The following titles were selected for the Over the Rainbow Book List final bibliography:
- Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler. Alfred A. Knopf, 2024.
Who’s Afraid of Gender sets out to examine how the fear of gender is used in the political sphere and calls out for solidarity from those affected by this fear. Written by Judith Butler, who is a legend in the sphere of gender studies, this book takes a topic that can leave people feeling powerless and instead takes the chance to offer hope, ideas, and a sense of community among those who are fighting an uphill battle against inequality. - The T in LGBT: Everything You Need to Know About Being Trans, by Jamie Raines. Vermilion, 2023.
The T in LGBT is an informal and welcoming guide to becoming more comfortable in your own skin. Using wit and real life experiences the author offers heartfelt advice to both trans people and allies. - Bury Your Gays, by Chuck Tingle. Nightfire, Tor Publishing Group.
Bury Your Gays takes on the Bury Your Gays trope in this satirical, horror novel. After years of trying to make it big in Hollywood, Misha finally has his moment, an Oscar nomination. Instead of celebrating the gay characters that Misha has brought to life the “studio” wants him to kill them off. When Misha refuses, that’s when it starts to get weird and deadly. Tingle weaves an emotional roller coaster that is powerful, painful, and heartwarming. Throughout it all it maintains an authentic and unabashedly queer perspective. - Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune. Publishing Group, 2024.
Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a unique combination of a spell-binding fantasy setting and the heartwarming themes found in the slice-of-life genre. This book explores the ideas of found family, prejudice, and societal acceptance in a fun-to-read way that leaves you feeling connected to the characters as well as invested in their fates. While it is a sequel, it reads well as a standalone and does a good job of showing the relationships that were established in the first book of the series. - Rules for Ghosting, a Novel. by Shelly Jay Shore. Penguin Random House, 2024.
The Friedmans’ family funeral business is complicated for protagonist Eli, who just happens to be able to see ghosts. Rules for Ghosting follows this young trans man as he navigates a new living situation, unexpectedly having to help with the family business, and figuring out how he can help the dearly departed. Part family drama and part romance, this well-written book provides insight into Jewish life (and death) and the very real struggles of a trans person as he works through new relationships, dysphoria, and the consequences of being the family fixer. - The Rainbow Age of Television: An Opinionated History of Queer TV by Shayna Maci Warner. Abrams Press, 2024.
The strength of this book comes from exploring the (coded) earliest queer appearances on television. Entertaining and accessibly-written, Warner details queer milestones on TV and how representation has expanded over recent decades. This is a must-read for anyone interested in queer representation in pop culture or just in entertainment history in general. - Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Sara Glass. First Atria Books, 2024.
Glass’s memoir is beautifully written and engaging. With its intertwining threads of fear stemming from oppression she faced from conservative Judaism as both a woman and lesbian and the impact of mental illness on her family, the book often touches on heavy content. However, the book is not bleak and offers glimmers of hope and triumph, including Glass’s pursuit of education and eventual custody of her children. - Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. Alfred A. Knopf, 2024.
Martyr!, poet Kaveh Akbar’s first novel, collapses the personal and the historical with inventive form and lush prose. Amidst the loss of both his Iranian immigrant parents and a tenuous sobriety, writer Cyrus Shams struggles to find meaning in anything at all. An obsession with martyrs drives him from the Midwest to New York City, where a chance encounter with a painting throws into question everything he thought he knew about his mother—and himself. With wit and crushing sincerity, Akbar delivers a triumphant debut novel about grief, queer lineages, and art. - Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree. Tor Publishing Group, 2023.
This cozy fantasy prequel to Legends and Lattes find Viv, an orc who just wants to get her assigned fight with Varine the Pale completed, finds herself injured and suddenly the friend of bookseller Fern. The book is light and entertaining and follows Viv and Fern through an adventure involving a necromancer named Balthus and an enslaved skeleton named Satchel. - Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir by Zoë Bossiere. Abrams Press, 2024.
Cactus Country is a rich, powerful memoir. Bossiere’s work is moving not just due to their impeccable writing skills, but also due to their sincerity and empathy. They do not sugarcoat their darker experiences, but they evoke compassion for their earlier selves and their companions at different stages of life. Bossiere excels at sharing with others what it was like as a trans, nonbinary person at various stages of their life and their gender fluidity. They carefully lay out how actions, words, and appearance — even the same ones — are “different” to people depending on how they view your gender identity/expression. In showing not just how they moved between the worlds of masculine, androgynous, and feminine, but why they did so, they offer powerful insights and a means of understanding their lived experiences.