Queer Books I Read When I Was Baby Gay

Hi lovelies! 💖 I’m finally done with my classes for the school year about a month ago, so, uh, I’m back now! It’s been a while since I posted my last non-review post—February Wrap-Up, and I had promised to catch up with all your posts. There has been some progress but I am still working on it. Please believe me that I am trying. 😭

Can you believe it’s Pride Month already? I swear yesterday was still 2020 but simultaneously it’s been a lifetime. Happy Pride! Your resident queer blogger (me) is still somewhat burnt-out, but I hope you are all doing great, or at least, better than I am.

In case you don’t know, I am a panromantic grey-ace genderqueer person! That is quite a mouthful so I usually just say I’m queer. I am also sapphic and, I guess, somewhat genderfluid. You know how life is sometimes confusing? Yes, that is me with my identities.

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a very long time, but nowadays, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to focus. Which is why I had an empty draft of this since April and am only now posting. Just in time for June though!

This post is by no means a recommendation list. My resources were limited when I started reading queer books in high school almost 10 years ago (YIKES). Ironically, my first book with LGBTQ+ main characters wasn’t even targeted at queer readers.

---

2012: 16–17 years old

As you might already know, I used to read a lot of Jodi Picoult. Between the age of 14 and 18, I read 9 of her books, not including rereads. While I often felt the endings of her stories weren’t that enjoyable, I liked how her writing is smooth and easy to understand for teenagers. I owe a lot of my unconsciously learned writing techniques from her, I guess.

So it isn’t really a surprise that my first queer book was Sing You Home (Goodreads), a story about Zoe and Vanessa fighting for the right to use Zoe and Max’s frozen embryos before the latter couple’s divorce. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy the book upon my first read, but the writing itself was enjoyable enough that I reread it after two months. Now, in 2021, I am halfway through my third read because I am feeling nostalgic, and I find a lot of things that were slightly cringey to me. But hey, even though I did not rate it very high, I still love the book for being my first ever queer fiction.

The third book (I’ll get to book two in a bit) I read was from Pai Hsien-Yung (白先勇), a gay Taiwanese writer. The book was Crystal Boys (孽子), published in 1983, and I read it in Chinese, but an English translation is also available from Gay Sunshine Press (Goodreads). I can’t remember much about the story, but it was set in the park near my high school, a hotspot for gay cruising. It is an LGBTQ+ classic.

So my second queer book was also by Pai Hsien-Yung, but there is no English version for 寂寞的十七歲. It is a short story collection, and I am not sure if the main theme is queer, but there are definitely queer pieces in it.

And then I discovered The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (Goodreads). It is one of my all-time favorite books, and while I read it in Chinese the first time around, I quickly followed up with a reread in English. The main character, Charlie, probably isn’t queer. He might be questioning, I’m not sure. But I love everything about the book, the way it was in epistolary format, the social anxiety rep, the very queer atmosphere, etc.

I read these four books within four months, but at this point in time, I had yet to read anything sapphic written for sapphic readers. Then came Julie Anne Peters’s Keeping You a Secret (Goodreads) and Sara Ryan’s Empress of the World (Goodreads). Both are YA f/f romance and might be somewhat painful to read. They were wonderful stories for young readers figuring things out, but I might not enjoy them now. Again, I cannot remember much about the books, but one of these two introduced me to Dixie Chicks and I am grateful for that.

---

2013: 17–18 years old

I read two queer books this year, but both were in Chinese.

The first one was a web fiction by DRAZ called 建中成功愛情故事 (read here). As the title shows, it is a love story between two boys, one from CK and the other from CG (two of the best boys’ high schools in Taipei).

Then one of my friends gifted me 人妻日記 by novelist 陳雪 (Xue Chen). It is a nonfiction about her life with her partner, who is a woman.

---

2014: 18–19 years old

The first queer fiction I read this year was Notes of a Crocodile (鱷魚手記) by lesbian novelist Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津). I read it in Chinese and I don’t remember what it was about, but like Crystal Boys, it is an absolute classic. There is an English translation from NYRB (Goodreads). And just how legendary was Qiu Miaojin? Both Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong opened with quotes from Qiu.

Most other queer books I read in 2014 were nonfiction. I read five LGBTQ+ nonfiction in Chinese, most of which are self-help books for queer kids: two from 台灣同志諮詢熱線協會 (Taiwan LGBT Hotline) and three from 張娟芬. The first queer book of the year in English was Portia de Rossi’s memoir Unbearable Lightness (Goodreads), mainly about her struggles with anorexia.

I think this was the year I started watching YouTube videos where transpeople (mainly transguys) talk openly about their coming outs and transitions. My reading sort of reflected that. The final two queer books I read were Arin Andrews’s Some Assembly Required (Goodreads) and Katie Rain Hill’s Rethinking Normal (Goodreads). I don’t remember anything particularly phenomenal about their books, but I am thankful for them sharing their experiences and stories.

---

That’s it! Because I started undergrad in 2013, and studies became difficult very quickly, the amount of books I read tanked in 2015 and didn’t resume to my usual reading schedule until 2018. I was already 23 years old then and very much not a baby gay.

But what was my first adult sapphic romance? I read my first NA sapphic romance in 2018, and it was Keeping Long Island (Goodreads) by Australian poet Courtney Peppernell. Still one of my favorite books ever because of the writing and that it was my first non-YA sapphic romance. It reminds my of The Perks of Being a Wallflower but probably even more beautiful. The first adult one? Like many other lesfic readers, it was K.E. Lane’s And Playing the Role of Herself (Goodreads). I remember not loving it, but it might be time for a reread.

---

What was one of the first queer books you’ve ever read? Was it an impactful experience? Please let me know in the comment below! I’d love to hear about it!

For more of my reviews and other whatnots, follow my blog, Twitter, Instagram, and friend me on Goodreads.