Bisexual | Queer Books for Teens

27 Hours

By Tristina Wright

After humanity colonized a moon, indigenous creatures called chimeras rose up, and it has been a fight for survival since. A group of teens explore their home, finding dark secrets and dangerous facts.

Publisher’s Description:

“Rumor Mora fears two things: hellhounds too strong for him to kill, and failure. Jude Welton has two dreams: for humans to stop killing monsters, and for his strange abilities to vanish.

But in no reality should a boy raised to love monsters fall for a boy raised to kill them.

Nyx Llorca keeps two secrets: the moon speaks to her, and she’s in love with her best friend, Dahlia. Braeden Tennant wants two things: to get out from his mother’s shadow, and to unlearn his colony’s darkest secret.

To save everyone they love, they’ll both have to commit treason.

During one twenty-seven-hour night, these four runaways must stop the war between the colonies and the monsters from becoming a war of extinction, or the things they fear most will be all that’s left.”

Genre: Science Fiction

Representation:
Gender:
Cis boys: Rumor, Jude, Braeden
Cis girls: Nyx
Trans girl: Dahlia
There is a side character who uses they/them pronouns.

Sexual and Romantic Orientation
Rumor is bisexual.
Nyx is canon pansexual
Braeden is asexual and has two moms.

Race/Ethnicity:
Rumor is mixed Nigerian, Portuguese & Indian
Nyx has Cuban ancestry
Dahlia is Afro-Latinx
Jude and Braeden are white

Disability:
Nyx is Deaf and uses ASL; her abuela is also Deaf.

Own Voices: own voices for bisexuality

Additional Notes:
Colonialism. Read Aimal’s review of problematic racial and colonialist representation here.

Away We Go

By Emil Ostrovski

The U.S. has an epidemic known as the Peter Pan Virus, which only affects children, most of which are not expected to live to 18. Noah is sent to a special school where’s quarantined with his girlfriend, his best friend, the boy he has a crush on, with only time to kill. He meditates on the brevity of life, the value of love, and the loss of hope.

Publisher’s Description

Westing is not your typical school. For starters, you have to have one very important quality in order to be admitted—you have to be dying. Every student at Westing has been diagnosed with PPV, or the Peter Pan Virus. No one is expected to live to graduation.

What do you do when you go to a school where no one has a future? Noah Falls, his girlfriend Alice, and his best friend Marty spend their time drinking, making out, and playing video games on awaywego.com. But when an older boy named Zach (who Noah may or may not be in love with) invites Noah and Marty to join his secret Polo Club, the lives of both boys change as they struggle to find meaning in their shortened existence.

With an innovative format that includes interstitial documents, such as flyers, postcards, and handwritten notes, Away We Go is a funny, honest look at first love and tragic heartbreak.

Genre: Contemporary, science fiction

Representation:
Gender:
Cis boys: Noah, Zach

Sexual Orientation:
Gay/Queer/Bisexual: Noah, Zach

Romantic Orientation:
Biromantic or homoromantic: Noah, Zach

Race/Ethnicity:
White

Disability:
‘Peter Pan Virus’ – death at a young age

Trigger warnings: Death

Wild Beauty

By Anna-Marie McLemore

A magic garden is tended to by a family of women who can never leave and never love. When a boy appears in the garden with no memory of his past or who he is, they discover secrets of their garden and the power of their family.

Check out this book and more on our best of list for books with Latinx characters.

Publisher’s Description:

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They’ve also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.

The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.

Genre: Fantasy/Magical Realism

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Estrella
There is a genderqueer side character.

Sexual and Romantic Orientation:
Estrella is bisexual and biromantic

Race/Ethnicity:
Estrella is Latinx

Ownvoices: The author is Mexican-American and Queer.

Noteworthy

By Riley Redgate

Jordan Sun attends the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts and has been shut out of her program of choice again. To keep her academic career going, she joins the Sharpshooters, the a cappella octet that’s all male. She struggles to keep up the charade while crushing on boys, crushing on girls, and staying herself.

Publisher’s Description:

A cappella just got a makeover.

