This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge features sapphic books that start with the first day of a new job.
For the book to count for this category, pick a novel in which the main character starts a new job in the first three chapters.
It’s Nonbinary Awareness Week, so what better time to celebrate books with nonbinary characters?
Nonbinary people still don’t get to see themselves represented in books, but there are some great books featuring nonbinary protagonists.
What does nonbinary mean?
Nonbinary is an umbrella term for gender identities that fall outside of the gender binary. Nonbinary people—sometimes called Enby (from NB)—don’t identify as male or female (at least not exclusively or all the time).
Under that umbrella fall a wide range of experiences: Some nonbinary people don’t feel they have a gender, while others move back and forth between feeling male and feeling female or have two genders at the same time. Check out the Nonbinary Wiki for more details on different nonbinary identities.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge post features sapphic books with a shy or socially awkward character.
Note: Being shy isn’t the same as being introverted, although there might be some overlap. Introverted characters (and people) can be very confident…or they can by shy or uncomfortable in social situations.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge post features sapphic books about characters who were either adopted or grew up in the foster system.
This week’s category of the Sapphic Reading Challenge is a little different from the others. Instead of reading a book from a list I put together, I want you to read a WLW or lesbian book that was recommended to you by a friend. (And we’ll interpret the term “friend” very loosely here—any acquaintances you made on social media count as a friend as far as this category is concerned!)
So, if you have friends who are also avid readers of WLW & lesbian fiction, go ask one of them for a recommendation. If none of your friends read books about women-loving women, feel free to let us know what kind of books you enjoy and ask for a recommendation in the comments or drop by my Facebook group for readers and ask for a book recommendation there.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge features age gap romance novels–meaning there’s a significant age gap between the two main characters. People’s definitions of what constitutes a “significant age gap” vary, but for the purpose of this reading challenge, one main character needs to be at least 8 years older than the other.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge features books with a main character who’s a geek or a nerd, meaning they are very enthusiastic about some kind of non-mainstream activity or specialized subject, e.g., a video games, science, technology, comic books, cosplay, collections.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge post is all about characters who come out later in life. For the purpuse of this reading challenge, let’s define “later in life” as a character who’s in her 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond.
Pick a book in which the protagonist comes out as LGBTQIA, either because it took them longer to figure out they aren’t straight or because they were struggling to come out to friends and family.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge post features books in which the main character is a teacher or a professor.
I know some readers stay away from teacher romances because they assume these books always include a teacher/student romance, but that’s not the case with the books I picked for this category. In almost all of the books recommended, the romance is between the teacher and a colleague or someone who’s not involved with her professional life at all. If the romance is between the teacher or professor and one of her students, the author handled it in a way that avoids crossing ethical boundaries as much as possible.
This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge post features f/f romances in which a grumpy character falls for a character with a sunny, upbeat personality.
There’s a bit of an overlap with ice-queen romances at times, so you might want to check out the ice-queen romance recommendations to see if any of these would fit the grumpy & sunshine category too.