It’s Black History Month, and we’re celebrating as we do with books by Black authors (almost entirely) starring Black characters! For even more titles, check out past years’ posts.
Picture Books
Dancing with Water by Gwendolyn Wallace and Tonya Engel
An intergenerational story about a nonbinary child who learns the tradition of well digging in this picture book about community, hope, and…
✨️ best books i read in 2024 in no particular order ✨️
CLASSICS
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
french epic historical novel following the struggles of ex-convit jean valjean and a lot of other characters at the same time. what to even add! it's great! 1.500 pages and absolutely worth it!
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
beautiful english novel about the adventures of titular character david copperfield as he grows up and becomes an adult. just a perfect novel and the most wonderful characters you'll ever meet!
The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
a novel following three generations of the brangwen family living in nottinghamshire in the nineteenth century. you will not believe how incredible this book is! so unique and so full of humanity! ursula brangwen is the best.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
the great american novel? might be. the story of teenager holden caulfield during a long weekend before christmas. he's sad, he's grieving and he feels so lonely. re-read it for the third time this autumn. fuck the phonies! read this book!
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
the great american novel? might be. tells the story of nick carraway's meeting with jay gatsby and the great mess that follows as he gets to know him better. the very best characters and one incredible story. my second re-read and i loved it.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
her first novel! all about pecola who has a difficult childhood and through all her painful times wishes for blue eyes so she could finally feel beautiful. honestly it's devastating but unforgettable and necessary. nobody uses words quite like morrison!!!
CONTEMPORARY + LITERARY FIC
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
a very special book about a man who feels doomed by his traumatic and violent past and becomes obsessed with the idea of martyrdom which leads him to brooklyn to meet a terminally ill artist at her final exhibition. i really did love this book and trying to find the perplexing answer to what's the meaning of life...
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
wonderful and warm and hopeful story of cam reuniting with his estranged childhood best friend as he tries to deal with his grief for losing the love of his life. cried the whole time i was reading this! but let it be known, it is not tragic whatsoever, it's just beautiful and brilliant! it's about old friends!!!
Henry Henry by Allen Bratton
sorta inspired by shakespeare's henriad, so you already know it's good. the story of the eventful first year out of university of hal lancaster as he tries to avoid his father and spirals and looks for a place to store inside all of that catholic guilt. so fun and heartbreaking and sweet and i really loved it.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
a transposition of dickens' david copperfield and in many ways just as brilliant. set in the mountains of southern appalachia it's the story of a boy growing up through difficulties and addiction and losing his family and finding love. it was wonderful and i loved demon so much!
NON FICTION
Black AF History by Michael Harriot
"the un-whitewashed history of america. a more accurate versionofamerican history." just a very interesting and very important book that thought me so much. granted i'm not american but it was very cool to read this book and find out how much of what i knew was fundamentally wrong and conditioned by a white pov.
The Greatest Nobodies in History by Adrian Bliss
so well written and wonderful and so funny but also surprisingly moving. i absolutely loved all of the stories told in this book. it's just so good!!
There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
"on basketball and ascension." abdurraqib was born and raised in columbus, and this book is sort of about lebron james but also about so much more! life and all its struggles and all its joy!! it's beautiful and poetic and comforting and i can't think of a single person who wouldn't enjoy reading this.
Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1D
Choose a book:
Ash by Malinda Lo
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
Voting ended onMar 8, 2025
Book summaries below:
Ash by Malinda Lo
In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.
The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash's capacity for love—and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.
Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.
Fantasy, retelling, queernorm, young adult
Family Meal by Bryan Washington
From the bestselling, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot, an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.
Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?
When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel.
