Rainbow & Faith

2025 curated booklist

Books in this genre explore the intersection between rainbow identities and different faiths/religions. 

When the Angels Left the Old Country

Sacha Lamb

Uriel the angel and Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) are the only two supernatural creatures in their shtetl (which is so tiny, it doesn’t have a name other than Shtetl). The angel and the demon have been studying together for centuries, but pogroms and the search for a new life have drawn all the young people from their village to America. When one of those young emigrants goes missing, Uriel and Little Ash set off to find her.

Along the way the angel and demon encounter humans in need of their help, including Rose Cohen, whose best friend (and the love of her life) has abandoned her to marry a man, and Malke Shulman, whose father died mysteriously on his way to America. But there are obstacles ahead of them as difficult as what they’ve left behind. Medical exams (and demons) at Ellis Island. Corrupt officials, cruel mob bosses, murderers, poverty. The streets are far from paved with gold.

Category: NYoung Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Faith, non-binary, diverse genders, diverse sexualities
Content Warnings: Antisemitism, violence, character death, religion, racism, abuse, homophobia, transphobia, bullying

ISBN: 9781646144556
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

Hijab Butch Blues

Lamya H.

When Lamya is fourteen, she decides to disappear. It seems easier to ease herself out of sight than to grapple with the difficulty of taking shape in a world that doesn’t fit.

She is a queer teenager growing up in a Muslim household, a South Asian in a Middle Eastern country. But during her Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam, and suddenly everything shifts: if Maryam was never touched by any man, could Maryam be… like Lamya?

Written with deep intelligence and a fierce humour, Hijab Butch Blues follows Lamya as she travels to the United States, as she comes out, and as she navigates the complexities of the immigration system – and the queer dating scene.

At each step, she turns to her faith to make sense of her life, weaving stories from the Quran together with her own experiences: Musa leading his people to freedom; Allah, who is neither male nor female; and Nuh, who built an ark, just as Lamya is finally able to become the architect of her own story.

Category: Non-Fiction, Biography
Representation: Faith, lesbian, non-binary
Content Warnings: Abuse, islamaphobia, suicide, racism, homophobia

ISBN: 9781785788512
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

Going Bicoastal

Dahlia Adler

Natalya Fox has twenty-four hours to make the biggest choice of her life: stay home in NYC for the summer with her dad (and finally screw up the courage to talk to the girl she’s been crushing on), or spend it with her basically estranged mom in LA (knowing this is the best chance she has to fix their relationship, if she even wants to.) (Does she want to?)

How’s a girl supposed to choose?

She can’t, and so both summers play out in alternating timelines – one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the girl she’s always wanted. And one in which Natalya explores the city, tries to repair things with her mom, works on figuring out her future, and goes for the guy she never saw coming.

Category: Young Adult, Romance
Representation: Faith, bisexual
Content Warnings: Sexual activity, self harm, suicide, substance use/abuse, mental illness

ISBN: 9781250871640
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

Release

Patrick Ness

Adam Thorn doesn’t know it yet, but today will change his life.

Between his religious family, a deeply unpleasant ultimatum from his boss, and his own unrequited love for his sort-of ex, Enzo, it seems as though Adam’s life is falling apart.  At least he has two people to keep him sane: his new boyfriend (he does love Linus, doesn’t he?) and his best friend, Angela.

But all day long, old memories and new heartaches come crashing together, throwing Adam’s life into chaos. The bindings of his world are coming untied one by one; yet in spite of everything he has to let go, he may also find freedom in the release.

Category: Young Adult
Representation: Faith, gay
Content Warnings: Homophobia, religion, violence, sexual activity, sexual violence, substance use/abuse, bullying, character death

ISBN: 9780062403209
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

Blue Skinned Gods

SJ Sindu

In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s tenth year, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.

Over the next decade, his family unravels, and every relationship he relied on—father, mother, aunt, uncle, cousin—starts falling apart. Traveling from India to the underground rock scene of New York City, Blue-Skinned Gods explores ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, and spans continents and faiths, in an expansive and heartfelt look at the need for belief in our globally interconnected world.

Category: New Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Bisexual, diverse sexualities, diverse genders
Content Warnings: Religion, abuse, suicide, self-harm, character death, transphobia, sexual activity, sexual violence, violence

ISBN: 9781641292429
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School

Sonora Reyes

Seventeen-year-old Yamilet Flores prefers drawing attention for her killer eyeliner, not for being one of the only Mexican kids at her new, mostly white, very rich, Catholic school. But at least here no one knows she’s gay, and Yami intends to keep it that way.

After being outed by her crush and ex-best friend before transferring to Slayton Catholic, Yami has new priorities: keep her brother out of trouble, make her mom proud, and most importantly, don’t fall in love. Granted, she’s never been great at any of those things, but that’s a problem for Future Yami. The thing is, it’s hard to fake being straight when Bo, the only openly queer girl at school, is so annoyingly perfect. And smart. And talented. And confident. And cute. So cute. But Yami isn’t sure if she likes Bo or if she’s just jealous of her unapologetic nature. Either way, she isn’t ready to make the same mistake again. If word got to her mom, she could face a lot worse than rejection.

WWJD? No. WWSGD: What would a straight girl do? By turns hilarious, poignant, and searingly honest, The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School explores the joys and heartaches of stepping into your full truth in a world that, too often, tells queer people of color not to be too much of themselves

Category: Young Adult
Representation: Bisexual, lesbian, gay, BIPOC
Content Warnings: Discrimination, mental illness, suicide, racism, homophobia

ISBN: 9780063060234
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

The Henna Wars

Adiba Jaigirdar

When Dimple Met Rishi meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this rom com about two teen girls with rival henna businesses.

