Seven most anticipated LGBTQ+ books of 2022

With each passing day, month, and year, we are moving towards a world that is more advanced, high-tech, and more importantly - diverse, inclusive, and tolerant. As a result of this, we are witnessing a steep rise in the number of books written by people belonging to the LGBTQ+ community. These books help readers understand and realize their pains and struggles, and empathize with them. This is much needed if we want to create a society that treats and respects everyone equally. With that being said, here's a look at the seven most anticipated LGBTQ+ books of 2022.

Set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century, the novel centers on Julia, a married woman who flees her unhappy marriage for the handsome tailor Eve Perret. They leave everything behind to settle in Vienna, but their happiness is increasingly diminished by Julia's longing for a child.

Pic credit: Serpent's Tail

The novel revolves around Fiona Lin and Jane Shane - best friends since second grade. Both women have been experienced their fair share of betrayals, and float in and out of each other's lives. All in all, the book is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and an honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.

Pic credit: Viking

A witty memoir about coming of age as a gay man, it allows readers to follow Gomez through the queer spaces where he learned to love being gay and Latinx, including Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor’s office where he was diagnosed a “high-risk homosexual.” His story is a scintillating, beautiful reminder of the importance of leaving space for joy.

Pic credit: Soft Skull

The novel winds through three epics across 200 years and into an alternative world. In The Free States of America, centered in New York of the 1890s, same-sex love and marriage are the norms. But Black citizens are not permitted. A century later, a descendant of the last monarch of Hawaii lives in the same neighborhood - Greenwich Village - as AIDS ravages a generation, while his heritage is endangered. And in 2093, pandemics and storms push the area now known as Zone Eight into an authoritarian society, locking up millions for society's protection.

Pic credit: Picador

From the Booker Prize-winning author, the book is a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. It is a revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

Pic credit: Grove Press

This intriguing and inventive novel revolves around a husband and wife who decide to confess all their past sexual escapades, including, on the husband’s part, a love affair with writer Edmund White. It pushes for a broader understanding of sexual orientation and explores the themes of love and age through numerous eyes, hearts, and minds.

Pic credit: Bloomsbury Publishing

The Women’s House of Detention in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender non-conforming people who inhabited its crowded cells. Today, approximately 40 percent of the people in women’s prisons identify as queer; in earlier decades, that percentage was almost certainly higher. In this book, historian Hugh Ryan explores the roots of this crisis of queer and trans incarceration, connecting misogyny, racism, state-sanctioned sexual violence, colonialism, sex work, and the failures of prison reform.

Pic credit: Bold Type Books