Jordan Sun is embarking on her junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts, hopeful that this will be her time: the year she finally gets cast in the school musical. But when her low Alto 2 voice gets her shut out for the third straight year—threatening her future at Kensington-Blaine and jeopardizing her college applications—she’s forced to consider nontraditional options.

In Jordan’s case, really nontraditional. A spot has opened up in the Sharpshooters, Kensington’s elite a cappella octet. Worshipped…revered…all male. Desperate to prove herself, Jordan auditions in her most convincing drag, and it turns out that Jordan Sun, Tenor 1, is exactly what the Sharps are looking for.

Jordan finds herself enmeshed in a precarious juggling act: making friends, alienating friends, crushing on a guy, crushing on a girl, and navigating decades-old rivalries. With her secret growing heavier every day, Jordan pushes beyond gender norms to confront what it means to be a girl (and a guy) in a male-dominated society, and—most importantly—what it means to be herself.

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Jordan

Sexuality:
Bisexual: Jordan

Romantic Orientation:
Not mentioned in the book. Presumed to be the same as the characters’ sexual orientation.

Race/Ethnicity:
Chinese American: Jordan

Trigger Warnings:

Additional Notes:
Some trans/nonbinary readers feel that the discussion around cross-dressing and cis privilege is not complex enough, but some trans/nonbinary readers disagree.

Ownvoices: Ownvoices for bisexuality.

The You I’ve Never Known

By Ellen Hopkins

Ariel thought she knew everything about her life until her estranged mother shows up and claims her father kidnapped her as a child. Maya is running away from her abusive mother into the arms of an older man and is already pregnant. Their two stories are intertwined.

Publisher’s Description:

For as long as she can remember, it’s been just Ariel and Dad. Ariel’s mom disappeared when she was a baby. Dad says home is wherever the two of them are, but Ariel is now seventeen and after years of new apartments, new schools, and new faces, all she wants is to put down some roots. Complicating things are Monica and Gabe, both of whom have stirred a different kind of desire.

Maya’s a teenager who’s run from an abusive mother right into the arms of an older man she thinks she can trust. But now she’s isolated with a baby on the way, and life’s getting more complicated than Maya ever could have imagined…

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Ariel

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Ariel

Romantic Orientation:
Biromantic: Ariel

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Ariel

Trigger Warnings:
Internalized Biphobia/Bimisia

Additional Notes: Written in verse

Star-crossed

By Barbara Dee

Mattie is so excited to be in the eighth grade play, even when she finds out she’s playing Romeo opposite Gemma Braithwaite. She finds herself having a crush on both Gemma and a boy named Elijah all to the backdrop of Shakespearean drama.

Publisher’s Description:

Mattie, a star student and passionate reader, is delighted when her English teacher announces the eighth grade will be staging Romeo and Juliet. And she is even more excited when, after a series of events, she finds herself playing Romeo, opposite Gemma Braithwaite’s Juliet. Gemma, the new girl at school, is brilliant, pretty, outgoing—and, if all that wasn’t enough: British.

As the cast prepares for opening night, Mattie finds herself growing increasingly attracted to Gemma and confused, since, just days before, she had found herself crushing on a boy named Elijah. Is it possible to have a crush on both boys AND girls? If that wasn’t enough to deal with, things backstage at the production are starting to rival any Shakespearean drama!

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Mattie

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Mattie

Romantic Orientation:
Not explicitly addressed.

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Mattie

Autoboyography

By Christina Lauren

Tanner is one year away from escaping his Mormon town in Utah and returning to the California lifestyle he’s more familiar with. But when he takes Seminar on a dare, he meets Mormon prodigy Sebastian and completely falls for him.

Publisher’s Description

Three years ago, Tanner Scott’s family relocated from California to Utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. Now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out-of-state college freedom, Tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of Utah.

