This month we're focusing on all things geeky (not that that's much different from the other eleven months of the year). Think film festivals, comic conventions, fan fiction and tabletop games! So pack your favourite dice, open up AO3 and spend the next 72 hours frantically trying to finish that cosplay - these are 12 LGBTQ+ books about queer nerds that everyone should read:
Comic Books & Fan Fiction
YA Contemporary Romance
Queer Rep: Queer Women. LGBTQ+ Cast
Reading Age: 14+
Elsie has a crush on Ada. With a shared obsession with a queer-coded comic book series and the fan fiction that accompanies it, Ada is the only person in the world who truly understands her.
Unfortunately, they've never met in real life and Ada lives an ocean away. But Elsie has decided it's now or never to tell Ada how she feels.
That is, until her long-lost best friend Joan walks back into her life. In a summer of repairing broken connections and building surprising new ones, Elsie realises that she isn't nearly as alone as she thought. But now she has a choice to make...
Indie Films
YA Contemporary Romance
Queer Rep: Queer Men
Reading Age: 14+
A Big Gay Rom-Zom-Com with Heart. Jesse Spark has a broken heart and in a few short weeks he'll require major surgery to repair it - which means he only has a month to accomplish two almost-impossible tasks. 1) Shoot his epic zombie movie on a shoestring budget if he has any hope of getting into film school. 2) Fall in love before this surgery lands him with a huge scar - because how will anyone ever fancy him after that? Sex Education meets Love, Simon - with fake zombies - in this savagely funny gay YA romance about body image, self-acceptance and falling in love, all while shooting a low-budget zombie flick!
ComicCon and Cosplay
YA Contemporary Romance
Queer Rep: Queer Men, Non-Binary
Reading Age: 14+
Glow Up meets Comic Con in this bold, queer second chance romance where a special effects makeup artist must compete against their ex-boyfriend in a unique makeup and cosplay competition to win the scholarship of their dreams... and maybe their ex's heart. Eli Peterson is a self-taught, up-and-coming makeup artist in the cosplay scene who is just barely making ends meet. While they might be slaying it with their breath-taking, innovative looks, they're also trying to save up enough money for top surgery and convince their parents that taking a gap year to focus on their dream of being a makeup artist is worthwhile. During a convention, Eli hears about Makeup Wars, a cosplay makeup competition that could change everything. The problem is that they be going head-to-head with some of the most talented up-and-coming makeup artists - including rival influencer Zachary Miller, who also happens to be their ex-boyfriend.
Fan Fiction
YA Contemporary Romance
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 14+
If you asked seventeen-year-old Cass Williams to describe herself, she’d happily tell you she’s fat, queer, and obsessed with the Tide Wars books. What she won’t tell you—or anyone in her life—is that she’s part of an online Tide Wars roleplay community.
But secretly retreating to her online life is starting to catch up with Cass. For one, no one in her real life knows her secret roleplay addiction is the reason her grades have taken a big hit. Also? Cass has started catching feelings for Rowan Davies, her internet bestie…and Taylor might be catching on.
As Cass’s lies continue to build, so does her anxiety. Roleplaying used to be the one place she could escape to, but this double life and offline-online love triangle have only made things worse. Cass must decide what to do—be honest and risk losing her safe space or keep it a secret and put everything else on the line.
ComicCon
YA Graphic Novel
Queer Rep: Queer Women, Non-Binary
Reading Age: 12+
In this lighthearted YA romance, Maisie and Ollie discover that nothing beats the feeling of falling in love for the first time.
Maisie is on her way to Fancon! She's looking forward to meeting her idol, Kara Bufano, the action hero from her favorite TV show, who has a lower-leg amputation, just like Maisie.
But when Maisie and her mom arrive at the convention center, she is stopped in her tracks by Ollie, a cute volunteer working the show. They are kind, charming, and geek out about nerd culture just as much as Maisie does. And as the day wears on, Maisie notices feelings for Ollie that she's never had before. Is this what it feels like to fall in love?
Film Festivals
YA Contemporary Romance
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 12+
A sweet and funny debut novel about falling for someone when you least expect it . . . and finding out that real life romance is better than anything onscreen.
Emma is a die-hard romantic. She loves a meet-cute Netflix movie, her pet, Lady Catulet, and dreaming up the Gay Rom-Com of her heart for the film festival competition she and her friends are entering. If only they’d listen to her ideas. . .
Sophia is pragmatic. She’s big into boycotts, namely 1) relationships, 2) teen boys and their BO (reason #2347683 she’s a lesbian), and 3) Emma’s nauseating ideas. Forget starry-eyed romance, Sophia knows what will win: an artistic film with a message. Cue the drama.
