Not to make a point, nor as the central point, but just queer in a real way, in its bones.

What I love about every book on this list is that it’s queer authentically. While it isn’t a prerequisite to my reading and enjoying one, it is nice to be thought of and represented sometimes and not only find that representation in glum books about queer struggle. I will rarely find, as a bisexual woman, a well-written genre novel that understands, explores and revels in the nuances of queer characters and queer culture. One of the Achilles heels of most genre novels in general, though? An unquestioned heteronormativity. At its most basic, this is a story about a possibly haunted/cursed old school, deadly yellowjackets, an old book about a girl who doesnt fit in, and various. The definitive lines of the genre novel are relaxing, a delight to tuck into whether they play into the set formats or subvert them with deftness. She lives with her wife and two terrible dogs in Rhode Island. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Montana and a PhD in English from the University of NebraskaLincoln.

What a treat it is to settle into the comfort of the tropes and structures of a genre you love the whirlwind of romances, the pace of a thriller, the intrigue of a mystery. danforth is the author of the highly-acclaimed young adult novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post. This post originally appeared in GQ India.Īh, the genre novel.

Plain bad heroines emily danforth