Happy HoliGAYS! LGBTQ+ Books to Bring a little Queer to Teen Holiday Cheer
Kit Ballenger
The days are shorter, the nights are colder, and winter breaks offer readers extra opportunities to curl up with a good book. Every time of year is the right time of year to see yourself in a story, and these reading suggestions for teens (or adults, no judgment) add a little representation to the holiday celebrations they feature in their plots!
Finley Brown may have exaggerated a little in describing her hometown of Christmas, OK, to classmates at her tony East Coast boarding school. When a dashing but aloof foreign classmate brings his aunt to town for the halcyon holiday experience Finlay promised, they are both in for some unwelcome surprises in Tracy Andreen’s So, This Is Christmas. Andreen, a screenwriter, delivers a cinematic rom-com for fans of the enemies-to-lovers trope, with a queer plot twist most readers will see coming but appreciate nonetheless.
If you’re struggling to get into the Christmas spirit, you’re not alone. In The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily, by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan, Lily isn’t feeling her usual holiday joy and her friends rally to help her rekindle her seasonal spark. Although this is a sequel picking up a year after the titular characters meet, this novel stands alone. Representation is secondary here – if you’ve already seen the Netflix show, you probably know that Dash’s older brother is gay – but co-author Levithan is among the most well-respected and prolific authors, editors, and advocates for LGBTQIA+ representation in children’s literature. He lends authenticity to the character’s voice, and you can consider this a plug for Levithan’s other (non-holiday) work.
Speaking of Levithan, members of the tribe should especially appreciate his short story “The Hold” in the anthology It’s a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories, edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman. After a brief but earnest ode to candle lighting and his mother’s matzo ball soup, Levithan shares a tender story about first love, uncanny coincidences, and the allure of Mark Spitz to gay Jewish boys in the 1980s.
If you prefer a gut-punch over the spiked kind, author Nina LaCour serves up a haunting and atmospheric story about a girl who tries to leave her life behind but finds the weight of memory heavy to hold in We Are Okay. This quiet novel wraps up over winter break as Marin hunkers down in her empty dorm. Marin’s sexuality isn’t the defining element of her story but, rather, one of many nuanced layers in her love and her loneliness and her loss.
Lily Hu is coming of age in San Francisco at the height of McCarthyism and anti-Chinese-American sentiments, but her dawning sexual awareness – and intrigue about one male-impersonating performer, in particular – serves as a pleasant distraction for Lily. A shining example of intersectionality done well, this is historical fiction with a love story that should particularly resonate with queer girls and women. Last Night at the Telegraph Club is by no means a holiday story, but it includes a Christmas pageant and that’s enough of an excuse for me to recommend you pick up this National Book Award-winning title, if you haven’t already.
All of these books are for young adults, and it warrants mentioning that, while mainstream publishing has a long way to go in LGBTQIA+ representation overall, the limited options among holiday stories for middle school and younger readers just reiterate the room for growth. While we wait, you might look ahead to spring and keep an eye out for Charlotte Sullivan Wild and Charlene Chua’s Love, Violet, a Valentine’s Day elementary school crush story that will steal your heart.
All of these books should be available through your local library, and if you’d like to purchase a copy through the hotlinks, that provides 5% back to Pride and Less Prejudice so we can offer even more books to young readers in the coming year. Happy holidays!
