Pride books round-up 2025, part 4: rainbows everywhere!

Happy Pride from all of us at the Bay Area Reporter! Here are a few rainbow-hued selections for your reading pleasure. Enjoy all the beauty, color, and individuality of contemporary queer life with these fantastic new books from well-known celebrities to lesser known but immensely talented artists, illustrators, and fierce queens.

“It Rhymes with Takei” by George Takei, $29.99 (Top Shelf)
George Takei, best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on the original “Star Trek” series, has become an extremely visible, vocal, and influential social justice and queer rights activist since publicly coming out at age 68 in 2005.
Dedicated to his longtime husband Brad, this beautifully designed, rainbow-hued graphic memoir movingly depicts Takei’s Japanese American origin story as a child growing up imprisoned in post-Pearl Harbor internment camps in Arkansas and California and how he followed his heart to become an actor.

His burgeoning queerness was a constant source of loneliness, but spirituality as a Buddhist helped him through those yearning years. An architecture major at UC Berkeley proved enterprising but unfulfilling; a career in acting and theater became his heart’s desire.

Takei’s memoir is stunning both visually and in content as the actor lays bare the essence of his youth, his decades living a closeted double life, and his fiery emergence as an advocate for queer causes, political initiatives, and local southern California social progress. Don’t miss this immensely satisfying journey of queer life and leadership.           
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com

“Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen’s Guide to Color” by Lil Miss Hot Mess, $18.99 (Running Press)
Awash in all the glorious hues of the rainbow comes drag personality Lil Miss Hot Mess’s picture book teaching their queer (and more!) readership about the vibrancy and potential of saturated color and the pleasures and dynamism of diversity and uniqueness.

A sequined array of divas escort readers through explorations of every color in the rainbow: purple doesn’t need to be “plain old purple” when shades of Byzantium, lavender, and aubergine are amongst the variations; the same applies for yellow, red, white, blue, green, orange.

Yes, black and brown are included, of course, as depicted by a host of drag kings who tout the spectrum variations of licorice, onyx, charcoal, as well as taupe, chocolate, and terra-cotta hues. A prismatic wonder, this book is a kaleidoscopic delight to share with friends, family, and the young ones in your life.
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com

“Gaysians” by Michael Curato, $32 (Algonquin Books)
Curato’s 2020 novel “Flamer,” about an effeminate biracial Boy Scout, was a smash hit for YA readers, and won the Lambda Literary Award and the Massachusetts Book Award. His new adult graphic novel debut should fare equally as popular.

This coming-of-age tale, a “gift to his younger self,” chronicles the first time young, Asian, Seattle newcomer AJ enters a gay bar in the early aughts. Flush with pinks and blues, the book’s vibrant illustrations tell AJ’s story with dynamic verve as he struggles to find community in a new city after a fallout with his family.

AJ befriends K, a well-connected drag queen, and the story unfurls with a unique cast of characters, each with their own troubles and coping mechanisms. Reflective of Curato’s own struggles as a young urban dweller desperate to make friends and find his way and connect within the queer community, this is a journey not only about a queer Asian American eager to fit in, but at its core a story about humanity, found-family, and the universal necessity for love, kindness, and compassion.     
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com

“Shampoo Unicorn” by Sawyer Lovett, $18.99 (Hyperion)
Lovett debuts with this effective contemporary tale about young podcasters spearheading an initiative to combat homophobia in their small southern town. Queer youth Brian feels increasingly isolated in Canon, West Virginia, a place where football takes center stage and there’s scarce room for diversity of any kind.

The title depicts the name of the podcast he hosts with his friend Riley, a straight biracial girl, as the broadcast seems like his only saving grace from a world of loneliness. A locker room homophobic bullying incident spurs Brian and company into action to apprehend the culprits, and spread the word about unity, diversity, and Canon’s first-ever Pride festival.

Though a subplot involving Leslie, a trans girl who lives in rural Pennsylvania, adds texture but does little for the book’s plot momentum, the book remains a great, fun, and easy read for teens who need a queer community-forward mood-booster.     
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com

“Let Them Stare” by Jonathan Van Ness and Julie Murphy, $22.99 (Storytide/HarperCollins)
What do you get when you pair a bestselling author with a hairstylist and “Queer Eye” grooming expert to co-write a queer young adult novel? It produces an impressive, energetically told story for young readers about acceptance and emotional growth.

Meet nonbinary teenager Sully, a sassy, restless high school graduate trying to be fabulous in tiny Hearst, Pennsylvania, yet counting the days until they depart for the freedom and fierceness of Manhattan to intern for a major social media influencer.

When all those plans fizzle out in fine flaky fashion, Sully must majorly overhaul their future endeavors and regroup. First things first, however, there’s shopping to soothe their broken dreams, and that trip finds Sully purchasing a vintage leather bag with the ghost of a mid-1900’s drag queen named Rufus tucked deep inside begging to escape and uncover their memory and recapture a lost legacy.

This fusion of youthful energy, pizzazz, snappy dialogue, defiance, and the joy of discovering inner worthiness is exhilarating, fun, and well worth checking out.       
https://www.harpercollins.com

“Checked Out” by Katie Fricas, $29.95 (Drawn and Quarterly)
Independent cartoonist Katie Fricas debuts with this fantastic, scribbly, angularly drawn depiction of Louise, a young queer artist with a full schedule of family, job, publishing, and personal responsibilities.

Louise relinquishes her job at a shoe store (and the clandestine romps with married co-worker, Wanda) for new employment as a library page, which is a dream come true for her as books and publishing are her true passion.

Though her life becomes interrupted by family secrets divulged from her mother and romantic interludes with a trans cook, this book has every awkward queer individual’s heart and soul at its core and champions that demographic with every smile, success, and disappointment along the way. This tale of Louise and her kooky queer life is a wonderful way to spend a Pride Week afternoon.
https://drawnandquarterly.com