Welcome to Litsy!

Today's #PrideRec prompt is for queer comics and graphic novels and I'll be honest: there are very few I read that don't involve queer characters. RAVEN: THE PIRATE PRINCESS is currently my favorite (all lady pirate ship! so many ladies! all the ladies!!!), but I love SAGA and #wicdiv and BOMBSHELLS and JUGHEAD and LUMBERJANES and NIMONA and PRINCESS PRINCESS EVER AFTER and THE TEA DRAGON SOCIETY and BACKSTAGERS. What are some of your favorites?

Today's #PrideRec prompt is #toread. My to-be-read is teetering, and despite doing a purge of some of the books yesterday, my queer stack stayed about the same. Here's a handful of recent and upcoming releases with queer characters that I really need to get around to reading. What's on your queer to-read pile?

Today's #PrideRec prompt is "asexual character," and since I already highlighted Jughead, I want to highlight Nancy from EVERY HEART A DOORWAY. The way Nancy talks about her asexuality made me cry at work the first time I read it; I'd never seen anybody discuss the way I felt about flirting and sex in a way that wasn't dismissive, but inclusive. She, and this excellent little novella, will always hold a special place in my heart for that reason.

Today's #PrideRec prompt is "gay characters," and I read about dudes so infrequently that it stumped me for a good long minute. Then it hit me: @jamesthefourth's totally adorable all-ages comic THE BACKSTAGERS. At an all-boys school, the stage crew discover that the area backstage is a little - well, paranormal. This comic run - now completed - is an absolute goddamn delight and I can't wait for it to come out in trade paperback.

Today's #PrideRec prompt is "nonbinary character." I wanted to recommend SHADOW RUN - one of the side characters is genderfluid, and is written by a genderfluid author - but I appear to have lent out *both* of the copies that I own. Instead, I'll highlight MASK OF SHADOWS, a fantasy book coming from Sourcebooks with a genderfluid assassin protagonist. I love magic and murder and can't wait to see how MASK OF SHADOWS twines them together.

Today's #PrideRec prompt is "trans character," and I wanted to highlight a book that's been on my to-read list a while: April Daniels' DREADNOUGHT. This superhero novel looks completely fun and inclusive, and the main character is a trans girl who inherits her superpowers after a collision with the previous superhero. I've been in a fiction reading slump for months, but I'm hoping to get to this soon. Have you read it?

Today's #PrideRec prompt is "bisexual character," and I'm going with @zoraidasolo's LABYRINTH LOST. Throughout the book, you discover Alex is attracted to both boys and girls, and gender aside, I absolutely loved who she ended up with at the end, because that's not a choice many YA books make in terms of character type. LABYRINTH LOST is a great summer read, so is you haven't read it yet, now is the perfect time.

Today's #PrideRec is "favorite queer character," and my brain jumped to a dozen characters from graphic novels. There's something special about seeing queer characters illustrated on the page. I settled on the (implied aromantic, touch-averse, but on-page) asexual king-of-my-heart Jughead. He loves his dog, spends half the book daydreaming about sci-fi and fantasy scenarios he could be living, and is an utter blast to read about.