Cheer Up!: Love and Pompoms by Crystal Frasier

Are you a Tara and Darcy shipper? Do you love it when opposites attract? If so, this graphic novel is for you!

“Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend BeBe is a people pleaser, a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life in order to maintain their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro-aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.”

-Page 4 of cover

So This is Ever After by F. T. Lukens

This book might be more fantasy than reality, but it has all of the sweet, swoon-worthy m/m slow-burn of Nick and Charlie’s relationship. All with a best friends to lovers arc? Yes, please!

“Arek has managed to fulfill the prophecy and save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler, but the quest is not over because until they free the princess locked in one of the towers he has to assume the crown himself; only the princess proves to be very dead, and Arek is stuck as king; then he discovers that magic requires him to find a bride before his eighteenth birthday or wither away–but none of his female companions are interested, he does not want to marry a stranger, and anyway the only person he is attracted to is Matt, aspiring wizard, best friend, and secret crush.”

-From COSMOS

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli

This book is great for those who loved the coming-of-age, self-discovery aspect of Heartstopper but are looking for a more lighthearted tone and focus on family dynamics.

“Told in two voices, when Arthur, a summer intern from Georgia, and Ben, a native New Yorker, meet, it seems like fate, but after three attempts at dating fail, they wonder if the universe is pushing them together or apart.”

-From COSMOS

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki

Now, this graphic novel is perfect for those who want more drama than even Nick and Charlie’s toxic tendencies provided. 

“Laura Dean, the most popular girl in high school, was Frederica Riley’s dream girl: charming, confident, and SO cute. There’s just one problem: Laura Dean is maybe not the greatest girlfriend. Reeling from her latest breakup, Freddy’s best friend, Doodle, introduces her to the Seek-Her, a mysterious medium, who leaves Freddy some cryptic parting words: break up with her. But Laura Dean keeps coming back, and as their relationship spirals further out of her control, Freddy has to wonder if it’s really Laura Dean that’s the problem.”

-Amazon

Bloom by Kevin Panetta

While Panetta’s graphic novel doesn’t take place in an English boarding school, its small-town setting captures the intimacy and pressure that comes from living in a small community. This book also follows similar themes of new love and coming out, and follows the sweetest, soft boys. 

“Now that high school is over, Ari is dying to move to the big city with his ultra-hip band, if he can just convince his dad to let him quit their struggling family bakery. Though he loved working there as a kid, Ari cannot fathom a life wasting away his days over rising doughs and hot ovens. But in the midst of interviewing candidates for his replacement, Ari meets Hector, an easy-going guy who loves baking as much as Ari wants to escape it. As they become closer over batches of bread, love begins to bloom… that is, if Ari doesn’t ruin everything.”

-Provided by Publisher

Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan

This book almost feels like a sapphic parallel to Heartstopper, dealing with new love, struggling to come out, and mental health. The settings even have similar vibes since Dugan’s book takes place in a private Catholic school. 

“Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school’s code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can’t deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan–out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start–doesn’t want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn’t ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together?”

-Amazon

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimmons 

This is a great book for anyone who cares more about the personal growth, mental health, and self-acceptance themes in Heartstopper than the romance itself.

“Fifteen-year-old Spencer Harris is a proud nerd, a great big brother, and a soccer player in training. After being bullied at his old school for transitioning, Spencer starts fresh at Oakley, a progressive private school. He’s finding acceptance, making new friends, and even developing feelings for a teammate. But when a discriminatory law forces Spencer’s coach to bench him after discovering he’s trans, Spencer must decide whether to fight for his right to play, risking exposure and the chance of losing everything he’s built.”

-Adapted from the Publisher

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver

Like Heartstopper, this book does not shy away from hard discussions about mental health, identity, and struggling between wanting to be accepted by others and accepting yourself. If you’re a fan of Love, Simon, you’ll definitely want to check this one out!

“When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents’ rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile for the last half of senior year in a new school. Then, fellow student Nathan Allan decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change. It might just be a chance to start a happier new life.”

-Adapted from Jacket

Fence by C.S. Pacat

Not only does this book take place in an elite boys’ school and have a sports element, but they’re rivals and roommates. Do we need to say anything else?

