Made-up awards for books I loved in 2024
[CW: mention of violence, discussion of sex scenes in romance books]
January was so terrible in so many ways. I don't have the words to express my rage and grief and exhaustion right now, and I don't think I have anything helpful or productive. I want to hold my trans friends and tell them that it's all going to be ok – but I can’t, and honestly it might not be.
So, instead, I'm going to talk about books.
This newsletter was inspired by my friend, Kara Babcock, who came up with creative awards for her favourite 2024 reads. Reading brings me so much joy, and even pulling out a book for just ten minutes leaves me feeling grounded and more aligned with myself. (Plus, after two and a half years on testosterone, I appreciate the emotional catharsis of crying over a book more and more.)
I read more than three times as many books last year than I did in 2023. However, to qualify for a made-up award, I had to actually finish the book in 2024 – sorry to all the books I started last year but never finished. This means the list below isn't actually very representative of the 80-20 fiction/non-fiction split in my reading habits.
Here are my made-up awards for books I loved in 2024:
The book that surprised me with how hot it was
Cleat Cute* by Meryl Wilsner was so hot. I wasn't expecting it to be so packed with heat and chemistry between the characters (let alone in a way that so perfectly aligns with my kinks). It’s packed with incredibly well written sex scenes and flirty tension, and I loved the rivals-to-‘it’s just sex’-to-lovers dynamic. It's a ADHD/autistic romance – and aside from the great neurodiversity representation, this means that the misunderstanding and miscommunication between the characters that can occasionally be frustrating when reading romance books doesn’t feel forced here but flows naturally. (And I read it too long ago to remember if there's a locker-room sex scene, which I think means it’s time for a re-read.)
The book that surprised me with its trans sex scene
The Prospects* by KT Hoffman is the first traditionally published book I read that includes a sex scene featuring a trans guy. It felt really significant to hold a physical book in my hands and read a sex scene that could have been plucked from my own life. (I am so here for packers in sex scenes, just FYI.) The book weaves together the reality of being a trans person playing sports and just trying to exist with a really compelling rivals-to-lovers plotline, creating a deeply emotional and just really fucking good story – with some hot and well-written sex scenes, of course. (Like Cleat Cute, I picked this one up because of Frankie de la Cretaz’s ‘be gay, do sports: queer sports romance novels’ recommendation list, for which I’m very grateful to them.)
The book that made me yearn for community
We Could Be So Good* by Cat Sebastian sat on my shelves for far too long before I picked it up. It’s set in 1950s New York, and I haven’t had great success with finding good historical romances (I know they exist!) but as soon as I actually started it I was hooked. It was a finished-the-whole-book-in-one-day read for me, because: gay journalists falling in love! It’s such a beautiful story, capturing a snapshot of what it must have felt like to be a queer person in the 1950s, showing the fear and vulnerability in trusting people and letting yourself be open to friendship, love, finding community. When I read it, I was feeling very lonely and isolated, and it helped me realise what I felt was missing in my life (and to take steps towards finding those things).
The book I was excited about for over a year before reading
But How Are You, Really by Ella Dawson absolutely lived up to all of my expectations. I’d been looking forward to reading it ever since Ella announced it on her Patreon September 2022, and I absolutely adored it when I finally got to read it! I absolutely devoured this second-chance romance, which is set at the five-year college reunion of our burned-out bisexual protagonist. I am in awe of how Ella tackles abusive relationships, the overwhelming anxiety of job scarcity, and how to own up to our mistakes in a book that is ultimately deeply hopeful – and full of queerness, found family, and very real conversations about mental illness, of course. Unsurprisingly, I fell in love with Reece Krueger, cried my eyes out over the last few chapters, and enjoyed it so, so much.
The book that made me cry the most
Sons and Others: On Loving Male Survivors* by Tanaka Mhishi left me feeling wrung out and lighter; not exposed but seen. A friend recommended I read it, and I’m so glad they did because I really needed this book. I devoured it in one evening, crying almost constantly as I did. I’m worryingly close to overusing this word in this newsletter, but it felt so healing to read a book that echoes so many of my own thoughts and explores the nuances of masculinity and how we think and talk about it as a society. The writing is incredible (and so vulnerable-yet-hard-hitting; I’m not sure I realised that a book could leave such a lasting impression on me in just 93 pages). And I didn’t feel alienated or dysphoric reading it as a trans man – something I don’t take for granted and deeply appreciate.
