Queer Fiction for Smart Girls
Discover the best queer fiction for smart girls! Explore our curated list of empowering, thought-provoking books that celebrate LGBTQ+ voices and stories.
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Tipping the Velvet
by Sarah Waters
“Erotic and absorbing…Written with startling power.”—The New York Times Book Review Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.
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Written on the Body
by Jeanette Winterson
The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman. “At once a love story and a philosophical meditation.” —New York Times Book Review.
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The Well of Loneliness
by Radclyffe Hall
Originally published in 1928, Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness is the timeless story of a lesbian couple's struggle to be accepted by "polite" society. Shockingly candid for its time, this novel was the very first to condemn homophobic society for its unfair treatment of gays and lesbians.
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Stone Butch Blues
by Leslie Feinberg
Jess Goldberg decides to come out as a butch in the bars and factories of the prefeminist '60s and then to pass as a man in order to survive when she is left without work or a community in the early '70s.
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The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An instant classic and eerily prescient cultural phenomenon, from “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (The New York Times). Now an award-winning Hulu series starring Elizabeth Moss. Look for The Testaments, the bestselling, award-winning the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic. Includes an introduction by Margaret Atwood
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Rubyfruit Jungle
by Rita Mae Brown
Classic modern American novel orig. pub. 1973. Celebrates lesbian sexuality.
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Find Me
by Rosie O'Donnell
Part memoir, part mystery, 'Find Me' is a tale of a friendship between a troubled young woman and a celebrity obsessed with helping her. Rosie O'Donnell's candid memoir is a topsy-turvy tale of mistaken identities and strange psychological illnesses that may or may not exist.
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Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
by Audre Lorde
Zami: A Carriacou name for women who work together as friends and lovers “Zami is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.”—Off Our Backs “Among the elements that make the book so good are its personal honesty and lack of pretentiousness, characteristics that shine through the writing bespeaking the evolution of a strong and remarkable character.”—The New York Times
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Borderlands
by Gloria AnzaldĂşa
Explores life along the Mexican-American border and the experience of being caught between two cultures.
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When Fox is a Thousand
by Larissa Lai
Told in three voices, When Fox Is a Thousand blends murder, intrigue, and more than a morsel of food for thought.