Eight books to read if you love Heartstopper

Dylan Tang somehow juggles school and making deliveries for his aunt's struggling Chinese takeaway in Brooklyn. When the opportunity to enter a mooncake competition comes up, it feels like the perfect chance to win some much needed publicity. Enter Theo Somers, a wealthy customer who convinces Dylan to pretend to be his date at a crazy rich wedding. Their romance is supposed to be just for show. . . but soon Dylan’s falling for Theo. For real. With the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being distracted by rich-people problems. Can he save his family’s business and follow his heart – or will he fail to do both?

Even when you grow up in a loving household with relaxed gender roles, the pressures from the outside world to fit in can be. . . a lot! Theo is trans and non-binary, and knows that there is no one way to be, but inspired by superheroes, role playing games and comic con, they find confidence to rebuild their image in a way that feels truly themselves. This YA graphic novel is a must-read for anyone who's ever felt like they don't belong, as author-illustrator Theo Parish takes readers through a beautifully heart lifting story of discovering what it means to live life on your own terms and what it means to feel at home in the world.

You had me at time-travel-featuring New York City-set romance. A cynical twenty-three year old meets a beautiful woman on the train. It soon emerges that Jane (the beautiful woman) is displaced in time from the 1970s, and August (aforementioned cynic) is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things after all.

Don't just take it from us, this comes directly recommended by Heartstopper author Alice Oseman: 'A soft, sweet, and incredibly important story about a non-binary teen finding their voice. This book is going to be so important to so many people.'

When Ben De Backer comes out as non-binary, they're thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister and start at a new school. Their attempts to lay low are thwarted by the funny and charismatic Nathan Allan, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier, new life.

High school: the perfect setting for an enemies-to-lovers romance. Enter Irene. Scottie hates Irene. She's beautiful and mean, and Scottie stays out of her way as much as possible. Until she crashes her car into her. Unhappily, and acerbically, forced to carshare every day to school, Scottie and Irene's hard exteriors start to crack when presented with an opportunity to get back at Scottie's equally hated ex. Somehow now embroiled in an elaborate fake-dating scheme, the two start to share some very real feelings. 

A revelatory novel about identity, marginalisation and transphobia, and a love story. When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages, Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. But he doesn't anticipate his scheme catapulting him into a complicated love triangle, or that this will help him finally discover how he feels about himself.

Alex Claremont-Diaz is handsome, charismatic, a genius – pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House ever since his mother first became President of the United States. He has, unfortunately, just been captured in the British tabloids having a fight with Henry, the Prince of Wales. As relations between the two countries falter, the two men are forced into a state-dictated performative truce which requires them to spend a lot of time together. . .

If you like some fantasy alongside your feel-good LGBTQIA+ romance, this is the book for you. Simon Snow just wants to relax and savour his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he'll be safe. Simon can't even enjoy the fact that his room-mate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can't stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you're the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savour anything