Favorite LGBT Books

Cassy and I considered posting about our favorite LGBT authors today, but then we realized they'd likely be the same person. So instead, to make things slightly more interesting for you, we're discussing our favorite LGBT books.

Mine is Wide Awake by David Levithan. It's about two stories that intersect. One story is about a high school boy who is dealing with the complexities of his relationship with his boyfriend. The other story is of a US presidential election where the country's first gay, Jewish president was elected, and his opponent is contesting the vote counts. (If you're familiar with the 2000 election, lots of things will sound very familiar as you read.) It's set in the not-too-distant future. Some things are far more different than I think they should be for how soon it's supposed to be, but let's chalk that up to artistic license. I don't remember re-reading it since 2008, but just remember that it was written before Barack Obama was elected, in case there are any discrepancies there.


Indeed we would be writing about the same person, because everyone should go out and read a David Levithan book.  Doesn't really matter which one.  Even his worst book will probably be better than the best book you ever read. And while I LOVE his literature and I would have a hard time not picking one of his books as my favorites (Boy Meets Boy is just fantastic), I decided that I'm going to change it up a little and not pick a Levithan book as my favorite.

Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys is an anthology about girls and their gay best friends.  I really like it because it really illustrates the differences not only between women's relationships with straight men and gay men, but also with other woman.  For instance, I remember one particular story where a woman wanted to buy a purse but a girlfriend had talked her out of it.  She left and felt terrible that she hadn't bought the purse.  When she went back, she had found out that the purse had been purchased.  Later, she found out the girlfriend that had talked her out of buying it had actually gone back and bought it for herself.  The woman realized that had she been with one of her gay guy friends, he would have encouraged her to buy it, to spoil herself and not manipulate her as her girlfriend had done.

Some of the stories are inspiring, some are sad and some are funny.  It's a really great book of relationships.  It's a book about friendships and that's part of the reason I really love it.