Do you read LGBT books?

Recently, I finished reading Gone, Gone, Gone by Hannah Moskowitz.

I admit that I wouldn't have read this book if it wasn't the book of the month for the July challenge of Read Philippines. The challenge was simple: read the book, post a review of it, and answer some follow up questions. If your review gets picked, you win beautifully designed bookmarks courtesy of Laila, the awesome moderator at RP. Easy peasy, right? Uhm, not if you shy away from LGBT books.

I have nothing against the LGBT community. And it's not like I consciously avoid reading books from the LGBT genre. But I when I checked my shelf for book I've read that had LGBT themes or characters, I found out that there were actually very few such books on my shelf (Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Every Day by David Levithan). And I began to wonder why...

Do I avoid it? Again, no. After finding out that a book has LGBT characters, do I decide to not read it? Not necessarily. It discourages me a little bit, or makes me hesitant. Not because I don't like such books. I guess what I realized after a bit of retrospecting is, LGBT books kind of dispirit me. I know a lot of gays and lesbians but no one I'm actually close to. I like to read books that I feel would resonate with my life, books I can connect with. But since I *assume* that I wouldn't be able to relate to the LGBT characters, I tend to not read them.

I know that sounds like BS. After reading Gone, Gone, Gone, I realized that my fear of not connecting or understanding LGBTs was unreasonable. I liked the novel. Lio and Craig are gay teenagers who are trying to make sense of their lives and what's happening around them. They have issues with love, their parents, and they're angsty and confused, like most teenagers we know or we've read about.

Maybe it also helped that before going in, I psyched myself into thinking that I am about to read just another YA novel and not focus on the gender issue or whatever. And I think moving forward, that's what I'm gonna do when I come across another LGBT book -- forget the prejudice, drop the unwarranted fear, and just remember that LGBTs are human beings first and foremost. Love, war, heroism, teenage hormones -- these are all universal and not gender-specific.

So now, it's your turn. Do you read LGBT books? Why or why not? Share your thoughts on the Comments. :)