The Best Book Club Books to Read for Pride

Happy Pride! I’m a little late because I was taking a vacation when the month started, but I wanted to make sure to tell y’all that. I also wanted to make sure I gave a great list of LQBTQ+ books to read with your book club.

They include thee drag memoir, romance for the astrology girls, heavy-hitting YA, and more.

Nibbles and Sips: Cream Cheese Pound Cake With Raspberries

cake with jelly and cream cheese layers — Photo courtesy of Canva

This recipe promises buttery, fruity goodness, and I’m intrigued by the blanket of free-dried raspberries (not picture here). And, it seems like you just need the typical cake things, like flour, butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and eggs, in addition to cream cheese, raspberry preserves, and the freeze-dried raspberries, of course.

For the full recipe and ingredient list, visit New York Times Cooking.com. There’s also a video, if you’re into that.

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly

This award-winning book is getting a hardcover release. It follows siblings Greta and Valdin as they contend with an eccentric, multiracial family, queerness, and just trying to figure it all out. Valdin is doing superficially well after having been dumped by his boyfriend a year ago — his colleagues are only occasionally weird about his Maaori heritage, and he has intermittent sad sex with a friend — when work sends him from New Zealand to Argentina, where his ex is. Meanwhile, Greta has her own bubbling sadness. She’s experiencing unrequited pining, and her family is in a state made even more perplexing by her brother’s sudden, secretive move to South America.

The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul

I predicted this would be a popular March release, and I was right. Here’s what I had to say about it before: “RuPaul had already made a name for himself as a premier drag queen and entertainer before the first episode of Drag Race. But since the show started, he’s become more iconic and has helped usher in a new era of Drag. Here, he offers a more intimate side of himself, detailing his life growing up as a queer Black kid in California, his time as a punk in Atlanta and New York, and how he found self-acceptance.”

Thirsty by Jas Hammonds

In this latest YA from Hammonds, it’s the summer right before college starts, and Blake and her girlfriend Ella are both excited to join the exclusive sorority called the Serena Society. Ella comes from a priviledged background, and her mom is a Serena alum, so she’s sure to make it in. Black, on the other hand, doesn’t know many people and is from working class people. As the pressure from everything get to her, she starts drinking. And then she starts drinking more. Soon, her entire life is drowning in drink, and she has to decide if she is willing to reach her goals at the cost of herself.

Looking for a Sign by Susie Dumond

Book Riot senior writer Susie Dumond has granted the astrology girlies something sweet. Gray is about to be 29 and has just moved to New Orleans for a new job. This new beginning is nice, sure, but she’s also newly single and needs help navigating the dating scene — which she hasn’t participated in in 10 years. When her friend Cherry recommends the astrologer Madame Nouvelle Lune, Gray is skeptical. But once she warms to the idea — which is low-key (high-key) out of desperation — Madame Lune tells her to work astrology into her dating schemes. So, she’ll go on a date with someone from each sign before her birthday, when Saturn will make its return to the sign it was in when she was born. This journey to find a partner before her Saturn Return has her journeying through her own needs, and questioning things she once took as gospel.