Queer Books I'm Reading: Lesbian and Sapphic Novels, Queer Advice, Art and LGBTQ+ History
Alrighty, let's dive right in. My name is Sophia Mitropoulos. I am an artist, I'm also a lesbian. I've been trying to read more books about queerness, and queer history, and books about queer people, um just in like fiction settings, just in any kind of setting. If you're queer, or not queer, and trying to be an ally, and you feel like you have a very heteronormative selection of books, like me? Let me tell you what I've been reading. There's a bunch of queer books that I've been reading, there's a bunch of queer books that are on my list to read. I want to go through a couple of them and see if you have any recommendations in the comments, right off the bat, I would love to hear them! I'm trying to plow through books left and right. I am sort of focusing on women, but I'm not against reading books about queer men or non-binary folks of course but I'm mostly looking to see myself and my own identity reflected in books, for now at least. I figured I'd structure this video by genre, I'm going to start with some fiction. I for a long time have been looking for fiction books that are written by women, about women, and not about a marriage, which has come to refer to a heterosexual marriage but I still kind of don't really care about marriage as a topic for a book that I'm reading, if it's fiction. That's just me. But a marriage, a divorce, or any sort of violence against women. Because a lot of times i will bring up this prompt and people will be like 'Handmaid's Tale!' and I'm like -erm- not my style, personally. That is my personal Bechdel Test, I guess. And we'll come back to that name later.
Fiction
The first book that I really kind of dipped my toe into the lesbian / sapphic literature was The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith which was published under the pseudonym Claire Morgan and also has come to be known as Carol. I actually haven't seen the movie for this, I probably should, but this book is about Therese who is a retail worker during Christmas time and this older woman named Carol comes in and Therese basically falls in love with Carol and they have this very elusive hidden romance. And Carol has an ex-husband, and Therese is younger and Therese also has a boyfriend that she's not really into. There's lots of drama, lots of twists. The book was written in 1952 and it was actually really interesting for me because when I read it, I was working a retail position during the holidays so it felt really appropriate for me to be reading at that time, and it was really funny to me how much I related to a book that was so old? Because I feel like in high school, I didn't really get those experiences where I saw myself reflected in the books that I was assigned to be reading, and even in college.
The next book that I really enjoyed was called The Animators by Kayla Ray Whitaker. This is not a queer book specifically, but I've kind of been looking at books that have queer storylines The Animators is about two friends who are animators, Mel and Sharon. Mel is lesbian in the book and it's not the crux of the story, but it is a part of her storyline, and it was just a really interesting read. I thought The Animators did a really great job of balancing the existence of LGBT characters while also having them feature pretty normal dynamic lives. It was incredible read, I really recommend it. It's actually one of the few books that I would be willing to read again. I got a couple people to read it, it's not too difficult to get through. I have to do a better job of describing books lol. It was a really dynamic story that kept you captivated the whole way through and and I just thought that Kayla Ray Whitaker did a really good job of developing the characters to have their own interesting and dynamic storylines.
I'm also going to include some books that I want to read on this list, so the next one up on the list is Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers. From what I understand, Grace Porter finishes her PhD, goes on vacation and drunkenly marries a woman. Sounds interesting to me! I haven't read it yet, but this is on my list. It's been pretty popular, I actually found out about it through a TikTok.
I'm currently reading a book called All Are Welcome by Liz Parker, which was included in those Kindle first reads books. It's about a wedding where two well-to-do families from Connecticut are at a destination wedding for their lesbian daughters, but there's like something else going on about the marriage? It seems sort of beneficial for somebody in some way, or several people in some way? I haven't gotten that far into it yet but so far it's an okay read, I'm enjoying it. I like that it's about a lesbian relationship and how their family is handling the dynamic, but it's not the most interesting work that I've read yet, but that's cool, I'm cool with it.
Graphic Novels
When it comes to graphic novels, I have a couple of great ones. The first is, most iconically The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For by Allison Bechdel. I have not made my way all the way through this but so far I really enjoy it. It's a series of comics which, I'll just read the back for you. Settle into this addictive, wittily illustrated soap opera of the lives, loves, and politics of Mo, Lois, Sydney, Sparrow, Ginger Stewart, Clarice, and the rest of the cast of unforgettable characters. Alison Bechdel brilliantly imagines a counter-cultural band of friends, most of them lesbians, living in a city that may be Minneapolis. Academics, social workers, bookstore clerks, car mechanics, and more fall in and out of love, negotiate friendships, raise children, switch careers, and cope with aging parents. Hot sex to post modern theory from 25 years of her beloved comic strip. So, incredible collection. I'm really excited to dive into this. This is actually up next on my list. I started it but I want to like give it the full time to commit to the whole book.
The other book that I've been recommended is Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me. I bought it in Spanish for my Kindle so I'm gonna try to read it in Spanish. I have an intermediate Spanish proficiency, I get nervous to talk in Spanish but I'm trying to work on it. But I try to read and take in as much content as possible, so i'm trying. It's a little bit out of my zone but I can mostly get what's happening. I would love an english version so I can kind of read side by side, but I'm going to try to read the whole thing in Spanish - en Español - and let you know how it goes.