Dungeons & Dragons
Queer Culture - Non-Fiction
Queer Rep: LGBTQ+
Reading Age: 17+
Queer people have always played Dungeons & Dragons. Since the mid-2010s, the queer dice-rolling magic and might-wielding contingent have been taking up more space.
They Came to Slay is a queer non-fiction book about the history of Dungeons & Dragons within queer culture, and how the game became such a powerful mechanic for queer people. The book examines how DnD allows queer people to explore how they want to lead their lives in real and imagined worlds alike.
Fan Fiction
Contemporary Short Stories
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 17+
In Sarahland, Sam Cohen brilliantly and often hilariously explores the ways in which traditional stories have failed us, both demanding and thrillingly providing for its cast of Sarahs new origin stories, new ways to love the planet and those inhabiting it, and new possibilities for life itself. Including one story, a Buffy-loving Sarah uses fan fiction to work through romantic obsession.
As the collection progresses, Cohen explodes this search for self, insisting that we have more to resist and repair than our own personal narratives. Readers witness as the ever-evolving "Sarah" gets recast: as a bible-era trans woman, an aging lesbian literally growing roots, a being who transcends the earth as we know it. While Cohen presents a world that will clearly someday end, "Sarah" will continue.
Video Games
Queer History - Non-Fiction
Queer Rep: LGBTQ+
Reading Age: 17+
In The Queer Games Avant-Garde, Bonnie Ruberg presents twenty interviews with twenty-two queer video game developers whose radical, experimental, vibrant, and deeply queer work is driving a momentous shift in the medium of video games.
Speaking with insight and candor about their creative practices as well as their politics and passions, these influential and innovative game makers tell stories about their lives and inspirations, the challenges they face, and the ways they understand their places within the wider terrain of video game culture.
Their insights go beyond typical conversations about LGBTQ representation in video games or how to improve “diversity” in digital media. Instead, they explore queer game-making practices, the politics of queer independent video games, how queerness can be expressed as an aesthetic practice, the influence of feminist art on their work, and the future of queer video games and technology.
80s Cult Films
Supernatural Fantasy Queer Rep: Queer Men (side character)
Reading Age: 17+
A thrilling race against the clock to save the world from fantasy creatures from a cult 80s film – perfect for fans of Henson Company puppet classics like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and The NeverEnding Story.
Jack Corman is failing at life. Jobless, jaded and facing the threat of eviction, he’s also reeling from the death of his father, one-time film director Bob Corman. Back in the eighties, Bob poured his heart and soul into the creation of his 1986 puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass, but the film flopped on release and Bob was never the same again.
In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying childhood home, where he is confronted with the impossible — the puppet heroes from The Shadow Glass are alive, and they need his help.
Video Games
YA Graphic Novel
Queer Rep: Queer Women
Reading Age: 14+
The Manhattan Mist have beaten the odds to land themselves in the national championships for Renegade Rule, one of the hottest virtual reality games in existence. But they're in for competition fiercer than they ever imagined, and one team member's entire future could be at stake.
Four queer female friends will have to play harder than ever against self-doubt, infighting, romantic distraction, and a slew of other world-class teams if they hope to become champions.
Both hilarious and heartwarming, this new graphic novel from Ignatz-nominated writer Ben Kahn, debut author Rachel Silverstein, and artist Sam Beck is a celebration of friendship, competition, queer identity, and the insane things we do for the things and people we love.
Board Games
Contemporary Mystery Queer Rep: Queer Men
Reading Age: 17+
Back in his hometown of Sugar House running his family's board game shop and cafe, Ben Rosencrantz just can't seem to get his life to pass go, much less collect $200. Once he was a happily married English professor in Seattle. Now he's a divorced caregiver, looking after his ill father and a chihuahua named Beans while still figuring out the rules of retail management.
But despite his usual clientele of gamers, Ben is barely earning enough to keep the store running and stay on top of his father's medical bills. Then a local toy and game collector named Clive offers him a winning strategy--to purchase a turn-of-the-twentieth-century edition of The Landlord's Game, the realty and taxation game that inspired Monopoly, at a tenth of the rare edition's true value. Suspicious of Clive's shady, low-priced deal, Ben turns the offer down.
Then Clive turns up dead in the dumpster behind Ben's shop and a backpack full of $100 bills appears on his doorstep. Now Ben is the #1 suspect in Clive's death, and unless he and Ezra can prove his innocence and find the real killer, he'll go to jail for murder--and no amount of double dice rolls will set him free . . .
Have we missed your favourite nerdy fiction? Send us a message on twitter @ProudGeekStore or email us at contact@proud-geek.co.uk ✌
Comments