More Pride Month Book Recs! Yay!!

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

I said I would continue the Pride Month celebrations into July as I missed the first week of June. So as promised, here is one last post for Pride 2026. I hope all my LGBTQIA+ readers had a safe and happy Pride Month. And as always, Reading Has Ruined My Life has and always will be a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community. I hope you all find joy and respect here.

To end the Pride Month celebrations, I have five book recs for you all today. Five LGBTQIA+ reads to help celebrate Pride all year round.

Now onto the list!

5. I gotta kick this list off with some Gothic lit. Give it up for My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen! One of my favorite reads of 2025, I’m so glad I get to talk about this one yet again. I’m still calling My Darling Dreadful Thing required reading of the Gothic genre. Unreliable narrator, a slow descent into madness, a haunting manor house setting, details for days, and those disturbing, dark secrets buried within the manor’s walls; all hallmarks of the Gothic genre and all fabulously done in this novel.

4. Next up is another one of my favorite reads. Please give a warm welcome to The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta! I read this book at least once a year. I love that this book is epistolary poetry. It’s an odd choice that I would never think of, and it works so well. The Black Flamingo is a phenomenal coming-of-age novel and I highly recommend you read it. You can read it one sitting. Right before bed, you can read the whole thing. I highly recommend doing so.

3. Do I have a specific title in mind for the third spot? No. Cause I just want to recommend any book written by Kalynn Bayron. If she writes it, I’ll read it. If you really want a specific rec, then I do highly recommend Cinderella is Dead. It’s Kalynn Bayron’s debut YA novel and is iconic. Perhaps the best take on the Cinderella story in recent years. Nay, the best take on Cinderella ever! Also, I’m so excited for Bayron’s next novel: Tell the Ghosts I’m Gone. Y’all know I love a haunted house book.

2. Coming in at number two, it’s the legend, the icon, the moment: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. If you haven’t read this book, then what are you doing?

1. And finally, my number one book recommendation, even though these recs weren’t in any order, is This is My Body by Lindsay King-Miller. I gotta end the list with some more horror. This novel has it all! Religious trauma and shame, dark family secrets, possession, religious extremism, and so much more. 

Thus endeth our list!

I shall bid you all adieu, Book Nerds. Thank you very much for joining me today. I hope you all had a lovely time here at Reading Has Ruined My Life this week. I will see you all again next Wednesday with a special new review. If you can’t wait that long then I highly suggest giving Reading Has Ruined My Life a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). You can also follow the blog on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you want something not related to books, then may I suggest checking out my podcast Nothing to See Hear? I shall! The show stars me and two of my dearest friends as we talk about everything and anything. We have episodes on Disney, Barbie, bad 90s wrestling, Scooby-Doo, and so much more! You can find the show on Spotify and YouTube. New episodes go live every Wednesday evening.

Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye!