(Fun!) Queer Reading List for Your Holidays

The holidays can be a lot. For some of us, they’re full of cozy moments, time off, and soft places to land. For others, they come with complicated family dynamics, tough conversations, travel stress, or the emotional labor of simply existing as a queer or trans person in spaces that don’t always feel safe. And for many of us, it’s a mix of both. Whatever your holidays look like this year, you deserve moments of joy, rest, and escape.

That’s where this reading list comes in! ✨

There’s something deeply comforting about sinking into a story that gets you. Stories where queer and trans characters aren’t just surviving, but laughing, falling in love, being messy, brilliant, dramatic, ordinary, magical, and human. Stories written by queer and trans authors who understand our humor and our need for joy, especially after an intense year.

Why We Want Our Queer Reading List To Be FUN!

We put together this (fun!) Queer reading list for the holidays because WE wanted it, and just know that you want it too! We compiled our favs and asked our friends and our online community for their favourite reads. The requirement for these books is that they-

1. Are written by queer or trans authors

2. Showcase queer and gender-diverse people in all their glorious complexity and beauty

3. Are FUN and easy reads!

These are books meant to be enjoyable, affirming, and easy to fall into. No homework. No emotional endurance tests. Just stories you can curl up with on the couch, escape into on transit, or quietly read during a much-needed break from family togetherness. 

While there are so many beautiful novels and art about the intensity and difficulty or what it means to be trans or queer, we wanted a BREAK. Being queer and trans is also joyful, silly, wonderful, fulfilling and MAGICAL! And I don’t know about you, but we wanted to focus on FUN queer books while we recuperate over the holidays.

10 Joyful Queer Novels for Your Reading List

This reading list is for anyone who simply wants to spend a few hours in worlds where queer joy exists freely and unapologetically. So grab a cozy blanket, your favorite drink, and whatever quiet moments you can find. Below are some of our favorite queer reads to help you get through the holidays. 💖

1. The Wayfarer Series by Becky Chambers

Okay, I know we’re already jumping the gun, because this is a series of 4 novels, but these novels are our absolute FAVOURITE joyful reads ever. The Wayfarers Series is a cozy, character-driven sci-fi series set in a richly imagined universe where found family, care, and connection matter more than big space battles. 

Gender diversity, varied family structures, polyamory, chosen names, and fluid identities simply exist, without needing explanation or justification. Queerness isn’t a problem to overcome or a plot twist; it’s just part of life. There’s an underlying assumption of respect and curiosity that feels deeply affirming, especially for trans and non-binary readers.

If you love stories that are warm, thoughtful, and hopeful, this series is for you. It’s perfect for readers who want soft sci-fi that prioritizes relationships over conflict and a beautiful, diverse, and kind universe. If you’re craving found family in space, queerness without trauma, and stories that make you feel held, the Wayfarers series is our top recommendation. 

(While all the books are set in the same universe, each story stands alone, so you don’t have to read them all or in order!) 

1. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

2. A Closed and Common Orbit

3. Record of a Spaceborn Few

4. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

2. All the Things They Said We Couldn't Have: Stories of Trans Joy by Tash Oakes-Monger

All the Things They Said We Couldn't Have is a collection of short, heartfelt vignettes that follow the ebb and flow of trans life through the metaphor of the seasons. From the shedding of old identities in Autumn, through the cold demands of Winter, into renewal in Spring, and on to the bright, freeing promise of Summer. 

Rather than focusing solely on suffering or struggle, Oakes‑Monger centers on everyday moments of joy: first swims after coming out, finding clothes that finally feel like home, celebrating chosen family, navigating identity with courage, and embracing the small pleasures that make life feel real and lived.

This book offers a vision of transness that’s rich, tender, and full of possibility, perfect for queer and trans readers (and allies) who want stories that reflect joy, resilience, and authenticity. It reminds us that being trans isn’t only about pain or survival: it’s about reclaiming your body, your rhythm, your community, and your happiness. Reading these vignettes feels like sitting with a gentle friend over tea, comforting, validating, and quietly powerful. 

2. Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is set in 1993 and follows Paul Polydoris, a 23‑year-old bar worker and wannabe filmmaker who carries a powerful secret: he can shapeshift. Without warning, Paul can transform his body, shifting gender expression, physical form, and even anatomy, and uses this power to move fluidly through the queer subcultures of early ’90s America. 

From college-town bars, leather backrooms, and feminist music festivals, to Provincetown summers and the grungy vibrancy of queer nightlife, Paul flits between identities and experiences in search of connection, adventure, and self‑discovery. For queer and trans readers, and anyone curious about the rich, messy possibilities of identity,  this novel is a wild, beautiful ride. 

It plays with gender, desire, and selfhood in ways both erotic and tender, unapologetically celebrating fluidity and transformation. Paul’s journey isn’t just about sex or shock: it’s about yearning, belonging, grief, joy, and the search for a community that sees you as you are. If you’re looking for a story that challenges boundaries and invites you to imagine identity as something alive, shifting, and full of possibility, this book delivers. 

4. The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta

The Heartbreak Bakery is a sweet, cozy novel set in a queer-owned bakery where feelings, breakups, and baked goods collide. In this novel, an agender teen, Syd, accidentally bakes magical brownies after a breakup. The magical brownies, in turn, cause anyone who eats them to also break up! Hilarity ensues as Syd teams up with Harley, the bakery’s bike delivery person, to try to fix the emotional mess.

In this funny and easy read, Agender, trans, nonbinary, polyamorous, and queer identities exist openly and joyfully. This is a feel-good read about love in all its forms, romantic, platonic, and communal. Perfect if you’re craving something hopeful, affirming, and gently magical during the holidays.

5. Tomes and Tea Series by Rebecca Thorne

Another full series, Tomes & Tea follows a sapphic couple Kianthe and Reyna, who leave behind violent and demanding lives to follow a dream: opening a bookshop that serves tea, in a quiet town named Tawney, far from royal politics and danger. What begins as a wish for peace and a small sanctuary slowly becomes a life filled with magic, dragons, secrets, and challenges that threaten not only their cozy little shop but their safety, love, and the home they’re trying to build.

For queer and trans readers, or anyone who's ever wanted a gentler kind of fantasy, this series offers warm sapphic romance, found‑family bonds, and the kind of slow‑burn love that unfolds alongside fireside conversations, impromptu tea breaks, and dragon‑tinged danger. 

The relationship between Kianthe and Reyna centers on care and real love rooted in mutual respect, trust, and hope. When the world outside feels chaotic, Tomes & Tea is the kind of story that reminds you home can be where love and books, and a hot cup of tea wait for you.

1. Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

2. A Pirate’s Life for Tea

3. Tea You at the Altar

4. Alchemy and a Cup of Tea

6. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Light from Uncommon Stars follows three very different women whose lives collide in Los Angeles: a legendary violin teacher bound by a Faustian bargain to deliver seven prodigies’ souls to Hell; a trans runaway with a raw, extraordinary musical gift who’s desperately trying to start over; and an interstellar alien refugee (disguised as a doughnut-shop owner) seeking to start over on a new planet. 

Fate, music, magic, and survival draw them together in a story that weaves cursed violins, donut shops, space refugee pasts, and the search for hope, identity, and belonging. The book centers trans and immigrant experiences, survival and new beginnings, found family, and love that crosses worlds.

You’ll fall for this book because it blends speculative fantasy and social realism with fierce tenderness. Music, food, and community become sacred acts of care and identity in a book that insists on the power of redemption, beauty, and connection. 

7. Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction

If you don’t have the time for a full novel, then we recommend Love After the End, an anthology of speculative short stories by Indigenous 2SQ (Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer) writers from across Turtle Island. The collection imagines futures and alternative realities shaped by queer Indigenous voices. From bioengineered AI rats and transplanted space forests, to motherships at sea, resistance camps, and spacetime-bending Indigenous magical realism. 

It spans a wide range: science fantasy, dystopia, speculative realism, and utopian visions, offering a many-sided portrait of what comes after the “end,” when old systems collapse and queer Indigenous communities rise, reimagine, and rebuild.

