Just in time for the summer holidays, River Kingston shares another list of 10 books that feature excellent Autistic queer representation.
Stories. They hold our experiences and imagine our possibilities. They tell us who we are and what we are capable of. Representation is transformative. But finding genuinely good Autistic queer representation is, often, difficult. We have to tell our own stories. And we have to see ourselves as the heroes of those stories.
This Summer Reading List is 10 of my top reads of 2025. They feature Autistic queer protagonists, written by Autistic queer authors. It is a list of stories. Some are warm like the summer sun. Some are dark. Some are scary. Some are funny. Some are real. All are ours.
1. Like A Charm by Elle McNicoll
Elle McNicoll is one of my favourite authors. She is an outspoken advocate of Autistic people telling their own stories, and for Autistic people – especially children – to see themselves as the heroes of those stories. So an obvious place to start this list is her Like A Charm duology.
Plot summary: Ramya Knox is dyspraxic. But she is also magical. She can see beings others can’t. Her city of Edinburgh is alive with Hidden Folk. There’s magic, witches, kelpies, and dryads. And a dragon! But there is also danger – the Sirens are making a bid to control the city, and her family stands in the way. Ramya has to use her brilliant divergent brain to battle against the forces of evil. This dyspraxic tween is a heroine. And she has the coolest Autistic aunt.
McNicoll is queer and Autistic (and dyspraxic).
2. The Windflower Series by Andi R. Christopher
Andi R. Christopher is another of my favourite authors. Their stories are guaranteed feel-good and uplifting. The Windflower Series – a series of five novellas set in Wellington – is no exception.
Plot summary: One winter morning, Marigold Nightfield knocks on Laurel Windflower’s door. There’s a monster under the house, and Marigold wants to ask it for a tissue sample for her research. It’s a sweet Sapphic romance with plenty of magic and an Autistic main character navigating love (and monsters). The novellas go on to explore the Windflower family and Marigold’s growing powers.
Christopher also writes speculative fiction under Andi C. Buchanan. They are Autistic and queer, and often write Autistic queer protagonists.
3. The Winter Knight by Jes Battis
I read this late into the night – I wasn’t able to sleep until I knew how it ended. It is a brilliant, rollicking ride of a tale.
Plot summary: The Knights of the Round Table are alive in present-day Vancouver, reincarnated into the same story for centuries. Until one of them ends up dead – very unmythically murdered – and the stories suddenly become a free-for-all. Hildie is the Valkyrie assigned to the case, while desperately trying to figure out her life and identity at the same time. One of her suspects is Wayne, the reincarnation of Sir Gawain. Being Autistic, he’s just trying to navigate a world not designed for him. Also how he feels about the primary suspect, Burt.
This is a tale of kings and queens, queer and trans heroes, as they struggle to figure out their myths, who they are within their stories, and how to make these stories their own.
Jes Battis is queer and Autistic.
4. Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
I did not expect this story to be a page turner, but wow, was it good! I read it well into the night and couldn’t put it down.
Plot summary: A young Autistic woman, raised in a fundamentalist church, finds she cannot remember. There’s a strange being haunting her, she’s vomiting flies, and there’s another young woman’s face she sees sometimes – it pulls at something she cannot quite grasp but is always there.
This is a dark, sometimes horrific, thriller of a read. It’s like the dark side of The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, but it is also a beautiful exploration of the nature of love, friendship, faith, and hope. There are content warnings, including rejection and abuse by parents, conversion therapy, and religious trauma.
Chuck Tingle identifies as queer and Autistic. The novel is banned in some parts of the world.
5. The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
I absolutely love Murderbot. System Collapse is the seventh (and latest) of the diaries. I am recommending the whole series here. They must be read in order.
Plot summary: Murderbot is a SecUnit and, like all SecUnits, belongs to the Corporation Rim – hired out to protect humans (and data mine them) as they travel to new worlds. SecUnits are not considered human, people, or sentient, and not given any rights under any law. They are, literally, property. And they are feared for the violence they are capable of. But Murderbot has hacked its own governing module. All it really wants is for the humans to stop talking to it so it can watch its favourite soap opera (The Rise And Fall Of Sanctuary Moon) on repeat. And for humans to stop being so fragile. So Murderbot can stop saving them (which interrupts Sanctuary Moon).