The book I'm going to be talking about for the rest of my life
The Other Olympians: A True Story of Gender, Fascism and the Making of Modern Sport* by Michael Waters is one of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Michael traces the history of sex-testing in sport back to the 1930s, explaining how the current policies that exclude trans women (and Black women) from competing in the Olympics today originates with Nazi sports doctors and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It is both horrifying and kind of affirming to realise that the transphobic rhetoric we see being used to deny trans people healthcare (and dignity) today isn’t new – it’s the same talking points that Nazis and eugenicists were spreading in the 1930s. Reading it, I felt so connected to a previous generation of queer and trans people who I knew must have existed but had basically no idea what their lives would have looked like.
The book I technically read in 2025
Poor Artists* by Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad (who together are The White Pube) was a deeply healing and radicalising read to start 2025 with. Exploring who gets to make art in capitalist systems that encourage competition rather than creativity, the book is a fictional quest through the real art world. Despite having heard Gabrielle talk at Lighthouse’s Radical Book Fair last year, I wasn’t ready for how powerful, fantastical, confronting, and absurdist this book was. I absolutely loved it: I had a big, cathartic cry when I finished reading it, and it left me wanting to MAKE ART. (Friends of mine who do Art And Other Creative Things should definitely expect a copy from me for their birthdays this year.)
Bonus books, because I feel bad that they didn't make the list
Other brilliant queer romance books that deserve an honourable mention are Just As You Are* by Camille Kellogg, How You Get The Girl* by Anita Kelly, The Pairing* by Casey McQuiston, and Making It* by Laura Kay.
Books I didn't finish but plan to in 2025 include It Ain't Over Until The Bisexual Speaks* edited by Vaneet Mehta and Lois Shearing (which I got signed by a bunch of the contributors at Bi Pride in September!), and I Hope We Chose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom.
A quote I keep coming back to is from No I.D.* by Tatenda Shamiso: "Being a boy is busy work! I am raising my own new masculine pubescent self. [...] I’ve at least found you get taught that you don’t just get to be a man. You sort of have to earn manhood."
Books I'm excited to read this year include Outrage: Why the Fight for LGBTQ+ Equality Is Not Yet Won and What We Can Do About It* by Ellen Jones, Pink-Pilled: Women and the Far Right* by Lois Shearing, and Hijab Butch Blues* by Lamya H.
- I’m honoured that my essay ‘Not like sex at all’ was published in the first ever issue of PULP, an erotic zine co-created by Megan Wallace and Jack Rowe. My piece is the filthiest thing I’ve written in quite a while, and it's so cool to see it in print alongside so much other incredible erotic writing and photography.
- I also got to be one of the trans guys interviewed by Vic Parsons for their brilliant Gay Times article about T-dicks and bottom growth on testosterone. (This isn't a quote from me, but I love it so much and really agree.) "Being trans and having bottom growth creates new versions of being a man, new versions of queerness and gayness."
- Ella Dawson's new podcast, Rebel Ever After, is bringing me a lot of joy right now. In each episode, she interviews authors about writing swoony, sexy, and progressive romance novels, discussing how we can push the already-subversive genre of romance forwards and books that redefine what 'happy ever after' can look like. It's brilliant.
- In light of all the current fuckery by tech billionaires, I'm so glad that Nora Reed wrote hir 'You should have a website' manifesto. Please go read it and think about making your own website in 2025. "In a world where technology is deeply alienating and increasingly locked to be controlled only by experts, having agency over a machine is empowering."
- Franki Cookney's newsletter essay, 'Death to the collab', made me think deeply about how I want my work life to look this year, and inspired me to reach out to someone I'd like to collab and create something with. "I don’t want to collab when collab simply means cross-promotion. I want us to actually build something together."
- It's my birthday next week, and I hope someone is going to get me one of these incredibly cool pins.
- Finally, even when everything is really shit, art by and photography of trans people – like this 'queers by the sea’ photo project by @alonglines – makes me feel hopeful.