Tag Archives: Wish You Weren’t Here

Happy Bi Visibility Day 2025!

It’s Bi Visibility Day, and we’re celebrating as we do with books starring bi main characters! For even more recs, check out past years’ posts!

Young Adult

Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

All’s fair in love and Color War.

Juliette doesn’t hate Priya Pendley.

At least, not in the way teen movies say she should hate the hot popular girl. They don’t do cat fights, love triangles, or betrayal. To survive their intertwined small town lives, they’ve agreed to a truce. They complete group projects without fighting, never gossip to mutual friends, and stand on opposite sides of photos so it’s easy to crop each other out.

Priya seems to have everything during the school year—social media stardom, the handsome track captain boyfriend, and millions of adoring fans—and Juliette is at peace with that. Because Juliette has the summer, and the one place she never feels like “too much”: Fogridge Sleepaway Camp.

But her hopes for a few Priya-free weeks are shattered when her rival shows up at Fogridge on move-in day… as her cabinmate, no less. Juliette is determined to enjoy her final summer, even if it means (gag) tolerating her childhood rival, but everything that can go wrong, does.

If Juliette can’t find something to like about her situation—and about Priya—she risks hating the only home she’s ever had, right before she says goodbye to it forever.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading Happy Bi Visibility Day 2025!

Fave Five: LGBTQ Enemies-to-Lovers, a Guest Post from Try Your Worst author Chatham Greenfield

Today on the site, I’m delighted to have a guest author writing the Fave Five: Chatham Greenfield, author of Try Your Worst, which comes out tomorrow! Before we get to Chatham’s recs of Fave Five: Queer Enemies-to-Lovers YA Books, here’s a note from the author:

I would say that there’s nothing I love more than enemies-to-lovers romances, but I would be lying. I love one thing more: queer enemies-to-lovers romances.

When I was writing Try Your Worst, I was fortunate to have so many amazing queer enemies-to-lovers YA novels to turn to. There’s just something special about seeing two people realize that the line between hatred and love is blurring, only for it to dissipate completely.

From sprawling soccer fields, to high school journalism programs, to sweaty summer camps, queer YA certainly brings the angst-turned-swooning. Here are just five of my recent favorites.

Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

This sapphic romance marries enemies-to-lovers with one of my other favorite tropes: forced proximity. Two rivals are forced to share a cabin at summer camp and the results are, like everything Baldwin writes, laugh out loud hilarious.

Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa

I’m such a fan of the way Jonny Garza Villa balances pain with lightness, and this book is no exception. This rivalry-turned-romance is set on the backdrop of Mariachi competitions and it’s so satisfying to watch the love interests find their harmony.

We Got the Beat by Jenna Miller

In We Got the Beat, Miller takes enemies-to-lovers back a step and serves up a delicious friends-to-rivals-to-lovers romance. As a fat lesbian who was a journalism nerd in high school, I felt so seen by this sweet story.

Caught in a Bad Fauxmance by Elle Gonzalez Rose

It’s got fake dating, it’s got family hijinx, AND it has the signature Elle Gonzalez Rose heartfelt humor. Caught in a Bad Fauxmance is a delectable hat trick of an enemies-to-lovers romance that’s near impossible to put down.

You Don’t Have a Shot by Racquel Marie

No one writes teenage angst quite like Racquel Marie does. The banter and tender moments are plentiful in this one, and it’s fun to watch the characters come together on the backdrop of a heated soccer rivalry.

Chatham Greenfield is a young adult author born and raised in Florida, which is why their stories often take place in humid seaside towns. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, they were selected as a fellow in the inaugural class of LitUp by Reese’s Book Club. You can find them wherever there’s air conditioning, wrapped up in a blanket, reading a gay love story. Connect with Chatham @chatgreenfield on socials and at chatgreenfield.com.

Fave Five: YA Sapphic Summer Romances

Cool for the Summer and Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler

Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

The Summer of Jordi Perez and No Boy Summer by Amy Spalding

Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson

Hot Dog Girl and Melt With You by Jennifer Dugan

Fave Five: Queer YA Set at Summer Camp

Camp by L.C. Rosen

Nothing Happened by Molly Booth

Keeping Her Secret by Sarah Nicolas

Flamer by Mike Curato

Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

Bonus: These are all contemporary, but for supernatural horror, check out Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis 

New Releases: June 4, 2024

Middle Grade

Asking for a Friend by Ronnie Riley

Why go through the stress of making friends when you can just pretend? It works for Eden and their social anxiety… until their mom announces she’s throwing them a birthday party and all their friends are invited.

Eden’s “friends,” Duke, Ramona, and Tabitha, are all real kids from school… but Eden’s never actually spoken to them before. Now Eden will do whatever it takes to convince them to be their friends–at least until the party is over.

When things start to go better than Eden expects, and the group starts to bond, Eden finds themselves trapped in a lie that gets worse the longer they keep it up. What happens if their now sort-of-real friends discover that Eden hasn’t been honest with them from the very beginning?

Author Ronnie Riley creates a world full of queer joy and all the ups and downs of true friendship.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading New Releases: June 4, 2024