“Nicholas, the illegitimate son of a retired fencing champion, is a scrappy fencing wunderkind and dreams of getting the chance and the training to actually compete. After getting accepted to the prodigious Kings Row private school, Nicholas is thrust into a cut-throat world, and finds himself facing not only his golden-boy half-brother, but the unbeatable, mysterious Seiji Katayama… Through clashes, rivalries, and romance between teammates, Nicholas and the boys of Kings Row will discover there’s much more to fencing than just foils and lunges.”

-Back cover of Volume 1

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee

This book is Heartstopper meets Crazy Rich Asians, with all of the opulence, drama, and tenderness you’d expect.

“Dylan Tang wants to win a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake-making competition for teen chefs — in memory of his mom, and to bring much-needed publicity to his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn. Enter Theo Somers: charming, wealthy, with a smile that makes Dylan’s stomach do backflips. AKA a distraction. Their worlds are sun-and-moon apart, but Theo keeps showing up. He even convinces Dylan to be his fake date at a family wedding in the Hamptons. In Theo’s glittering world of pomp, privilege, and crazy rich drama, their romance is supposed to be just pretend… but Dylan finds himself falling for Theo. For real. Then Theo’s relatives reveal their true colors — but with the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being sidetracked by rich-people problems. Can Dylan save his family’s business and follow his heart — or will he fail to do both?”

-COSMOS

Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

We would be remiss if we didn’t make sure you knew about the original graphic novel series! This is perfect if you need all of the storylines the show started exploring wrapped up in a neat bow. With five books in the series, there is plenty of material for you to read before saying goodbye to your favorite characters.

“Shy and soft-hearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player Nick Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn’t think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works.”

-From COSMOS

Model Home by Rivers Solomon

The Maxwell siblings return to their childhood home in the Dallas suburbs after the shocking news of their parents’ deaths. They return to find the house, and the family itself, haunted by strange, inexplicable terrors.

I Think They Love You by Julian Winters

When Denzel ‘Denz’ Carter’s workaholic father and CEO of 24 Carter Gold unexpectedly announces his retirement, the competition is on for who will become his successor. To convince his family members that he’s capable of commitment, Denz impulsively lies about being in a serious relationship. Now he needs to find a fake boyfriend to seal the deal on the CEO position. Denz is forced to turn to the last person he wants to be in a pretend (or any) relationship with: Braylon, the man who broke his heart. Braylon’s sudden reappearance in Denz’s life turns everything upside down. But, apparently, he needs Denz’s connections to the mayor to win his own promotion. So, they strike a deal. It’s all business until the funny texts and the confusing kisses leave Denz struggling to separate this temporary arrangement from the affairs of his heart.

Private Rites by Julia Armfield

A speculative reimagining of King Lear, centering three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a drowning world. It’s been raining for a long time now, so long that the land has reshaped itself, and arcane rituals and religions are creeping back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken in some time since their father died. An architect as cruel as he was revered, his death offers an opportunity for the sisters to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until their fragile bond is shattered by a revelation in his will. More estranged than ever, the sisters’ lives spin out of control. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

The In-Between Bookstore by Edward Underhill

A whimsical and healing novel about a trans man in New York who, almost 30, laid off, broke–moves back to his small Illinois hometown, walks into the bookstore he worked at in high school, and slips through time to come face-to-face with his pre-transition, teenage self.

Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin

Tam hasn’t eaten anyone in years. She is now Mama’s soft-spoken, vegan daughter–everything dangerous about her is cut out. But when Tam’s estranged Aunt Tigress is found murdered and skinned, Tam inherits an undead fox in a shoebox and an ensemble of old enemies. The demons, the ghosts, the gods running coffee shops by the river? Fine. The tentacled thing stalking Tam across the city? Absolutely not. And when Tam realizes the girl she’s falling in love with might be yet another loose end from her past? That’s just the brassy, beautiful cherry on top. No matter how quietly she lives, Tam can’t hide from her voracious upbringing or the suffering she causes. As she navigates romance, redemption, and the end of the world, she can’t help but wonder… Do monsters even deserve happy endings?

Loca by Alejandro Heredia

It’s 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he’s held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years. Her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she’d escape in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo’s worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other.

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition. Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: ‘Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones’ imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In ‘The Chaser,’ a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, ‘The Masker,’ a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides.

How to Live Free in a Dangerous World by Shayla Lawson

Poet and journalist Shayla Lawson follows their National Book Critics Circle finalist This Is Major with these daring and exquisitely crafted essays, where Lawson journeys across the globe, finds beauty in tumultuous times, and powerfully disrupts the constraints of race, gender, and disability. With their signature prose, at turns bold, muscular, and luminous, Shayla Lawson travels the world to explore deeper meanings held within love, time, and the self.

