Quiz: Which Wintery Queer Book Should You Read This Holigay Season?

Whether or not you love the winter holiday season, Autostraddle’s resident lesbrarian has got some great reads for you this December! Just take this quiz and I will match you with an amazing queer book. Looking for a sweet Christmas-themed rom com? Got you covered. Want to indulge in holiday melancholy while reading short stories featuring queer Black characters? Check! Looking for a kinky Hanukkah-themed story? Oh, we’ve got that option too. How about a group of trans women friends supporting each other through the winter in Winnipeg? Yes, that’s also one of the choices. Let us all know in the comments which book you got and share any other wintery queer book recommendations for this time of year.

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Casey

Known in some internet circles as Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian, Casey Stepaniuk is a writer, librarian, and new parent. She writes for Book Riot and Autostraddle about queer and/or bookish stuff. Ask her about cats, bisexuality, libraries, queer books, drinking tea, and her baby. Her website is Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian. Find her on Twitter, Litsy, Storygraph Goodreads and Instagram.

Casey has written 125 articles for us.

41 Comments

  2. I got Small Beauty by jia qing wilson yang – I hadn’t heard of this one but it sounds exactly right for me, I’ve just ordered a copy from my local queer bookshop. Thanks Casey!

    Draw yourself a nice hot bath and sink into this quiet, meditative, introspective novel about Mei, young, queer, mixed-race trans woman. Mei has left the city for the wintery countryside to deal with the aftermath of a relative’s death. While there dealing with her grief and going through the material remains of someone’s life, she unearths some secrets that suggest she’s not the only LGBTQ person in her family. She spends a lot of time alone, thinking about her cousin and aunt who are both passed away now, as well as her mom who has left Canada to go back to China. Flashback scenes show Mei’s relationship back in the city with a fellow Chinese trans lady.

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  3. I got Humbug by Amanda Radley, which was already sort of on my radar because I do like a good queer romance, but I keep skipping over it because I don’t always love holiday romances with an aggressive lover of Christmas. May have to try it now because the AS quiz told me too!

    Because I recognized some of the covers, I tried to answer honestly but also in a way to get a new to me rec. I’ve read Mangoes and Mistletoe (it’s really cute!) and 8 Kinky Nights is already on my wish list. I think I recognized the cover for The Longest Night by E.E. Ottoman too, which I also really enjoyed.

    Here’s the blurb:

    Ellie just loves Christmas, so much that she’s earned herself the nickname Christmas girl. Unfortunately she hates her job at a London recruitment company as much as she loves mistletoe and Christmas trees. So when an opportunity to switch jobs to another company where she’ll be planning the corporate Christmas party comes up, she figures she should take it. Her new boss and CEO, Rosalind, is thrilled to have a Christmas expert to save the important workplace event. Unfortunately Ellie’s new job site is at the top of a Canary Wharf skyscraper and she’s afraid of heights. Also she’s never planned a party in her life and she’s developing an embarrassing crush on her new boss. What could go wrong?

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  4. i had to fib on a couple answers that didn’t have representative options, so the book i got, “… melancholy, longing, and the crushing weight of being alive are prominent…” is def not in my area of interest.

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      • It’s Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor. The whole blurb is: “In this collection of literary short stories, queer Black young adults navigate life, often in an academic setting, in the Midwest. Most are set in winter. Taylor’s cinematic style, precise prose, and ruthless honesty come together to produce stories that straddle the line of discomfort and recognition for the reader. Fears and desires are two sides of the same coin in this collection; melancholy, longing, and the crushing weight of being alive are prominent. Five of the stories are linked, featuring grad student Lionel, his recent suicide attempt, and current entanglement with a couple, two white dancers. In another story, simmering tension erupts into violence with a group of teenagers out on a winter night. An intellectual feast!”

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    • Another fluffy queer holiday romance rec for you – Party Favors by Erin McLellan. It’s part of a series of erotic romance holiday novellas but it’s stand-alone. Online friends meet in person for the first time for a New Year’s Eve get-away party. And there’s only one bed.

      Also, a Thanksgiving romance rec – Take Me Home by Lorelie Brown. A fake date to family Thanksgiving to annoy a judgmental conservative aunt turns into real feelings.

