Literary Fiction

A structurally brilliant novel that follows one unforgettable man through decades of love, loss, and resilience. Isaac Dahl is warm, funny, and achingly real—and this book will stay with you long after you finish it.

Dream Boy is devastating, lyrical, and deeply felt—a story about survival, desire, and the fraught intimacy between two boys with nowhere else to turn. The prose is stunning, the characters achingly real. But a supernatural turn and one scene that crosses into exploitation left me uncertain. Still, this is a book that lingers. A conflicted A-.

Fifteen-year-old Theron meets Jake in rural New Hampshire, and over the next two decades, they drift together and apart through music, drugs, and a complicated love that defies easy categories. August Thompson's debut is an atmospheric, beautifully written meditation on desire, identity, and the people who shape us. It's devastating, precise, and completely unputdownable.

V.E. Schwab wrote a vampire book that cares more about longing than blood. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil follows three queer women across centuries making fascinating mistakes. A gorgeous slow burn with beautiful prose and characters who feel achingly real.

Carys Davies' "Clear" delivers an achingly beautiful gay love story set against 1843 Scotland's Highland Clearances. A minister sent to evict a man falls for him instead—stunning prose, earned intimacy, perfect ending.

Five powerful novels that capture the gay male experience across generations. Essential stories of love, loss, courage, and what it means to live authentically.

In 1950s Paris, American expatriate David finds himself torn between his fiancée Hella and his passionate relationship with Giovanni. Baldwin's luminous prose captures a man struggling with desire, shame, and the cost of living authentically.

This Booker-winning novel has gorgeous prose and vital AIDS themes, but Nick Guest never comes alive. A respectful B-.

The South by Tash Aw isn't a will-they-won't-they story—it's about the texture of desire and what happens when private longing collides with public crisis. Though set during Malaysia's 1997 financial collapse, for Jay, the real revolution is internal. The way he and Chuan move around each other—the dialogue, the small decisions, the moments of connection—all of it rang completely true.

John Boyne's A Ladder to the Sky: A brilliant, unsettling literary thriller about morally bankrupt characters in the publishing world. Disturbing, compelling, and impossible to put down.

Wild Dark Shore is a beautifully written book that achieves what it sets out to do, even if what it sets out to do occasionally feels a bit too earnest for its own good. Worth reading, but maybe temper those sky-high expectations.

A masterfully paced novel that transforms personal survival into political awakening—essential reading.

Vuong's poetic restraint creates something beautiful and authentic—but that same restraint might keep you at arm's length from the emotional core you're craving.satisfying ways.

A raw, lyrical elegy to love, memory, and the fragile beauty of growing into yourself when the world never gave you a map—Vuong’s novel doesn’t just break your heart, it teaches you how to listen for its echo.

A brilliant, queer debut exploring grief, addiction, and spiritual yearning—Martyr! is poetic, strange, and shattering in all the best ways.

A quietly radical novel of gay awakening, Maurice finds tenderness in unexpected places and dares to imagine a love that doesn’t have to end in silence.

A powerful meditation on grief and isolation, A Single Man captures with poignant clarity the profound loneliness of losing the person who mattered most.

A lyrical, quietly powerful story of first love and longing, Lie With Me traces the fragile beauty of a hidden romance and the ache it leaves behind across a lifetime.

A tender, poetic coming-of-age that sees gayness through the lens of vulnerability and cultural identity. Sáenz's lyrical prose elevates what could be a simple story into something achingly beautiful—even when it occasionally prioritizes introspection over action.

Four college friends navigate life in New York, but as Jude's traumatic past takes center stage, "A Little Life" drowns in its own misery. Beautiful prose can't save a novel that fundamentally misunderstands gay relationships and mistakes relentless suffering for emotional depth. A disappointing marathon that left me unmoved.