The diaries are about freedom, found family, friendship, and what it means to be different. In System Collapse, Murderbot must face its past.
So many Autistic fans contacted author Martha Wells, saying how much they identified with Murderbot, that she sought an assessment. The books are incredibly queer. Murderbot itself has deleted its pronouns to make space for more media downloads.
6. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
This was my top read of the year! It’s such a cute, feel-good story.
Plot summary: Felix is 17. He’s trans, queer, Black, and poor. And desperate, absolutely desperate, for someone to love him. But when an unknown person hangs old photos of him before his transition, captioned with his deadname, in the gallery of his art school, and starts trolling him with transphobic abuse, he’s forced to face everything he’s been avoiding. His ex-almost-girlfriend. The frenemy he’s, possibly, developing feelings for. His college application. His mum leaving. The best friend he definitely doesn’t have feelings for. His identity. But mostly, he’s forced to face how he feels about himself.
Kacen Callender is from the US Virgin Islands. They identify as trans, queer, and Autistic. They based Felix on themselves. This book is banned in some parts of the world.
7. Some Like It Cold by Elle McNicoll
Like all McNicoll’s books, I stayed up reading this way past my bedtime.
Plot summary: Eighteen-year-old Jasper is heading to her small-town home in Lake Pristine for Christmas after a long time away – and she’s keeping a secret. She’s come to say goodbye. To avoid telling her parents and sister why. And definitely, definitely not to fall in love with the boy who’s never liked her.
This is a cute, feel-good story about family, falling in love, long-term friends, and coming home. It’s also a story about masking – how it slowly accumulates, why we do it, and its long-term, often devastating consequences.
Both the author and the heroine are Autistic and queer.
8. Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I did. It was absolutely brilliant. Gritty, tense, violent, intense. I devoured it.
Plot summary: The story is set in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia in the United States, just after the 2016 elections. Miles, a trans Autistic queer teen survives an attempted murder, and decides to finally end the blood feud that has haunted his family for generations. It’s a graphic coming-of-age story about making your own choices and finding where you come from.
There are content warnings. The author has a page up front about them.
Andrew Joseph White is bisexual, trans, and Autistic (and from the Appalachian Mountains).
9. An Unkindness Of Ghosts by Rivers Soloman
This was one of my top reads of the year. I couldn’t put it down. I cannot recommend it enough.
Plot summary: This is set on the spaceship Matilda, which left the Great Lifehouse 300 years ago for the unspecified Promised Land. The ship’s social system mirrors racial segregation and slavery in the American South. It’s ruled by the white patriarchal elite of the upper decks. Aster was born, works, and lives on the lower decks, with the women and children who work the fields and run the mechanics of the ship. She’s smart. Aster is really smart. She follows the trails left by her mother and her female ancestors, passed down through code and stories, to a discovery that could save everyone.
There are so many content warnings. Racism, sexual violence, homophobia, transphobia, a social system built on and maintained by systematic violence and hatred. But it is worth every word.
Rivers Solomon is non-binary, intersex, and AuDHD. The protagonist, Aster, is queer and Autistic-coded. This novel has been banned in some parts of the world.
10. Ten Steps To Nanette: A Memoir Situation by Hannah Gadsby
This is the only non-fiction book on the list. Ten Steps To Nanette is about stories. How stories can change the world. And how hearing our own stories can make us feel less alone.
Plot summary: Hannah Gadsby is my real-life hero. In their comedy special Nanette, they took their story of a neurodivergent, queer, gender-confounding child and put it onto the global stage. It went viral. It changed comedy. It became the forefront of the #MeToo movement. It was the story of so many queer Autistics. And it changed the world. One of the underlying premises of Nanette is that if Gadsby had heard a story like theirs growing up, they would have been less lonely.
Ten Steps To Nanette is a deeper exploration of Nanette. The narrative is held together with the threads of confusion and exhaustion that come from being Autistic (and ADHD) in a world that doesn’t fit our brains, as well as a devastatingly accurate vulnerability.
There are lots of content warnings, which Gadsby discusses at the start. It’s worth every word of the read.
Kingston is Autistic, queer, and non-binary. They hold a Masters in 18th-century English Literature from Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington.