A Darkly Beating Heart

Even as queer characters have begun to proliferate in YA literature, LGBTQ+ teens of color continue to be underserved—these characters are mostly gay and overwhelmingly white. In honor of Pride Month, and to shine a light on books often missing from recommendation lists, here’s a short (and by no means complete) list of excellent LGBTQ YA novels featuring protagonists of […]

A lot of factors go into making a book fantastic, including pacing, voice, dialogue, and chemistry, but when it all comes down to it, some books simply rock the premise (and make good on the execution!) so hard, five words is all it takes to bump them to the top of your to-read list. Below: 10 […]

I happen to love all subgenres of contemporary, but there’s a special place in my heart for the stuff that gets your blood pumping, head spinning, and your fingers turning pages so fast, you’d feel the sting of a hundred paper cuts if you weren’t so focused on needing to know what comes next and […]

Life is hard, and the books we love reflect that, from Katniss confronting a Capitol that seems just a little too familiar to Harry Potter feeling every inch an orphan when he faces returning to the Dursleys each summer. So what keeps us from drowning in the injustice, the loneliness, the feeling of never making progress? […]