But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis boys: Tanner, Sebastian

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Tanner
Gay/Queer: Sebastian

Romantic Orientation:
Biromantic: Tanner
Homoromantic: Sebastian

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Sebastian, Tanner

Religion:
Christianity (Mormon), Judaism

Trigger warnings: Homophobia, religious rejection

Riptide Summer (Honey Girl #2)

By Lisa Freeman

Nani is at the top of the State Beach lineup and is spending her summer with her boyfriend Nigel and her girlfriend Rox. When her relationships begin to crumble, Nani has to recruit new Honey Girls or lose her top position and her reputation.

Publisher’s Description:

The year is 1973, and Nani is firmly established as one of the top girls in the State Beach lineup. She’s looking forward to a long, relaxing summer of days spent in the sun with her surfer boyfriend, and to secret nights with Rox, the lineup’s queen supreme.

But when surf god Nigel breaks her heart, and Rox reveals a secret that tears their friendship—and the lineup—apart, Nani is left to pick up the pieces. If she can’t recruit new Honey Girls to the lineup, the friends will lose their reputation as the beach’s top babes.

With the summer spiraling out of control, Nani starts to question everything she’s always believed about how to rule the beach. Maybe it’s time to leave the rules behind, starting with the most important one:

Girls don’t surf.

Genre: Historical Fiction

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Nani

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Nani

Romantic Orientation:
Not explicitly addressed.

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Nani

Rough Patch

By Nicole Markotic

Kiera starts high school with her boy crazy BFF and figure skating dreams, but she doesn’t know how to tell her friends or family she no sure if she wants a boyfriend. As she grapples with her bisexuality, she meets Jayne, and it seems like everything is going off the rails.

Publisher’s Description:

When fifteen-year-old Keira starts high school, she almost wishes she could write “Hi, my name is Keira, and I’m bisexual!” on her nametag. Needless to say, she’s actually terrified to announce—let alone fully explore—her sexuality. Quirky but shy, loyal yet a bit zany, Keira navigates her growing interest in kissing both girls and boys while not alienating her BFF, boy-crazy Sita. As the two acclimate to their new high school, they manage to find lunch tablemates and make lists of the school’s cutest boys. But Keira is caught “in between”—unable to fully participate, yet too scared to come clean.

She’s also feeling the pressure of family: parents who married too young and have differing parenting styles; a younger sister in a wheelchair from whom adults expect either too little or too much; and her popular older brother who takes pleasure in taunting Keira. She finds solace in preparing for the regional finals of figure skating, a hobby she knows is geeky and “het girl” yet instills her with confidence. But when she meets a girl named Jayne who seems perfect for her, she isn’t so confident she can pull off her charade any longer.

Genre: Contemporary

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Keira

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Keira

Romantic Orientation:
Not explicitly addressed.

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Keira

Trigger Warnings:
Homophobia, biphobia, Keira gets stabbed in a homophobic attack at the end of the book.

Ownvoices: Queer

A Good Idea

By Cristina Moracho

Fin returns to her hometown after the mysterious death of her best friend Betty, to which Betty’s boyfriend confessed. But as Fin investigates, she discovers everyone in town is hiding something, and things may not be what they seem.

Publisher’s Description

Fin and Betty’s close friendship survived Fin’s ninth-grade move from their coastal Maine town to Manhattan. Calls, letters, and summer visits continued to bind them together, and in the fall of their senior year, they both applied to NYU, planning to reunite for good as roommates.

Then Betty disappears. Her ex-boyfriend Calder admits to drowning her, but his confession is thrown out, and soon the entire town believes he was coerced and Betty has simply run away. Fin knows the truth, and she returns to Williston for one final summer, determined to get justice for her friend, even if it means putting her loved ones—and herself—at risk.

But Williston is a town full of secrets, where a delicate framework holds everything together, and Fin is not the only one with an agenda. How much is she willing to damage to get her revenge and learn the truth about Betty’s disappearance, which is more complicated than she ever imagined—and infinitely more devastating?

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Fin, Serena

Sexual Orientation:
Bisexual: Fin
Lesbian/Queer: Serena

Romantic Orientation:
Biromantic: Fin
Homoromantic: Serena

Race/Ethnicity:
White: Fin, Serena

Trigger Warnings: murder, conversion therapy, drug and alcohol use, suicide/suicidal ideation