International Asexuality Day (also called Asexuality Visibility Day) is on April 6th, so make sure you’re prepared with some great books starring protagonists on the ace spectrum! (For even more recs, click here.)
Young Adult
Here Goes Nothing by Emma K. Ohland
Eighteen-year-old Beatrice has never been a fan of her neighbor Bennie, but when Beatrice’s beloved younger sister starts dating one of Bennie’s closest friends, Beatrice is drawn into their social circle. As Beatrice wrestles with increasingly confusing feelings for Bennie, her usually close relationship with her sister is fraying, her grief over their mother’s death is simmering in the background, and she’s overwhelmed by looming senior-year decisions about what she wants to do with her life. But after a crisis arises, Beatrice must figure out how to process past traumas and open up to the possibilities of the future.
Continue reading Happy (Upcoming) International Asexuality Day 2025!
Thirteen-year-old Ellen Katz feels most comfortable when her life is well planned out and people fit neatly into her predefined categories. She attends temple with Abba and Mom every Friday and Saturday. Ellen only gets crushes on girls, never boys, and she knows she can always rely on her best-and-only friend, Laurel, to help navigate social situations at their private Georgia middle school. Laurel has always made Ellen feel like being autistic is no big deal. But lately, Laurel has started making more friends, and cancelling more weekend plans with Ellen than she keeps. A school trip to Barcelona seems like the perfect place for Ellen to get their friendship back on track.
Something is building, simmering just out of reach.
AI meets American Girl Dolls in this quirky novel about a group of preteen androids who have been cast aside and have to make their own way in the world.
Atara loves to wear her crown – to the library, to the dentist, even to her swim lessons. It gives her confidence, and shows the world that she is a girl, not a boy, like everyone thought at first. But when Atara reads the story of Queen Esther, on the Jewish holiday of Purim – she realises that you don’t need a costume to express who you really are…
Rae Ryan’s science fiction lets people escape into stories with flawed characters, but without identity-based discrimination. Because we all deserve a break. She’s currently working on a contemporary FFM romance when she’s not walking her silly dog, Piper, on the Colorado Front Range.
Rosiee Thor is the Pacific Northwest Indie Bestselling author of Tarnished Are The Stars and Fire Becomes Her, the picture book The Meaning of Pride, and tie-in novels for franchises like Life is Strange and Firefly. Their short fiction appears in anthologies including the Lambda award nominated Being Ace, and they are the editor of Why On Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology and This is How We Roll. Their debut cozy mystery, The Dead & Breakfast, is forthcoming from Berkley Press. Rosiee lives in Oregon with a dog, two cats, and an abundance of plants.
