 Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel and happy Pride Month. Today I'm coming at you with one of my five book recommendation videos, Pride Edition. So for those of you who don't know, I have a video series here on my channel where I do five book recommendations for different types of books. I have five book recommendation videos for literary fiction, classics, poetry, fantasy, non-fiction, children's fiction, a bunch. If you want to go and check out the playlist with them all in, I will leave that linked around. As this video is in celebration of Pride Month, all of these book recommendations will be written by queer authors and or feature queer characters. I will be saying what kind of queer rep these books have in them as we go along. We have a range of books here from fiction to poetry, so let's get straight into the recommendations. So first book that I'm going to be recommending today is The Confession by Jesse Burton. This is a literary fiction novel that I absolutely adore. It was one of my favourite books of last year, and this one has lesbian rep. The story here follows two timelines. One of the timelines is in the 1980s when two young women fall in love and end up moving to Glamorous LA because one of the women is an author and her book is being made into a film. The other timeline is set three decades later when a woman is trying to find out what happened to her mother who abandoned her when she was a baby, and in order to do this she ends up working for and befriending an old reclusive novelist who was the last person to see her mum. This book is awesome. If you love books that focus on female protagonists and female relationships and female sexuality, then you will love this. The characters in here are so great. All of the main characters are so well drawn, so complex. I was totally convinced by them. Following Constantine in particular was so great because we got to see her when she was younger and when she was older, and I thought this was handled so well. She totally felt like the same person across the whole thing, but you could also see the ways in which she had changed and developed due to everything that had been thrown her way. All of the different relationships in here are handled brilliantly. They all feel so raw. Through them we explore themes of motherhood as well as self-identity and romantic love. The structuring in here is great. I loved following the multiple timelines and piecing everything together about these women's lives. This combined with the realistic, yet slightly mysterious plot definitely adds to this sense of intrigue throughout. It definitely keeps you turning the pages. And lastly, the writing is gorgeous. It leans toward being lyrical and descriptive, but it isn't overwritten. It perfectly supports her characters and her plot. Jesse Burton is one of the best novelist writing today, I believe, just for the way in which she's able to pitch everything so perfectly. She always just includes the right amount of this and the right amount of that to create the most satisfying, well-rounded stories. I can't recommend her more highly. The next book I'm going to recommend today is Clouds Cannot Cover Us by Jay Hume. This is a contemporary poetry collection I read recently and absolutely loved. You will hear me shouting about this poetry collection for more time yet to come, believe me. This collection details the experiences of Jay Hume as a transgender teenager growing up in Leicestershire in England. It looks at working-class families and school life and racism and sexism. I read that this collection was aimed primarily at teenagers and that the aim was to really talk about a lot of the issues that they face today, to not shy away from them, and to not talk down to the audience. I think this was certainly achieved here. These poems are powerful and unflinching. There is such raw honesty to all of the poems in here. Honestly, I was blown away by this collection. The style of poetry is very accessible, so if you haven't read much poetry before, I wouldn't let that put you off picking this up. Jay Hume makes it very easy for you to understand and to feel things from these poems. But while it was so accessible, this didn't result in it lacking in any depth. For me, there is tons to pick apart in these poems if you would like to. I found this to be just as layered and impressive as many other contemporary poetry collections I have read recently that are far better known. There was just such beauty and power in here. It definitely made me reflect. It made me feel a whole host of emotions. I haven't seen nearly enough people reading this collection. I don't know if I've even heard anybody talking about it on booktube, and this needs to change. I know that so many people would enjoy this collection. If you enjoy contemporary poetry at all, then give this a go. If you enjoy queer YA literature, then also give this a go. Just please give this a go. You can thank me later. So now time for a classic. The next book that I'm going to be recommending is Morris by EM Forster. This is known to be a classic gay text. It is a homage to same-sex love, which if it had been published at the time Forster had written it would probably have ended his career. The novel is set in the early 1900s and it follows the life of a young man named Morris who goes against many of the societal expectations placed upon him in relation to class and wealth and politics and love in order to be true to himself. So EM Forster is one of my favourite authors of all time. Howard's End is one of my favourite books ever, and I also love A Room With A View. So honestly it's no surprise that I'm managing to get in a recommendation for him wherever I can. But honestly I do think this one is really, really great and definitely worth trying if you're wanting to read some queer fiction that isn't contemporary. This is a relatively short novel. It is pretty easy to read. As always, EM Forster just ticks all of the boxes in this one. The prose is impeccable. The settings are so well realised. Everything is underpinned with really perceptive scathing social commentary. And of course his characters are so well thought through there is so much to them. The main characters in here aren't necessarily likeable, but they are certainly complex and seeing the different ways in which they both work through their own sexualities and their own self-discoveries is brilliant. So yes, if you're looking for a classic gay text then this one is for you. The next book that I want to recommend today is Radio Silence by Alice Oseman. This is an incredible YA novel. It is one of the best YA novels I have ever read and it has bisexual and demisexual main characters as well as lesbian and gay secondary characters. So in the novel we follow two 17-year-old British teenagers called Francis and Allid. Francis spends a lot of her time studying. She wants to get into Cambridge University and she has never really felt as though she fits in with her school friends. Allid is super quiet, no one really knows anything about him other than that he gets straight A's. And through this novel we get to see Francis and Allid make a podcast together and form a deeply caring and supportive platonic friendship. So this novel is primarily about two young people who are trying to figure themselves out and just navigate their way through the shit show that is being 17. At that age you are verging on adulthood, you may not know who you fully are yet, you've got tons of pressures put on you from loads of different places and this book captures that feeling so well. Alice Oseman is known for her brilliant characters and I certainly loved these ones. They were so interesting and dynamic and relatable. They actually felt like British teenagers who knew. The central friendship in here is probably one of the best I have ever read. As I mentioned previously there is a ton of sexuality rep in here but there are also characters of different gender identities and characters of different ethnic backgrounds. None of this feels forced, it just feels like real life. And similarly the ways in which these characters socialise and the ways in which they use social media feels realistic. It isn't weird. Everything about this book just felt authentic and enjoyable to me. I would highly recommend it to anyone even if you aren't a big YA reader. It's honestly a breath of fresh air. So ending on another contemporary poetry collection, this one written by a queer and non-binary poet. The final book that I want to recommend to you today is Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith. Danez Smith is one of the best contemporary poets I have come across in the past couple of years. They have written a couple of different collections now, both of which I love. This one feels particularly pertinent right now. It explores a ton of issues that are at the heart of modern day America. It explores themes of race and violence and sexuality and illness among others. So this collection is so unflinching when it comes to what it is to be a gay black man in America, what it is to be HIV positive, what it is to experience racism and police brutality. The poems paint such striking images. They really transport you to where Danez Smith is. Getting to second hand experience a lot of these things which I am probably never going to experience first hand is so important and I think it was achieved so powerfully through this medium. The technical craftsmanship in this poetry collection is also incredibly impressive. The language choices are gorgeous, the imagery is so vivid, the sounds and rhythms created in the poems just add so much more to what Danez Smith is saying. This collection took my breath away whilst I read it. It is truly stunning. It is full of intelligence and passion and rage and I think it's incredible. If you're looking for a poetry collection that's really going to hit you hard and make you stop and think then this is the one for you. So there we have it. Those are five of my book recommendations in celebration of Pride Month. I hope you enjoyed hearing about them. Please let me know if you've read any of them and of course please let me know some of your best Pride recommendations. I always love hearing your guys' recommendations so please let me know some down below. I really look forward to speaking to you all as always. I hope you're all doing well. Happy Pride once again and hopefully I will see you all soon in my next video. Bye everyone!