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      • only 1 bed. gosh, if i had a nickel for every time i got stuck in an unplanned accommodations event with an unexpected enemy-soon-to-be-lover where we had to come to terms with our dynamite chemistry while making do with a single-room-single-bed-single blanket situation, well. let me tell you. i could retire to a quaint, rural-but-hip community with a thriving arts scene and a well-attended-save-the-town festival every month where i have a cantankerous elderly neighbor who becomes my best friend in my otherwise grandparentless life and helps me to see my true heart’s desire which is to take over the town pet adoption center that has an amazing 100% forever home find rate for all the very good boy and very good girls and very good they/thems. i would be totally happy and never wistful about my one place setting breakfast/lunch/dinner tables and insist that i didn’t lack for anything companion-wise because i have a very full life managing the antics of my brief-stay furry friends, when who should roll into to my small town, but she the-one-who-got-away-ready-to-be-got-again.

        sigh, but no one gives out nickels for that these days.

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  6. I got Mangos & Mistletoe which i tried to read last year but i’m SO BAD ad using ebooks and it expired .. . . trying again!

    my approach to holiday gift giving is that it’s stressful AF and i generally just try to maximize how much of the money i am obligated to spend gets to indigenous and/or black makers of things and the USPS!

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  7. Ooh, Mangoes and Mistletoe ! I’ve been side-eyeing this book for a while so what great incentive to take the plunge.

    Whither the Autostraddle quizzes leadeth, forthwith I goeth, with Whomst I know not yet…

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  9. I took it again and got The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath

    It looks really good and I hadn’t heard of it. Here’s the blurb:

    This YA story is set in the cold fjords of Norway in 1904 and centers a trio of queer teens (an ace girl and two gay boys). Asta’s mother believes her daughter is destined for a domestic future, but Asta is determined to follow a different path. She’d rather hang out at the village theater with her friends Gunnar and Erlend, two boys who are in a secret relationship. When the man her parents have betrothed Asta to lashes out at her friend, the result is a grave injury. Asta, Gunnar, and Erlend decide to forge their own queer family. But their only option to get enough money to support themselves is to win the annual winter horse race. Can they accomplish their goal?

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  10. I got The Reckless Kind, which has been on my list for a while and didn’t know it was published last month so that’s exciting! But it only seems to be available in hardback, which hurt my hands, so I’ll have to keep waiting for a kindle or audio version.

    But when I opened borrowbox yo look for it I found they have an audiobook of The Snowman read by Michael Morpurgo so I get some childhood nostalgia as a bonus from this!

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    • Oh no you need an accessible version! It’s available as an ebook through my library and I see it’s available as a kindle ebook and digital audiobook on Amazon, maybe you can look or request it from those places? I hope this helps!

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      • Neither are available in the UK but that’s encouraging to know that there are ebook and audiobook versions already made. Hopefully they’ll be made available in the UK in the future.

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    • Options are
      Eight Kinky Nights by Xan West
      The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath
      Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrerra
      Little Fish by Casey Plett
      Humbug by Amanda Radley
      Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang
      We Are Okay by Nina Lacour
      Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor

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  14. **The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath**

    > This YA story is set in the cold fjords of Norway in 1904 and centers a trio of queer teens (an ace girl and two gay boys). Asta’s mother believes her daughter is destined for a domestic future, but Asta is determined to follow a different path. She’d rather hang out at the village theater with her friends Gunnar and Erlend, two boys who are in a secret relationship. When the man her parents have betrothed Asta to lashes out at her friend, the result is a grave injury. Asta, Gunnar, and Erlend decide to forge their own queer family. But their only option to get enough money to support themselves is to win the annual winter horse race. Can they accomplish their goal?

    Count me in. It’s in my TBR, and hopefully will make my actual shelves before the winter is over!

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  15. I just finished reading The Reckless Kind, thank you so much for recommending it!! I may not have read it had I not received that result from the quiz, and it really was on pointe as something I loved (historical fiction, found family, being extraordinarily stubborn, theatre, misfit animals). My bookstore has a sale on Jan 1 on all books left on their shelves after the holiday rush, I’m hoping there’s a copy left so I can add it to my bookshelf. And if not, I may order a copy anyways! Thank you again for the recommendation!

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