's something rare-a suspenseful story that also feels like a hug." -Sarah Glenn Marsh, author of the Reign of the Fallen series
In this queer contemporary YA mystery, a nonbinary autistic teen realizes they must not only solve a 30-year-old mystery but also face the…