Alligator Tears: A Memoir in Essays by Edgar Gomez

In Florida, one of the first things you’re taught as a child is that if you’re ever chased by a wild alligator, the only way to save yourself is to run away in zigzags. It’s a lesson on survival that has guided much of Edgar Gomez’s life. Zig. Zag. Gomez survived this way as long as his legs carried him. Alligator Tears is a fiercely defiant memoir-in-essays charting Gomez’s quest to claw his family out of poverty by any means necessary and exposing the archetype of the humble poor person for what it is: a scam that insists we remain quiet and servile while we wait for a prize that will always be out of reach. For those chasing the American Dream and those jaded by it, Gomez’s unforgettable story is a testament to finding love, purpose, and community on your own terms, smiling with all your fake teeth.

The Color of Always

This is a celebratory graphic novel collection of short stories, edited by contributors Fisher and Abounader, that spans myriad genres and styles united by affirming messages about queer identities.

Carmilla: The First Vampire

Inspired by the gothic novel that started the vampire genre and layered with dark Chinese folklore, this queer, feminist murder mystery graphic novel is a tale of identity, obsession, and fateful family secrets.

Paper Girls

Paper Girls follows four young girls who, while out delivering papers during the morning after Halloween in 1988, become unwittingly caught in a conflict between warring factions of time travelers. 

Fence

Sixteen-year-old Nicholas Cox is an outsider to the competitive fencing world. Filled with raw talent but lacking proper training, he signs up for a competition that puts him head-to-head with fencing prodigy Seiji Katayama.

Gender Queer

Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

Transitions: a Mother’s Journey

When university biologist Anne Marbot learns that the 19-year-old she raised as “Lucie” is a transgender man named Alex, she’s overwhelmed by questions. It soon becomes clear that Alex is not the only one embarking on a journey of self-discovery. The road is not easy, and sometimes their relationship is bitterly strained. But Alex is sure of himself, and Anne is determined to be strong for his sake. With time, she too will be transformed, rediscovering her identity as a mother in profound new ways.

The Bride was a Boy

A diary comic with an upbeat, adorable flair that tells the charming tale of Chii, a woman assigned male at birth. Her story starts with her childhood and follows the ups and downs of exploring her sexuality, gender, and transition, as well as falling in love with a man who’s head over heels for her. Now, Chii is about to embark on a new adventure: becoming a bride!

Bloom Into You

Yuu has always adored shoujo manga and years of the day when someone might give her a love confession that would send her heart aflutter. Yet when a junior high school classmate confesses his feelings to her–she feels nothing. Disappointed and confused, Yuu enters high school, where she sees the confident and beautiful student council member Nanami. When the next person to confess to Yuu is Nanami herself, has her romantic dream finally come true?

Sasaki and Miyano

Sasaki and Miyano is about the budding relationship between Sasaki and Miyano. Miyano is a closeted fudanshi who’s part of the school disciplinary committee. Sasaki looks like the bad-boy type but in reality, is a really sweet and confident senpai.

Our Not-So Lonely Planet Travel Guide

After quitting his job, Asahi tells his boyfriend Mitsuki that he’ll marry him if they go on a trip around the world together first. Though Asahi’s cautious nature often clashes with Mitsuki’s carefree ways, the two grow steadily closer as they sightsee and eat their way through the first three countries on their world tour: Thailand, India, and Georgia. The people they meet, and places they see will forever change their lives.

Bye Bye, Binary by Eric Geron

No Matter What….We All Belong by Becky Davies

Love Makes a Family by Sophie Beer

Kindness Makes Us Strong by Sophie Beer

Dolls and Trucks are for Everyone by Robb Pearlman

My Shadow is Purple by Scott Stuart

Fred Gets Dressed by Peter Brown

Calvin by JR Ford

A Costume for Charly by CK Malone

A Rainbow Parade by Emily Neilson

Strong by Rob Kearney

Phoneix Gets Greater by Mary Wilson Trudeau

The Best Liars in Riverview by Lin Thompson

Twelfth by Janet Key

Different Kinds of Fruit by Kyle Lukoff

Answers in the Pages by David Levithan

Missing Clarissa by Ripley Jones

Planning Perfect by Haley Neil

Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall 

Always the Almost by Edward Underhill 

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz 

Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly 

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane 

The New Life by Tom Crewe