Each story brings together identity, resilience, imagination, and hope. The characters are complex, the futures are radically re-envisioned, and the tone balances grief or dystopia with care, community, and possibility. Reading this feels like witnessing healing, reminding us that even after devastation, love, identity, and joy can, and often do, bloom anew.

8. Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

Milk Fed is a raw, intimate novel about Rachel, a young woman whose life is tightly controlled by food rules, body shame, and a strained relationship with her mother. After cutting off contact with her mom as part of her recovery from disordered eating, Rachel meets Miriam, a confident, plus-size Orthodox Jewish woman who awakens her desire and begins to unravel the rigid structures Rachel has built to survive.

We got recommended Milk Fed for its unflinching look at queer desire, appetite, and reclamation. The book explores sexuality, fatness, control, and intimacy without softening the edges, making space for messiness and contradiction. But just a heads up that it may not be everyone’s jam! 

This is a more intense read than cozy comfort, but it definitely pulls towards joy. But for those who want something honest, transgressive, and deeply embodied, it offers a powerful exploration of what it means to take up space and want what you want.

9. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

The House in the Cerulean Sea introduces us to Linus Baker, a soft‑hearted, by‑the‑books caseworker for the “Department in Charge of Magical Youth,” who spends his days inspecting orphanages filled with magical children. 

His life is predictable and lonely, until he’s sent on a secret assignment to a remote orphanage on Marsyas Island, home to six extraordinary and often feared magical kids: a gnome who gardens, a shapeshifter, a little apocalypse‑prophet, and more mythical misfits. Ordered to judge their safety, Linus instead finds himself swept into an orphanage that pulses with warmth, vulnerability, and possibility. 

Over shared meals, island outings, and quiet nights by the sea, his worldview begins to unravel in the best way: he learns that “dangerous” doesn’t always mean “bad,” and that home can look very different from what we expect.

What makes this story especially resonant for queer and trans readers (or anyone longing for radical belonging) is how effortlessly it embraces difference, chosen family, and love that knows no shame. Linus isn’t a heroic warrior; he’s just a gentle man who learns to love and fight for a group of kids others fear, and in the process, allows himself to be loved back.

10. Sex Change and the City: An Anthology

Sex Change and the City is an all‑queer, mostly‑trans anthology from Girl Dad Press. It collects a bold collage of essays, comics, short stories, poetry, games, and experimental pieces. Everything from reflections on secret relationships and grief to rage, confusion, and self‑discovery. 

The anthology riffs on the world of urban romance and identity, but through the lens of trans, non‑binary, and queer creators. With wicked humor, raw honesty, and unabashed creativity, it reimagines stories of love, longing, shame, and liberation in a world that often expects assimilation and conformity.

For queer and trans readers (and allies) seeking something wild, subversive, and deeply personal, this collection is a gift. It refuses comfort‑only narratives. Instead, it creates space for voices that hurt, rage, laugh, heal, and rebuild. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt erased or silenced, who’s tired of neat endings, who wants messy authenticity. Reading it feels like being part of a rebellious, loving community: loud, tender, angry, hopeful.

What Books Did We Miss?

We know that there’s got to be more awesome, light-read, queer-author, queer-protagonist books out there! (We also got a huge number of incredible graphic novels that fit our criteria. So many that we thought we might turn it into another blog! Let us know if that’s something you might be into!)

Thank you so much to everyone who sent in submissions. There were SO many good books, but we wanted to make sure that they met that specific criteria. But we know that there’s got to be more, so 

Please tell us your favourites in the comments!

Also, if you can’t afford to buy these books, don’t forget to check your local library! Even if they don’t have them in hard copy, many libraries will buy copies and list them on software like Libby so you can read them on your e-book or phone. And if they don’t carry the book you want, tell your librarian that they should stock it! Libraries are such an amazing way to give people access, support your favourite authors, and to boycott companies like Amazon.

Thanks For Being Here!

We hope that your upcoming holiday season is restful and rejuvenating. And if it’s not as chill as you want, we hope some of these books will help. 

As always, let us know if there are more ways we can support you.