When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she also doesn’t want to lose her relationship with her family. And her life only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life.

Flávia is beautiful and charismatic and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture. Amidst sabotage and school stress, their lives get more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush on Flávia, and realises there might be more to her than she realised.

Category: Young Adult
Representation: Bisexual, lesbian, BIPOC
Content Warnings: Islamophobia, homophobia, religion, racism, bullying, discrimination

ISBN: ‎9781624149689
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

From Dust, a Flame

Rebecca Podos

On her seventeenth birthday, Hannah Williams begins exhibiting impossible, temporary mutations–gills one day and horns the next–that are the consequences of a desperate bargain her mother made with a sheyd decades ago, and to break the family curse, Hannah and her brother track down their mother’s estranged family and discover a legacy that traces back to the Golem of Prague

Category: Young Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Lesbian, non-binary, gay
Content Warnings: character death, discrimination, violence, antisemitism

ISBN: 9780062699060
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

You Asked for Perfect

Laura Silverman

Ariel Stone has spent his life cultivating the perfect college résumé: first chair violinist, dedicated volunteer, active synagogue congregant, and expected valedictorian. He barely has time to think about a social life, let alone a relationship…until a failed calculus quiz puts his future on the line, forcing Ariel to enlist his classmate, Amir, as a tutor.

As the two spend more time together, Ariel discovers he may not like calculus, but he does like Amir. When he’s with Amir, the crushing academic pressure fades away on, and a fuller and brighter world comes into focus. But college deadlines are still looming. And adding a new relationship to his long list of commitments may just push Ariel past his limit.

In a time where academic pressure on stressed teens couldn’t be higher, You Asked for Perfect is a story full of empathy, honesty and heart for anyone who has ever questioned the price of perfection

Category: Young Adult, Romance
Representation: Bisexual, gay
Content Warnings: Mental illness, religion, self harm, substance use/abuse

ISBN: 9781492658276
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen

Amrou Al-Kadhi

From a god-fearing Muslim boy enraptured with their mother, to a vocal, queer drag queen estranged from their family, this is a heart-breaking and hilarious memoir about the author’s fight to be true to themself.

My name is Amrou Al-Kadhi – by day. By night, I am Glamrou, an empowered, fearless and acerbic drag queen who wears seven-inch heels and says the things that nobody else dares to.

Category: Non-fiction, Autobiography
Representation: Diverse genders, non-binary, gay, BIPOC
Content Warnings: Abuse, conversion therapy, religion, discrimination, sexual violence, mental illness, sexual activity, substance use/abuse, self harm

ISBN: 9780008306106
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

We Have Always Been Here

Samra Habib

Samra Habib has spent most of her life searching for the safety to be herself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, she faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From her parents, she internalized the lesson that revealing her identity could put her in grave danger.

When her family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, her need for a safe space–in which to grow and nurture her creative, feminist spirit–became dire. The men in her life wanted to police her, the women in her life had only shown her the example of pious obedience, and her body was a problem to be solved.

So begins an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality, a journey that takes her to the far reaches of the globe to uncover a truth that was within her all along. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one’s truest self.

Category: Autobiography, Non-Fiction
Representation: Lesbian, BIPOC
Content Warnings: Religion, sexual violence, islamophobia, homophobia, suicide, racism, transphobia, bullying, abuse

ISBN: 9780735235007
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

The Love and Lies of Rukshana Ali

Sabina Khan

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations, but lately she’s finding that harder and harder to do. She rolls her eyes instead of screaming when they blatantly favor her brother and she dresses conservatively at home, saving her crop tops and makeup for parties her parents don’t know about. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life in Seattle and her new life at Caltech, where she can pursue her dream of becoming an engineer.

But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend Ariana, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart. Her parents are devastated; being gay may as well be a death sentence in the Bengali community. They immediately whisk Rukhsana off to Bangladesh, where she is thrown headfirst into a world of arranged marriages and tradition. Only through reading her grandmother’s old diary is Rukhsana able to gain some much needed perspective.

Rukhsana realises she must find the courage to fight for her love, but can she do so without losing everyone and everything in her life?

Category: Young Adult
Representation: Lesbian
Content Warnings: religion, sexual violence, homophobia, islamnaphobia, abuse, character death

ISBN: 9781338576283
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

The God Box

Alex Sanchez

High school senior Paul has dated Angie since middle school, and they’re good together. They have a lot of the same interests, like singing in their church choir and being active in Bible club. But when Manuel transfers to their school, Paul has to rethink his life. Manuel is the first openly gay teen anyone in their small town has ever met, and yet he says he’s also a committed Christian. Talking to Manuel makes Paul reconsider thoughts he has kept hidden, and listening to Manuel’s interpretation of Biblical passages on homosexuality causes Paul to reevaluate everything he believed. Manuel’s outspokenness triggers dramatic consequences at school, culminating in a terrifying situation that leads Paul to take a stand.

Lambda Literary Award-winning author Alex Sanchez tackles a subject ripped from the headlines in this exciting and thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be both religious and gay.

Category: Young Adult
Representation: Gay
Content Warnings: Religion, conversion therapy, violence, discrimination, suicide

ISBN: 9781416909002
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)

A Church for all

Gayle E. Pitman

This simple, lyrical story celebrates a Sunday morning at an inclusive church that embraces all people regardless of age, class, race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. All are welcome at the church for all!

Category: Children, Children’s Picture Book
Representation: Diverse genders, diverse sexualities
Content Warnings: religion

ISBN: 9780807511794
Find it in your local library (WorldCat)