Memoirs
As far as memoirs, some of the past two that I've read are Untamed by Glennon Doyle who was a formerly Christian speaker I guess? And Abby Wambach, the Olympian soccer player walked in the door, and Glennon Doyle fell in love with her? Is basically what it seems like. It was a pretty good read, I felt like for me, some of the things that she wrote, although they were cliche felt pretty timely in my life, so I think a lot of people didn't really like the cliche bits of her memoir, but also the same time like, it's her memoir she can kind of write whatever she wants? And a lot of it did resonate with me, so I don't totally agree with some of the low ratings that I saw. I really liked it.
The other memoir I most recently read is the new memoir by Sophie Santos, The One You Want to Marry (And Other Identities I've Had). This, I really enjoyed. I didn't know a whole lot about her. I found out about her and this book actually through Ashley Gavin's podcast We're Having Gay Sex, so I was like all right I'm intrigued, let's buy it, let's see. She talks about growing up in a military family and having moved around a lot and all of her close female friendships that later were very clear identifiers of her being gay. She goes through her experience at the University of Alabama and sorority rush and later coming out and moving to New York and her experience as a queer performer and comedian in Brooklyn, so that was really cool read. I don't frequently get to read books when they're new so I'm excited that I got to read it and finish it at a relatively timely point, like she's on tour for that book right now which is pretty cool.
TBR
Some other notable mentions that I want to go through: Angels in America, I read these in high school, it's a play, it's a two-part play by Tony Kushner and it's a very intense heavy story about AIDS. There is a HBO special I believe with a lot of the cast from Weeds for some reason. I think it just has similar producers so they use a lot of similar cast, but if you're familiar with Weeds you'll definitely see some familiar faces if you watch it. It's heavy but I think it's a really seminal piece of work that's important for queers to read and understand.
That being said, I just want to name a few honorable mentions of books that I don't yet have but ones that I do want to read so I'm just going to go off first: Stone Butch Blues, I'm dying to get my hands on it. I'm going to, I will. It's by Leslie Feinberg, that's all I know about it. I just know that everybody says that you have to read it if you're gay. So I know it's about being butch and how people perceive you/ her. I think it's a novel, but that's all I know.
I also have sort of been collecting informational books just because I feel like they're worth having. So one that I got is Queer x Design by Andy Campbell. Andy Campbell actually taught at USC in the art department where I went, so I was really excited to see this and I was lucky enough to sit in on a talk that he did for one of my colleagues, one of my friends, one of my peers, where he talked about this book and that convinced me to buy it pretty much on the spot. He talks a lot about kind of the design elements of queer history which has been really exciting for me. Especially if you've watched this channel, you know that I have a lot of art background art and design, so finding the intersection between queerness and creativity is really exciting for me.
And then I also got this book called The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is My Girlfriend: Advice on Queer Dating, Love and Friendship written by Maddie Court and illustrated by Kelsey Rhoden. I wasn't really sure what it was about, I saw it on instagram and I just thought the cover was cool. It's mostly a Q&A book, kind of like an American Girl book would be when you're a kid. I really love the way that it's printed, it's super colorful hot pink and green, it's just beautifully executed. It's just like a queer advice column I guess, but it's really nice. I don't know, I think sometimes it is important especially as queer people to sort of rewrite the history of books that you maybe didn't see yourself reflected in as you were growing up.
Another book I'm looking to get is Art and Queer Culture by Catherine Lord. I saw this in Barnes and Noble, and it was just slightly out of my budget, so I didn't end up buying it, but I do want to buy it soon. I think it's just really important to learn about the history and I feel relatively undereducated about queer history so I'm trying to change that and go forward with a little bit more intention. Which also goes into books about Stonewall, I'm definitely looking for the right first book about Stonewall. I know about Stonewall, but I'd love to kind of dive into it. So if you have a recommendation, please let me know in the comments.
I also want to read A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, another one that I saw in Barnes and Noble and couldn't afford, but definitely on my list. So all of those books are really ones that I'd like to dive into. If you have more recommendations of things that you think I should add to my list of queer books that I should be reading, please let me know in the comments! I would love to know. So that's my collection of books. I'm working on developing this list even more.
If you want to see more about the books that i'm reading, my book list and stuff and what I think of everything, check out my Patreon, I've been posting about it pretty recently and I'm starting to make more books about- trying to make more videos about books, not books out videos, but videos about books! Again, I'm not a BookTuber because that's too intimidating for me, I just make all sorts of stuff. So thanks for letting the rainbow neon piece make its appearance, I did buy it at Target. If it's still available, I'll link it down below. All these books that I mentioned are going to be linked in the description if you want to check them out, they are affiliate links so if you click it, I would get a small couple pennies. I'd appreciate it, if not no worries of course, you can just google it yourself. Thank you so much for watching, my name is Sophia Mitropoulos, I've been putting out videos once a week, I'm doing a good job of it! We're picking back up the pace, keep coming back I guess! Follow me on instagram @lilmitrop, see in the next one! Click any of the links, I don't really care what you do, see you later, bye, have fun!
