Join It Gets Better’s Summer Reading Challenge

July 21 – September 1

Want to get involved with our Summer Reading Challenge? It’s pretty simple.

Launch a fundraiser for It Gets Better on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or create your own fundraising page on itgetsbetter.org.
Read queer books by queer authors. We started a summer reading list below that you can reference.
Post about each book you read (or plan to read) and what you thought of it. Use that opportunity to promote your IGB fundraiser.
Raise money for LGBTQ+ youth.

Learn More About Our Summer Reading Challenge

When an LGBTQ+ young person opens a book and sees themselves reflected in its pages, something powerful happens. They discover they’re not alone. That’s the transformative power of queer stories—and why we’re launching the It Gets Better Summer Reading Challenge.

This is more than a book club. It’s a six-week community fundraiser to support LGBTQ+ youth around the globe and celebrate the authors and books that help them feel seen, heard, and empowered.

Whether you’re a reader, writer, creator, or just a fan of queer lit, there’s a way for you to get involved.

We’re looking for folks to fundraise for us as part of this challenge, but if you’d prefer to make a donation directly and amplify one of our existing fundraisers, that’s great too. You can donate on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or directly at itgetsbetter.org.

Start a Fundraiser

Community fundraising is one of the most powerful ways you can help support this challenge. Not only are you rallying your community to raise critical funds to support It Gets Better’s life-affirming work, but you’re helping queer authors get the word out about their work at a time when marketing budgets are getting slashed and queer stories are being silenced.

Create your own personal fundraising campaign it itgetsbetter.org or launch a social media fundraiser on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.

We’ve made it easy:

Download graphics to announce your fundraiser. We’ve created some fun graphics for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok so you can announce your fundraiser to friends, family and followers.

Download Portrait, Square or Story graphics.

We also created graphics to help you set up your fundraiser on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Take a look below.

Need some suggested language to rally your community to support your fundraiser? We have a few thought starters for you. We also have guidelines for recording a short video about a queer book that changed your life. A personal message from you will make this fundraiser feel so much more authentic. Plus, if you tag @itgetsbetter and use the hashtag #summerreadingchallenge, we might reshare your video throughout the campaign (with your permission, of course). Learn more here!

Still need help? Every social media platform has fundraising guides. Click here for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Record a short video about a queer book that changed your life. Tell us why it mattered, and encourage others to join the challenge. Tag @itgetsbetter and use the hashtag #summerreadingchallenge. We’ll be resharing videos throughout the campaign.

Share or Donate

Donate to one of our active campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
Share our fundraiser on with your community on social media and encourage folks to donate.
Make a direct gift at itgetsbetter.org/donate.

Read Along With Us

Browse our official Summer Reading List, featuring new releases and classics from LGBTQ+ authors across genres. Use it to guide your fundraising challenge—or just to stack your summer to be read pile.

This list of books is just meant to give you some thought starters, but we’d love to hear what you’re reading too. Suggest some of your favs in the comments on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok and we’ll add them to a “reader recommended” list midway through the challenge.

Fiction Reading List

Becky Albertalli – Amelia, If Only

Dean Atta – I Can’t Even Think Straight

Abdi Nazemian – Only This beautiful Moment

Shelly Jay Shore – Rules for Ghosting

Jen Ferguson – The Summer of Bitter and Sweet

Vichet Chum – Kween

Carli J. Corson – It’s a Love/Skate Relationship

Gia Gordon – The Redemption of Daya King

Natalie Naudus – Gay the Pray Away

Kyle Casey Chu – The Queen of Tybee County

Lily Braun-Arnold – The Last Bookstore on Earth

Novae Caelum – The King’s Weaver

Steven Rowley – The Guncle Abroad

Daniel Aleman – I Might Be In Trouble

Elizabeth Acevedo – The Poet X, With the Fire on High, Clap When You Land, and more

Zakiya N. Jamal – If We Were a Movie

Abby White – D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T.

L.C. Rosen – Emmett

Casey McQuiston – The Pairing

Aiden Thomas – Celestial Monsters

Victoria Zeller – One of the Boys

Jase Peeples – Twirl

Nonfiction Reading List

Dr. Sara Glass – Kissing Girls on Shabbat

Mia Bolton – As We Bloom

Maia Kobabe – Gender Queer: A Memoir

Alison Bechdel – Fun Home

Nicole Maines – It Gets Better… Except When It Gets Worse

Tommy Dorfman – Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation

Michael Arcineaux – I Can’t Date Jesus

Susan Stryker – Transgender History

Samantha Allen – Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States

Nico Lang – American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era

Huw Lemmey – Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

Elliot Page – Pageboy

George M. Johnson – All Boys Aren’t Blue

Katerina Jeng – Gospel of a Whole Sun

Sarah Prager – Queer, There and Everywhere

Dan Savage and Terry Miller – It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living

Alok Vaid-Menon – Beyond the Gender Binary

Blair Imani – Read This to Get Smarter

Samra Habib – We Have Always Been Here

Audre Lorde – Sister Outsider

Matthew Reimer – We Are Everywhere

Jimmy Chen – Owning Your Voice: A Trans Voice Guide on Shaping and Finding Your Voice

Earn Fundraising Incentives

We know the goal is raising funds for It Gets better’s critical work while showcasing some incredible queer talent, but we also want to offer our thanks for folks who reach fundraising goals.

Raise $350 or more and receive a custom It Gets Better hardcover journal for your writing and random thoughts.

Raise $750 or more and receive a free copy of Perfectly Queer, our award-winning conversation card game.

Raise $1,000 or more and we’ll send you both.

This Campaign is Powered By All of You

Every book read, every dollar raised, every post shared helps amplify queer voices and directly supports It Gets Better’s mission to uplift and empower LGBTQ+ youth.

Let’s read with purpose. Let’s fundraise with pride. Let’s write the next chapter—together.