It’s wonderful to see so much queer lit on shelves these days, but it’s important to also recognize the works that broke through back when queer books were much harder to come by. This seminal work by Emma Pérez, considered one of the first Chicana lesbian novels in print , is about a Chicana who came of age in a racist, rural Texas town, now reflecting on the obsessive love she harbored for a childhood friend. This powerful story explores passion and betrayal, vengeance and desire, and the legacy of colonialism, and reckons with abuse, misogyny, and sexual violence in the Chicano/a* community.

*I deferred to the use of Chicano/a per the publisher copy here.

This was my first time (shame! I know!) reading Caro De Robertis, the Uruguayan American author of Cantoras and The Palace of Eros and award-winning translator of Latin American literature. This collection of testimonies from queer elders of color about self-discovery, activism, resistance, and survival is such an essential read, a necessary record of so much lived experience and hard-won progress. It is a love letter to queer history and an inspiring, hilarious, heartbreaking, and gorgeous reminder to treasure the wisdom of those who’ve witnessed history, helped shape it, and given us the space to imagine a future where we’re all free. I had to pause to reflect several times, especially in the passages about found family and liberation. This is phenomenal on audio and brought me to tears!

"¡Hola Papi!," as JP Brammer tells it, started off as a joke: "What if ‘Dear Abby’ was a gay Mexican man on Grindr ?" He set out to craft a satirical take on the advice column and wound up with a legit and wildly popular column instead. This memoir-in-essays begins with Brammer’s experience growing up biracial and closeted in rural Oklahoma, following him through his rise as an unexpected Grinder icon. True story: I laughed so hard reading this that I threw my head back in one of my trademark bruja cackles, ramming my dome right into the corner of a kitchen cabinet. I drew blood and saw stars, but kept on laughing!

Machado’s writing does what it does with no regard for genre boundaries or convention, and it’s why I love her so much. This collection, which has the nerve to be her debut, explores women’s hunger, desire, and the violence imposed on their bodies. There’s the unsettling tale of a woman refusing her husband’s relentless requests to remove the green ribbon around her neck, or the one about the woman who gets her stomach stapled only to be haunted in the aftermath. Then there’s the novella that reimagines episodes of Law & Order: SVU, aptly titled, "Especially Heinous." This books is queer and weird and dark and unlike anything I’ve ever read.

I stay salty about the fact that we don’t have very many Latine holiday romances. My kingdom for a meet-cute at a posada, some instalove over steaming cups of champurrado, maybe some sexy times over Nochebuena! (That’s a noche(bien)buena, amirite? slaps knee in elder millennial). We do have a few pretty great ones, though, and Adriana Herrera’s sapphic foodie grumpy/sunshine novella is both sexy and sweet. An up-and-coming pastry chef and a stellar home cook are paired together for a baking competition in Scotland. Two Dominicas and one bed = a recipe for sapphic holiday fun.

See also: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal, which I promise I will stop talking about… maybe

A Lot Like Adios gives us two bisexual leads: Michelle, a commitment-phobic marketing executive, and Gabe, the co-owner of a buzzy celebrity gym in LA and Michelle’s childhood best friend. The pair are thrown together in the Bronx when Michelle is hired to do the marketing for Gabe’s new gym location, which would be great if Gabe hadn’t disappeared from Mich’s life 13 years ago. Michelle is determined to keep Gabe at arm’s length, but as they get to work on the campaign, the temptation to get to work en la cama grows stronger. I wonder what will happen!

This is the second book in the now concluded Primas of Power series, all of which can be read as standalones.

I read the synopsis for this book and thought, "welp, saca el Kleenex." Daniel is a first-generation Mexican-American college student on scholarship at an elite East Coast university struggling under the weight of his family’s expectations. But that load begins to feel lighter as he gets to know his roommate, Sam, and their relationship evolves from friendship to something more tender and intimate. Then tragedy strikes and Daniel is consumed by grief, returning home to Chihuahua, Mexico for the summer. A few family secrets are revealed during his stay, including one about the late uncle for whom Daniel was named. The love, the heartache, the journey to acceptance… this is one of those books that breaks your heart and puts it back together again.

With that, I wish everyone a very Happy Pride and encourage y’all to make queer books a regular part of your reading. Go sign up for Our Queerest Shelves if you haven’t already, where we share new queer books, queer book news, and recommendations for every reader under the rainbow. In the meantime, check out the books editor Erica Ezeifedi is reading for Pride (and beyond) here , and curl up with these cozy, comforting queer graphic novels.

"Some of the most spectacular writing I’ve ever encountered in my life… Vagabonds! brought me to tears because it gave me a world in which my country could be home again."