The Queer Books I’m Starting the Year With

I am currently involved in a Secret Reading Project that is taking up almost all of my TBR, so I’m not sure what I’ll be reading in January. I will be squeezing in Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly for my book club, which I’m looking forward to. It’s a queer litfic novel about a pair of Maaori-Russian-Catalonian siblings, and I’ve heard great things about it.

I’m hoping to pick up Hermaphrodite Logic by Jules Joanne Gleeson, a collection of essays about intersex liberation. I also want to get to The Hollow Half: A Memoir of Bodies and Borders by Sarah Aziza. I read the first few chapters of this queer memoir about the Palestinian diaspora and thought it was beautifully written.

Another option is Who I Always Was by Theresa Okokon, a queer memoir in essays that’s partly about her grappling with not having the complete story about her father’s death.

Those are some options, but most of my TBR for this month is still up in the air.

As for the very first book of the year, I have To Be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers, a queernorm sci-fi novella, out from the library right now, and at the time of writing this, I’m not sure if I want to have it be my last read of 2025 or my first of 2026.