Eight books that celebrate diverse definitions of family & community

Josefin Dolsten-Kuhel is a New York-based writer and communications strategist. She provides strategic counsel to organizations that work to advance public health, education access, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Her writing has been published in Daily Beast, GO Magazine, Refinery29, JTA and elsewhere.

At Electric Lit she tagged eight books that "share a nuanced, authentic representation of queer families." One title on the list:

April May June July by Alison B. Hart

This novel follows four siblings in the Barber family, each named after a month of the year, as they navigate the aftermath of the tragic event that defined their childhood: their father’s kidnapping in Iraq. Now, years later, new developments in their father’s case force each sibling to deal with the possibility that their father is still alive. The sibling set includes two queer characters: June (who as an adult goes by Juniper), a soccer coach about to wed her longtime girlfriend, and July, a college student who is learning about his sexuality and navigating feelings for two very different guys. What I love about this book is that it does not fall into the trap of making the queer characters’ sexuality their defining characteristic, rather sexuality is just one of the multitude of aspects that form an identity.

Read about another title on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue