This post was originally published on Audible.com.
Listeners on the hunt for stories that center the bisexual experience know what a challenge it can be. Here, we’ve tried to lighten the lift with a list of the best bisexual audiobooks—and one incredible podcast!—across genres and age categories. And because we know that authenticity is important to listeners, all of the selections on this list were written by queer authors.
One note: Despite the “B” featuring prominently in LGBTQIA+, we still have a ways to go when it comes to bisexual representation. We hope to see more wonderful and nuanced stories depicting bisexual characters going forward. And with that, here we go!
In this series starter, bisexual PI Roxane Weary is grieving. Her cop dad was recently killed in the line of duty, and she’s verging on dead broke. When the sister of a death row inmate begs Roxane to look into her brother’s case, she agrees—only because she needs the money. Roxane is an excellent protagonist, and her bisexuality is simply part of who she is, not a major plot point.
Jen Winston knows she's definitely bisexual. Or does she? This hilarious and witty collection of essays offers an intimate look at bisexuality, gender, and sex while embracing a new narrative we can get behind: acceptance and joy with zero tolerance for sexism, biphobia, and shame. Narrated by the author herself, this engaging listen carves out it's own genre as memoir-meets-queer-theory.
This enchanting work of magical realism focuses on five cousins descended from a line of gifted and cursed women. Every woman in the Nomeolvides family has the ability to grow beautiful flowers in the span of a moment and design stunning gardens, which they tend to at the gorgeous estate of La Pradera. Their gardens are famous. Their curse: if they fall in love with anyone, the object of their affection disappears forever. When all five of the cousins fall for the heiress of La Pradera, she vanishes... but then a mysterious boy who doesn’t know his name or where he comes from appears.
Hunger isn’t about the experience of being bisexual per se, but it is about how Roxane Gay, a bisexual woman, experiences life after a violent experience in her youth changes her relationship with her body. Gay narrates her own memoir, which is a stunning exploration of how we view bodies, both our own and others, and how we perceive health and wellness by judging what we can see on the surface. Her story of the trauma she’s suffered and how she began to make peace with herself is moving and candid. Hunger is the kind of truly illuminating listen that will stick with you.
Winner of the 2013 Lambda Literary Award for Best Bisexual Fiction, My Education is about the romantic entanglements of a young graduate student. Regina has been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur and heard all manner of rumors and salacious gossip about his actions and behaviors... but no one warns her about Nicholas’s wife. Although initially attracted to Nicholas, Regina finds herself falling for his wife and pursuing her. The resulting affair is something she returns to again and again over the next 15 years. Tavia Gilbert narrates this novel about youthful choices, regrets, coming of age, and reconsidering the past, written by Susan Choi, who took home the National Book Award for her novel, Trust Exercise.
In this romantic YA debut novel, Ben comes out to their parents as bisexual and nonbinary, and they are promptly thrown out of the house. Forced to live with their estranged older sister and her husband, who they barely know, Ben decides to keep their feelings and identities locked in, only opening up to their therapist. But once at a new school, Ben embarks on a friendship with Nathan, who is outgoing and charming... and threatens his plan for keeping a low profile. But if Ben can find the bravery to open up to the possibility, they might just find love and acceptance with Nathan. MW Cartozian Wilson narrates this sometimes heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful audiobook.
Narrated by Robin Miles, The Fifth Season—the first installment in N.K. Jemisin's historic three-time Hugo Award-winning trilogy—is about a world with constantly shifting tectonic plates and the handful of people with the ability to control them, who are deeply feared and persecuted throughout the land. Spanning decades and perspectives, the story kicks off when a mother discovers her son has been killed and her daughter is taken, just as the world as everyone knows it begins to end. With nothing left to do and nowhere to go, she sets out on an incredible journey to find her child and exact revenge. A powerful story about love, family, and sacrifice, this dark fantasy saga has plenty of bisexual representation.
This riveting scripted sci-fi podcast is, at its heart, a deeply human drama. Told through the dispatches of two astronauts on a mission to a distant moon, Jackson Musker’s story of a woman grappling with both her queerness (she’s bisexual) and the unknown (in all of its scientific and spiritual implications) was inspired by his own experience with coming out. By turns emotional, harrowing, atmospheric, funny, and poignant, The Sea in the Sky truly soars with a full-cast performance, led by Octavia Chavez-Richmond and James Ludwig as the intrepid explorers.
Tirzah Price is a YA writer and contributing editor at Book Riot.
