19 Books by Queer Mixed-Asian Authors
Mixed Asian Media - June 26, 2024
By Hayley Palmer
Wrap up Pride Month with a queer reading list! And you guessed it — all the authors here are also mixed-Asian. Whether you’re looking for a story about ghosts, a capella troupes, Filipino folklore, or a fantastical Ming Dynasty, we’ve got you covered.
Middle Grade Books (Ages 8-12)
Obie is Man Enough
by Schuyler Bailar
Written by former NCAA swimmer Schuyler Bailar, this coming-of-age story follows a transgender tween navigating the trials of joining a new swim team.
Content Warnings: Transphobia, homophobia, slurs
Where the Lost Ones Go
by Akemi Dawn Bowman
In this story, 12-year-old Eliot searches for a sign that ghosts are real so she can find a way to contact her late grandmother.
Young Adult Fantasy Books
The Loophole
by Naz Kutub
In this story, 17-year-old Sy travels the world searching for his missing ex-boyfriend after a (possibly) magical heiress grants him three wishes.
Content Warnings: Child abuse, Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, alcoholism
Girls of Paper and Fire
by Natasha Ngan
A riveting story of palace intrigue and forbidden romance set in an Asian-inspired fantasy world.
Content Warnings: Sexual assault, abuse, slavery
Not Your Sidekick
by C.B. Lee
High schooler Jessica Tran is resigned to a life without powers in a town full of superheroes. But things start to change when she finds out her dream internship is actually for the local supervillain.
Young Adult Contemporary Books
Starfish
by Akemi Dawn Bowman
A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school.
Content Warnings: Emotional abuse, reference to sexual abuse, suicide
Noteworthy
by Riley Redgate
Jordan gets rejected from her performing arts school’s musical for the third year in a row and decides to set her sights on the school’s elite a cappella octet. The catch? It’s male-only.
General Fiction Books
Small Beauty
by Jia Qing Wilson-Yang
This novel follows Mei, a mixed-race trans woman managing the death of her cousin, the ways she contorts to navigate racism and transphobia, and her desire for community as she revists a town from her family's past while parsing through her own anger and trauma.
Content Warnings: Transphobia, homophobia
Pizza Girl
by Jean Kyoung Frazier
Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl, our unnamed protagonist is grieving her father’s death, avoiding her supportive mom and loving boyfriend, and flagrantly ignoring her future.
Memoirs
Long Live the Tribe of the Fatherless Girls
by T Kira Madden
T Kira Madden's memoir about coming of age as a queer, biracial teenager amidst the contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where she found cult-like privilege, shocking racial disparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hiding in plain sight.
Content Warnings: Sexual assault of a minor, drug and alcohol abuse, disordered eating, racism, slurs, homophobia
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
by Alexander Chee
In these essays, Alexander Chee reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend.
Content Warnings: Child abuse, homophobia, sexual assault, police brutality, suicide
Historical Fantasy Books
She Who Became the Sun
by Shelley Parker-Chan
Set in an alternate China, this novel is a fantastical, genderqueer retelling of the founding of the Ming dynasty. The story follows our protagonist as she assumes her dead brother's identity and fights to claim his destiny as her own.
Content warnings: Transphobia, ableism
The Water Outlaws
by S.L. Huang
This queer reimagining of the Chinese classic, Water Margin, is a story about rebels who come together against a corrupt government during the Song Dynasty.
Content Warnings: Sexual assault
Horror and Sci-fi Books
Unwieldy Creatures
by Addie Tsai
A biracial, queer, nonbinary retelling of Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein, following three beings who all navigate life from the margins.
Content Warnings: Child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, ableism, homophobia, suicide, transphobia, racism
Damned If You Do
by Alex Brown
This young adult book featuring Filipino folklore is a horror comedy about a high school stage manager who accidentally sells her soul to a demon.
Content Warnings: Child abuse
Graphic Novels
Skim
by Mariko Tamaki, Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
Kimberly Keiko Cameron is a would-be Wiccan goth stuck in a Toronto private girls’ school. In this illustrated glimpse of being sixteen, she navigates depression, crushes, sexual identity, manipulative peers, and the suicide of her classmate’s boyfriend.
Content Warnings: Suicide, homophobia, sexual harassment, teacher-student relationship
Displacement
by Kiku Hughes
A biracial teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in this historical graphic novel.
Content Warnings: Racism, slurs
Poetry
More Than Organs
by Kay Ulanday Barrett
A love letter to Brown, queer, and trans futures, Kay Ulanday Barrett questions "whatever wholeness means" for bodies always in transit, for the safeties and dangers they silo.
Bodymap
by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Poet Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha sings a love song filled with hard and vulnerable terrains of queer desire, survivorhood, transformative love, sick and disabled queer genius, and all the homes we claim and deserve.
Disclosure: As an affiliate of Bookshop.org, MAM will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Hayley is a student living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She spends her free time sitting around with friends, re-reading the same books, and playing ice hockey. Hayley makes all sorts of art, from digital illustration to photography to collages. You can find her work on Instagram @twohalftruths.