My Top 12 CNF Reads of 2025

Happy end of the year! I may not be the big, annually anticipated book list, but at least I’m consistent in recommending great creative nonfiction! It felt especially pertinent to read lots of work by other queer and trans authors in 2025, given the war that’s been waged against us. My (big gay) book, No Offense: A Memoir in Essays, also came out this year and I’m so grateful to have talked writing with a few of the authors on this list at readings and events. Most importantly, the best book I read this year, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, won the National Book Award. If you’re looking for an incredibly written, critical examination of the response to the current genocide in Palestine, look no further. And if you’re looking for ways to help, check out Workshops 4 Gaza – they offer amazing writing workshops and classes by acclaimed authors and the price is always a direct donation to various Palestinian fundraisers. Here’s to hoping 2026 is filled with less hate and more art.

12. The People’s Project curated by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith

11. Come By Here by Neesha Powell-Ingabire

10. The Gloomy Girl Variety Show by Freda Epum

9. Pansy by Jasper Joyner

8. The Dry Season by Melissa Febos

7. In My Remaining Years by Jean Grae

6. Both/And edited by Denne Michele Norris

5. Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch

4. Human/Animal by Amie Souza Reilly

3. The Long Hallway by Richard Scott Larson

2. Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez

1. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

My 2024 in Books

Switching it up (just slightly) to bring you my 9 favorite memoirs I read in 2024 in no particular order cause wow, they were all so good. Plus a bonus of my 3 favorite works of fiction I read this year. As usual, each book is accompanied by my favorite line from it. Re-visiting these words this New Year’s Eve has been a gift. Cheers to another year of reading and writing!

Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir by Zoë Bossiere

Sex with a Brain Injury: On Concussion and Recovery by Annie Liontas

High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir by Edgar Gomez

Pretty: A Memoir by KB Brookins

Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan

How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir by Shayla Lawson

High Priestess of the Apocalypse by Christy Tending

The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden

I Felt the End Before It Came by Daniel Allen Cox

Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly

These Worn Bodies by Avitus B. Carle

Housemates by Emma Copley Eisenberg

The Top 10 Books I Read in 2023

Happy end of year round-up! As usual, I didn’t read as much as I should have this year cause…life. BUT, the books I did read were phenomenal. Lots of beautiful queer stories, more fiction than usual (!), and finally completed the Kiese Laymon holy trinity. Sharing my countdown here, as well as my favorite line from each book. Cheers to a 2024 fruitful with reading and writing!

10. The Red Zone by Chloe Caldwell

9. The Loneliness Files by Athena Dixon

8. Pageboy by Elliot Page

7. A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib

6. Recitatif by Toni Morrison

5. How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler

4. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Mac Crane

3. Abandon Me by Melissa Febos

2. If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude

1. Long Division by Kiese Laymon

The Top 10 Books I Read in 2022

I didn’t read quite as much as I’d have liked to this year, but why fixate on not meeting a goal when I can spend time celebrating the beautiful words I did read instead? Right? Right?! Another year, another round of Canva-made images feat. my favorite lines from my favorite books. May your 2023 be filled with words as powerful and authors as incredible as the ones on this list!

10. Everyone Remain Calm by Megan Stielstra

9. Once I Was Cool by Megan Stielstra

8. The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, & Piper Kendrix Williams

7. I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat by Christopher Gonzalez

6. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

5. Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello

4. The Natural Mother of the Child by Krys Malcolm Belc

3. Body Work by Melissa Febos

2. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon

1. They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib

The Top 12 Books I Read in 2021

I could write another recap similar to last year’s…about how this year was a dumpster fire and how I was too lazy to write out a full review for each and every book…BUT, let’s just skip over that and jump right into my favorite lines from my favorite books I read in 2021. I am constantly in awe of what these writers can do with language. Here’s to another year of gorgeous, life-saving words.

12. Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford

11. Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

10. The 2000s Made Me Gay by Grace Perry

9. A Woman, A Plan, An Outline of A Man by Sarah Kasbeer

8. Bluets by Maggie Nelson

7. Kink edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell

6. This is Major by Shayla Lawson

5. Just Us by Claudia Rankine

4. Girlhood by Melissa Febos

3. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

2. Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

1. Heavy by Kiese Laymon