LGBTQ+ Research Guide: 2022 Stonewall Book Award

Vern escapes the religious compound where she was raised and gives birth to twins in the forest, raising them away from the influence of the outside world. Her community won't let her go that easily, however, and as they pursue, she breaks the boundaries of humanity, changing her body in uncanny ways in order to protect her family.

A defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts. Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline. As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found

A literary coming-of-age poetry collection, an ode to the places we call home, and a piercingly intimate deconstruction of daughterhood, Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing. As a competitive spoken-word poet who draws large crowds of people, Jasmine Mans's collection is divided into six sections, each with a corresponding active telephone number where she has recorded excerpts of her poems. You can listen now, just dial! Using poetry to bring change to the world with positive agitation and hoping to prompt dialogue where there is normally fear, poet Jasmine Mans explores the intersection of race, feminism, and queer identity in her latest collection Black Girl, Call Home

Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray's niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy, and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seeded personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties -- Ray with her overworked, resentful single-mother sister and Bron with her religious teenage sister who doesn't fully grasp the complexities of gender identity. Taking a leap of faith, each opens up and learns they have more in common with their siblings than they ever knew

In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk & Robot series gives us hope for the future. It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot. Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

It's the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug's best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn't particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there's something more important to worry about: a ghost is haunting Bug's eerie old house in rural Vermont...and maybe haunting Bug in particular. As Bug begins to untangle the mystery of who this ghost is and what they're trying to say, an altogether different truth comes to light--Bug is transgender.

With the threat of deportation looming over her father--in spite of his hard-won citizenship and disavowal of Communism--seventeen-year-old American-born Chinese Lily Hu pursues a relationship with her Caucasian classmate Kath. Includes author's note.

Would-be amusement park aficionado Dalia only has two items on her summer bucket list: (1) finally ride a roller coaster and (2) figure out how to make a new best friend. But when her dad suddenly announces that he's engaged, Dalia's schemes come to a screeching halt. With Dalia's future stepsister Alexa heading back to college soon, the grown-ups want the girls to spend the last weeks of summer bonding--meaning Alexa has to cancel the amusement park road trip she's been planning for months. Luckily Dalia comes up with a new plan: If she joins Alexa on her trip and brings Rani, the new girl from her swim team, along maybe she can have the perfect summer after all. But what starts out as a week of funnel cakes and Lazy River rides goes off the rails when Dalia discovers that Alexa's girlfriend is joining the trip. And keeping Alexa's secret makes Dalia realize one of her own: She might have more-than-friend feelings for Rani

Earth's population is divided between only two existing countries which cannot manage to cooperate in any way, until a distress signal arrives from Titan's first settler. Neither country can afford to rescue her on their own if they act separately. Ambrose wakes up on board the Coordinated Endeavour under strange circumstances: he doesn't remember the launch, the ship's OS is voiced by his mother, strangers have been aboard, and Kodiak, the only other person on this mission, has barricaded himself away from sight. But nothing will stop Ambrose from making this mission succeed-- not when the settler he's rescuing is his sister.

A child who enjoys Grandad's stories of his travels and adventures with Gramps persuades him to fix up their old camper and take another trip, in honor of Gramps.

A full-throated and provocative memoir in letters from the New York Times-bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji, "a dazzling literary talent whose works cut to the quick of the spiritual self" (Esquire). "I want to write as if I am free," Akwaeke Emezi declares in the opening of this utterly original spiritual and creative memoir. In the novels Freshwater and The Death of Vivek Oji, Emezi introduced the landscape of Nigerian childhood through the medium of fiction. Now, the award-winning author lifts the veil of invention to reveal the harrowing yet inspiring truths of their personal, spiritual, and artistic journey--from the social constraints of childhood in Aba, Nigeria, through a lifetime of discoveries involving sexuality, storytelling, and self, to their determination to carve their way through the thorny labyrinth of the publishing world. Interweaving candid, intimate letters to friends, lovers, and family, Emezi reveals the raw pain of their journey as a spirit in the human world, the perils of all-consuming love and intimacy, and the hard-earned reward of achieving both literary recognition and a peaceful, joyous home. Electrifying and radically honest, animated by the same voracious intelligence that distinguishes their fiction, Dear Senthuran is a revelatory account of what it means to embody multiple spirits, to fight for survival, and to bend the world to one's will

In the vein of The Collected Schizophrenias, a genre-bending debut memoir in essays by Laura Lee, exploring a range of topics from caregiving for a parent with early-onset Alzheimer's to stumbling toward intimacy, identity, and sexuality

In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all.

A poetic and raw coming-of-age memoir told in essays about masculinity and addiction, about being Black and gay while growing up in the 1970s and 1980s.

This life story of an aristocratic trans man whose secret 1968 legal case, which forced him to defend his male status, had a profound impact on trans rights for decades is a singular contribution to trans history and the ongoing struggle for trans rights.