When I heard that Awakened was about a coven of trans witches that fight an evil AI, it immediately rose to the top of my most-anticipated list. I’m happy to say it lived up to those expectations, from its dedication—”For everyone who feels betrayed by J.K. Rowling”—to its final page. The whimsical narrator makes for a fun contrast to the cynical main character, reluctantly adjusting to their new powers. Each of the members of this coven is complex and multifaceted, making their slow progression into a chosen family feel satisfying and realistic. Yes, this is a fantastic read for ex-Harry Potter fans, but it’s so much more than that.

This collection of stories about queer Black women is going to live in my head for a long time. If you love Carmen Maria Machado’s work, you need to pick up Sympathy for Wild Girls. They both excel at writing feminist, fabulist/magical realist stories that get under your skin. These stories explore intense, undefined relationships between women; the horror at having a body (especially a racialized, sexualized body); and the strange paths grief can lead you down. Visceral, evocative, and thought-provoking, these are stories that benefit from discussion and deep reading. This collection deserves to be recognized as a new classic.- Danika Ellis

If Daisy Jones brought you to Taylor Jenkins Reid and Evelyn Hugo made you love her, then Atmosphere can only be described as Taylor Jenkins Reid at her very best. It’s a romance and a character study, exploring what life was like during a particular moment for a very particular set of people: queer women working on the space shuttle program at NASA in the 1970s and 80s. It’s beautiful, moving, and, at times, heart-stopping. Whether describing moments of Joan’s life in triumph or disaster, Reid will have you wrapped around her finger. You won’t be able to look away—and you’d never want to. —Rachel Brittain

Maria, in 1532 Spain, latches on to a rebellious marriage to try and get her freedom from all the restrictions placed on her; Alice, in 2019, hopes college will be a fresh start, and is thrilled to meet the mysterious Lottie. The three women unspool into a centuries-long story about how far these women will go in the name of their rage and their desire for freedom. Playing on the same fears and dramas of Interview With the Vampire with a brush of her hit The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, Schwab’s newest gives readers richly painted, queer vampires caught in a multi-century web of obsession, immortality, and longing. —Leah Rachel von Essen

After Stone Fruit, I longed for Lai’s second graphic novel about Cannon, a cook, and Trish, a writer, from Lennoxville. Every week, the best friends—“on the uncool side of [their] twenties”—watch a scary film until distance threatens their bond of 14 years. Opening in a trashed Montreal restaurant with a regretful Cannon, the story returns to three months prior. Featuring mostly black-and-white art, I devoured this, obsessed with the use of color, horror influences, and complex relationships. As I reread this stunning meditation on breath, intimacy, and care, I observed what appears in red, which frames birds populate, and how they converge. —Connie Pan

This is a deeply researched, definitive biography of transgender activist and artist Marsha P. Johnson. Written by the brilliant multi-hyphenate Tourmaline, this beautifully written book shows Marsha as a whole person, both before and after the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. Many people have heard that Marsha threw the first brick during the Stonewall Uprising, but few people know much beyond that. She was an artist and performer who toured outside of the U.S. She was a poet and muse and a fierce friend bursting with love. This book also includes some gorgeous photographs and is told with the care and reverence that Marsha’s story deserves. —Patricia Elzie-Tuttle

I named this a Best Book of 2025 So Far and had to bring it back for the finale, a collection of beautiful stories of self-discovery, activism, resistance, and survival from queer elders of color. These testimonies are a necessary record of lived experience and hard-won progress, a love letter to queer history, and a reminder of the gift it is to have living elders among us. The joy in each of these stories is what has stayed with me, a joy that persisted even in periods of profound struggle and loss. We hear all the time that joy is resistance; this is the kind of work that really drives that point home and gives me hope for a better future. —Vanessa Diaz

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards is a stunningly effervescent D&D-inspired queer romantasy. When rival graduate researchers, Sebastian Walsh and Elethior Tourael, collaborate on a prestigious research grant, reluctant respect morphs into passionate love. Sebastian is a human Evocation Magus who thinks he can prank his way out of PTSD, and Elethior is a half-elven Conjuration Magus who hates the family legacy he has to perpetuate to pay for his mother’s long-term care facility. Somehow, Raasch delivers impeccable chemistry, impressive magical research, and a biting critique of the military-industrial complex under capitalism. —R. Nassor

This book skyrocketed to the top of my personal best-of list as not only one of my favorite books of the year but one of my favorite books of all time. It explores the very heart of what it means to tell—and retell—stories. Simran and Vina know that meaning all too well as characters in a world where stories play out over and over again, reincarnated to live out the same tale across the centuries. But, much like in real life, the stories affect far more than just the characters within them. Five stars? I would give this book every star in the sky and then some. Simran and Vina have my heart. —Rachel Brittain

Debut author Eliana Ramage shows as much ambition as her starry-eyed protagonist in what I’m already sure will be my favorite book of the decade. Steph knew from the first moment she looked through a telescope that she wanted to become the first Cherokee astronaut. But reaching her goal means making sacrifices, ones that seem to get bigger with each step she takes toward her objective. We follow Steph across decades as she shoots for the moon, with forays into the perspectives of her mother, sister, and other women who shape her journey. It’s an astonishing book about Indigenous communities and what it really takes to achieve big dreams. —Susie Dumond