2025 Pride Month Book Recommendations from Girls Write Now

Just Another Epic Love Poem
By Parisa Akhbari
Dial Books, Penguin Random House

Over the past five years, Mitra Esfahani has known two constants: her best friend Bea Ortega and The Book—a dogeared moleskin she and Bea have been filling with the stanzas of an epic, never-ending poem since they were 13. Nothing except the one thing with the power to change their entire friendship: the fact that Mitra is helplessly in love with Bea. Told in lyrical, confessional prose and snippets of poetry Just Another Epic Love Poem takes readers on a journey that is equal parts joyful, heartbreaking, and funny as Mitra and Bea navigate the changing nature of I love you.

Light from Uncommon Stars
By Ryka Aoki
Tor Books, Macmillan

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

Marisol Acts the Part
By Elle Gonzalez Rose
Penguin Random House

Actress Marisol Polly-Rodriguez might be entering her flop era. After wrapping up a hit show, she’s neither booked nor busy. Not to mention, her former costar turned boyfriend, Miles, recently dumped her for being an “unserious” performer. To prove to Miles—and online trolls—that she takes her craft very seriously, Marisol lands a role on the same upcoming drama series he does. But Marisol quickly realizes that her hope of nabbing an award nomination might be a pipe dream. The only person she doesn’t have to put on a performance for is the show’s leading lady, Jamila. Marisol hasn’t been able to look away from her since their first audition. Falling for Jamila wasn’t part of Marisol’s plan, but even the most dedicated actors go off script sometimes, right?

You Don’t Have a Shot
By Racquel Marie
Feiwel & Friends, Macmillan

A queer YA romance about rival soccer players from author Racquel Marie, perfect for fans of She Drives Me Crazy. Sharp, romantic, and deeply emotional, You Don’t Have a Shot is a rivals-to-lovers romance about rediscovering your love of the game and yourself, from the author of Ophelia After All.

One Last Stop
By Casey McQuiston
St. Martin’s Griffin, Macmillan

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
By Junauda Petrus
Sistah Scifi

Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus’s bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds—Port of Spain, Trinidad, and Minneapolis, USA—finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both. Junauda Petrus’s debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

Tell Me How You Really Feel
By Aminah Mae Safi
Square Fish, Macmillan

The first time Sana Khan asked out a girl–Rachel Recht—it went so badly that she never did it again. Rachel is a film buff and aspiring director, and she’s seen Carrie enough times to learn you can never trust cheerleaders (and beautiful people). Rachel was furious that Sana tried to prank her by asking her on a date. But when it comes time for Rachel to cast her senior project, she realizes that there’s no more perfect lead than Sana–the girl she’s sneered at in the halls for the past three years. And poor Sana–she says yes. She never did really get over that first crush, even if Rachel can barely stand to be in the same room as her. Told in alternative viewpoints and set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the springtime, these two girls are about to learn that in the city of dreams, anything is possible–even love.

Like Happiness
By Ursula Villarreal-Moura
Celadon Books, Macmillan

It’s 2015, and Tatum Vega feels that her life is finally falling into place. Living in sunny Chile with her partner, Vera, she spends her days surrounded by art at the museum where she works. More than anything else, she loves this new life for helping her forget the decade she spent in New York City orbiting the brilliant and famous author M. Domínguez. When a reporter calls from the US asking for an interview, the careful separation Tatum has constructed between her past and present begins to crumble. Domínguez has been accused of assault, and the reporter is looking for corroboration.

Hell Followed With Us
By Andrew Joseph White
Peachtree Publishing

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.

the space between men
By Mia S. Willis
Penguin Poets, Penguin Random House

Mia S. Willis is a phenomenal poet who led a Friday Night Salon with Girls Write Now all about their new book, the space between men. These piercing, surprising poems look to familial history, rituals of faith, and the natural world to explore how the intersecting cultures of Blackness and queerness relate to each other.