10 Gay YA Books You'll Love (No Matter Your Age)

You don’t have to be a young adult to love young adult fiction.

Whether you’re the age of a young adult fiction protagonist, or well past your high school years, these novels about gay characters will draw you in and keep you turning the pages.

So here are 10 of the best gay YA novels you'll love no matter what! 

1) True Letters from a Fictional Life by Kenneth Logan

James fits into his small Vermont town. He’s a star athlete, a decent student, and boyfriend to Theresa. But James has been filling his desk drawers with letters to everyone in his life—letters he doesn’t want to send. In the letters he tells the truth: it isn’t Theresa who lingers in his thoughts. It’s a boy. 

2) Jerkbait by Mia Siegert

Identical twins Tristan and Robbie aren’t close—until Robbie tries to kill himself. Tristan stops seeing his twin as a hockey star and instead sees him as struggling to come out in the world of professional sports. Robbie finds solace in a stranger online. 

3) The Great American Whatever by Tim Federle

Quinn is a 16-year-old Hollywood hopeful who writes scripts for movies he makes with his sister Annabeth. Then, Annabeth is killed in a car accident. With Quinn’s family falling apart, his friend Geoff insists Quinn comes out of hibernation for a college party. Quinn meets a guy, falls hard, and starts picturing his future again.

4) Draw the Line by Laurent Linn

Draw the Line is a graphic novel that follows Adrian. Adrian is good at blending into the background. He’s a sci-fi geek,  a talented artist, and gay—which aren’t traits he wants to highlight in his Texas high school. Instead, he expresses himself through his own secret superhero world and his character Graphite. When a hate crime flips Adrian’s world upside down, Adrian has to decide what kind of person he wants to be, and what he’s willing to stand up for. 

5) You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina LaCour

Two of LGBT YA fiction’s biggest authors teamed up for this story where a gay guy and lesbian girl are given equal weight. Mark’s in love with his best friend, and Katie has just bailed on the chance to meet the girl she’s fallen for from a distance. The two classmates who were once strangers come together to work through their love lives. 

6) We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

We Are the Ants tells the story of Henry, a boy with the power to save the world—but who isn’t quite sure if he wants to. Henry’s family is falling apart, his boyfriend is dead, and aliens have placed the weight of the world on his shoulders. When he meets Diego Vega, an artist with a secret past, he decides the world might just be worth saving after all. But first, he has to save himself.

7) Drag Teen by Jeffery Self

This debut YA novel from actor and writer Jeffery Self takes readers on a road trip with an insecure high school boy who dreams of being the first in his family to go to college and get out of Clearwater, Florida. He has no means of paying for school until his friends convince him to compete in a drag competition. 

8) Away We Go by Emil Ostrovski

Westing isn’t an ordinary school. To be admitted you have to be dying of the Peter Pan Virus. So what do teenagers do when they’re going to a school where no one has a future? Noah, his girlfriend Alice, and his best friend Marty spend time playing video games, drinking, and making out. An older boy named Zach invites Noah and Marty to join his secret polo club, and Noah finds out that he might be in love with Zach. 

9) A Safe Place With You by César L. Baquerizo

In Ecuador, the Grow And Live Normally clinic treats homosexuality as an addiction. The book, inspired by true events, follows Tomás Díaz as he tries to survive the clinic and an era of ignorance and hatred with his newfound friends. 

10) Tagged Out by Joyce Grant

When all-star player Jock joins the inner-city Toronto Blues baseball team, it looks like they may be able to turn the lousy season around. But when a rival rich kid team, the Pirates, finds out Jock is gay, they ambush Jock and Nash, and Nash has to decide if he’s willing to stand by his teammate.