Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022, with Dini at Dini Panda Reads as co-host from February 2025.
Some changes have been made to Let’s Talk Bookish, which you can read about on Book Nook Bits and Dini Panda Reads. Mainly, topics will now be once to twice a month, instead of weekly. I think it’s a really nice approach, especially if it takes pressure off our wonderful co-hosts. At the moment, I’ll likely aim to keep my LTB to align with the date of the suggested topic (except for this one!), and maybe dedicate the other Fridays to other types of bookish topic posts. I do notice in July’s topic there are links to other bookish discussion memes, so I’ll have a look at them too. We’ll see how it goes.
Today’s discussion is all about Pride Month Reading – if you follow this blog, you’re likely aware I read queer books all year round, so I have a lot to say about this!
Let’s Talk Bookish 26th June:
June 12: Pride Month Reading
Prompts: Happy Pride! What are your favorite books with LGBTQIA+ representation? Are there authors or series you always recommend? What books are on your Pride Month TBR? What do you think makes representation feel genuine?
Once again I struggle to think of favourite books because I’ve never been good at picking favourites! I read in such different genres too that I think, the majority of the time, good books just can’t always be compared. But for the purposes of this post, some books I’d specifically like to shout about – You Should See Me in a Crown (YA Contemporary Romance), Cinderella is Dead (YA Fantasy), Seven Devils (Sci-Fi), The Pride Collected Edition Volume 1: I Need a Hero (Graphic Novel), The Book of Pride (Nonfiction – Biography), That Could Be Enough (Historical Romance), A Lady for a Duke (Historical Romance), Stars Collide (Contemporary Romance), Camp Damascus / I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me / Tell Me I’m Worthless (Horror).
Clearly, I could go on – there are excellent queer books with all different kinds of representation in almost every genre. As for specific authors I’d recommend, yes! Becky Albertalli and Leah Johnson both write queer YA Contemporary Romance, and both are excellent. Kalynn Bayron writes YA Fantasy and Horror, typically sapphic, Chuck Tingle’s horror is excellent and features queer characters, and if you’re looking for nonfiction, Emily Garside writes about queer TV and has just released Rainbow Wales, which is all about Welsh queer icons.
Again, I could go on – there are many excellent queer writers out there, and there’s not enough space for me to list every single one. For my Pride Month TBR…well, we’re at the end of the month, and I don’t typically have a Pride Month TBR. Like I said above, I read queer books all year, and because we have Pride in Horror over at DHR, I do a lot of my ‘Pride’ reading before we hit June.
Not to say I haven’t read any queer books in June – since the start of May, I’ve read We Call Them Witches, Tell Me I’m Worthless, A Thief and a Gentleman, You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight, and The Way It Haunted Him. All of which I would definitely recommend. Queer books on my upcoming TBR are Homegrown Magic, This Wretched Beauty, Showstopper, and Rainbow Wales.
And finally – genuine representation. I think this is hard for any one person to nail down. I can’t, for example, speak to genuine trans representation, and if I’m reading a book by a trans author, I’m going to default to them. I don’t, however, think good representation is exclusive to OwnVoices – not that I can exactly put my finger on it, but you can often tell when a writer is half-arsing something compared to doing research for it. Sensitivity readers are crucial. And although I do think if we’re reading something outside our own experience we should also seek out the views of someone with that experience, even they don’t always match up.
I think representation feels genuine when it is genuine, when it doesn’t rely on tropes and cliches and when it firmly places the story in the character’s experience, when the nuances are considered. There are subreddits dedicated to men badly writing women, because it’s so common and, when done badly, it’s so bad. But that’s not to say men don’t always write women well – the ones who do typically do research and speak to women in their own lives. The same goes for any writers writing representation outside their own experiences – if they do it with care and consideration, it works!
And if you’re looking for more Pride content, check out our Pride in Horror Month posts over at Divination Hollow Review.
I would love to hear your own thoughts on the topic and, of course, please feel free to drop your own recommendations or links to your Pride posts below!
Unwrapping Words 