Alexandra's Staff Picks

For my LGTBQ+ book lists, search "LGBTQ YA," "LGBTQ Children's," "Queer Nonfiction," and/or "Queer Books I Have Read."

Showing 1 - 20 of 28  There are a total of 146 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Babel"
Star rating for Babel
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious...
Book cover for "Beauty queens"
Star rating for Beauty queens
Author:
Average Rating:
4.9 stars
Description:
When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.
Book cover for "Boyfriend material"
Star rating for Boyfriend material
Series:
Material volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way Luc O'Donnell is tangentially-and reluctantly-famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he's never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad's making a comeback, Luc's back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything. To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship...and Oliver...
Book cover for "Citizen"
Star rating for Citizen
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
"Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV--everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come...
Book cover for "Conventionally yours"
Star rating for Conventionally yours
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"LGBTQIA+ ROMCOM Conrad Stewart and Alden Parks are enemies, and that's the way it's always been. But when they're stuck together on a cross-country road trip to the biggest fan convention of their lives, the competition takes a backseat as unexpected feelings blossom. Yet each boy has a reason why they have to win the upcoming con tournament and neither is willing to let emotion get in the way-even if it means giving up their one chance at something...
Book cover for "Daisy Jones & the Six"
Star rating for Daisy Jones & the Six
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne....
Book cover for "Daring greatly"
Star rating for Daring greatly
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
Discusses how to embrace vulnerability in order to live whole, courageous lives, explaining that traits typically regarded as character flaws and weaknesses are actually clear paths to engagement and meaningful connections.
Book cover for "Educated"
Star rating for Educated
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University"--Amazon.com.
Book cover for "Eligible"
Star rating for Eligible
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK)

This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met...
Book cover for "The ex hex"
Star rating for The ex hex
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:

New York Times Bestseller

Erin Sterling casts a delightful spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.

"A delightful and witty take on witchy mayhem." — Popsugar

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths...and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows

...
Book cover for "The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home"
Star rating for The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the town of Night Vale, there's a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone's home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from--until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a...
Book cover for "Fence"
Star rating for Fence
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
"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...
Book cover for "Gender"
Star rating for Gender
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Book cover for "I kissed Shara Wheeler"
Star rating for I kissed Shara Wheeler
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
After seventeen-year-olds Chole and Shara, Chole's rival for valedictorian, kiss, Shara vanishes leaving Chole and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind, but during the search, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to Shara and her small Alabama town than she thought.
Book cover for "An indigenous peoples' history of the United States for young people"
Star rating for An indigenous peoples' history of the United States for young people
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity. The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics,...
Book cover for "Love all year"
Star rating for Love all year
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "A marvellous light"
Star rating for A marvellous light
Series:
Last binding volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Red White & Royal Blue meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in debut author Freya Marske's A Marvellous Light, featuring an Edwardian England full of magic, contracts, and conspiracies. Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He's struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents' excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison...
Book cover for "Meg & Jo"
Star rating for Meg & Jo
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"From New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra comes a heartwarming modern novel inspired by the timeless classic Little Women. The March sisters-reliable Meg, independent Jo, stylish Amy and shy Beth-have grown up to pursue their separate dreams. When Jo followed her ambitions to New York City, she never thought her career in journalism would come crashing down, leaving her struggling to stay afloat in a gig economy as a prep cook-slash-secret...
Book cover for "Moonstruck"
Star rating for Moonstruck
Author:
Series:
Moonstruck volume 1.
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Werewolf barista Julie and her new girlfriend go on a date to a close-up magic show, but all heck breaks loose when the magician casts a horrible spell on their friend Chet. Now it's up to the team of mythical pals to stop the illicit illusionist before it's too late." --
Book cover for "Payback's a witch"
Star rating for Payback's a witch
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"The witch is back and ready for revenge with a little help from her friends in this fresh, sizzling rom-com by Lana Harper. Emmy Harlow is a witch but not a very powerful one-in part because she hasn't been home to the magical town of Thistle Grove in years. Her self-imposed exile has a lot to do with a complicated family history and a desire to forge her own way in the world, and only the very tiniest bit to do with Gareth Blackmoor, heir to the...