5 Books Perfect For a Queerantine

Witches of Ash and Ruin, a young adult novel by E. Latimer, is a mesmerizing story of a gifted bisexual teen's struggle against dark forces that have arrived in her conservative Irish town. Dayna Walsh has enough problems between her somatic obsessive-compulsive disorder, being outed, and her mother's return following a long absence. But her chief desire is to become a full-fledged witch. Her plans become complicated when a mysterious coven and a serial killer invade her town. Walsh finds an unlikely ally to stop the murderer before he strikes again. (Freeform Books)

Hex by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight is the story of Nell Barber, a scientist living in the aftermath of an accidental death by poisoning in her lab. Although the program has been disbanded, Nell is obsessed with understanding what went wrong--and the allure of deadly plants. Her apartment teems with poisonous plants as she surreptitiously carries on the dead student's research and pursues yet another obsession, Dr. Joan Kallas. Deceit drips into the characters' lives and threatens to be as deadly as the plants Nell keeps. (Viking)

Real Life by Brandon Taylor is about a gay Black student coming to terms with his past and his life in a predominantly white college. An emotionally distant graduate student, Wallace is struggling with the death of his father and with admitting that his grief is complicated by his father's abandonment. Can Miller, an ostensibly straight white student who takes an interest in Wallace, reach the closed-off protagonist? Or will the campus's casual racism create a chasm between them that can't be breached? (Riverhead Books)

Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen is an examination of the Trump years by the award-winning journalist and queer nonbinary author. Gessen previously drew parallels from their own experience growing up under the Soviet Union's iron-fisted rule and uncovering the thuggish tendencies of Vladimir Putin, chronicling his subversion of Russian society into a corrupt autocratic state ruled by gangsters and oligarchs. Gessen's insider observations and incisive analysis examine how U.S. society has been bent to the new Trumpian order. (Riverhead Books)

You Brought Me the Ocean, written by Alex Sanchez and illustrated by Julie Maroh (Blue Is the Warmest Color), follows young Jake Hyde as he comes to terms with the color of his skin, his sexuality, and his superpower. The Black teen yearns for the sea and a life away from his desert town. Then he starts college in a coastal city and is flooded with new desires to swim for the first time since his father drowned, to take take a chance with Kenny Liu the captain of the swim team, and to safely unleash newfound superpowers. (DC Comics)