Hi everyone!! Today’s post is highlighting some sapphic books that feature disabilities! We always talk about how everyone should be reading diversely, and that INCLUDES reading books with disability rep!! So here are some sapphic ones! As always, please check trigger warnings! – Sasha and Amber ❤
(books marked as sapphic + disability means that there are sapphic characters, plus disabled characters, the sapphic characters aren’t disabled but the rep is still talked about in the book!!)
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu
(Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Young Adult) Sapphic Disabled Character
This GORGEOUS graphic novel features Nova Huang, our main character who is hard of hearing and uses a hearing aid! Other rep in this book includes: nblw love interest, lesbian grandmas and a MC of colour!! This story is full of witches, magic, spells and potions!
The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill
(Graphic Novel, Fantasy, Middle grade) Sapphic + Disability
This book is the most precious graphic novel I think I’ve ever read!! There is endless rep within these books, and in book 1 there is a wheelchair bound character, plus in book 2 there is deaf rep and the whole of the town learnt sign language for them <333 We also follow a sapphic main character of colour, there is also a mlm relationship and a non-binary character in book 2!!
Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner
(Adult Romance) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book was one of my favourites for the year! It’s about a showrunner and her who assistant give the world something to talk about when they accidentally fuel a ridiculous rumor. One of the main characters in this book has asthma, we also have a mc of colour and bi and lesbian rep!!
Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
In a community that isn’t always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self-acceptance when she falls in love–and lust–for the first time. This book follows a Black sapphic teen who has HIV and is super sex-positive and fun!!
Failure to Communicate by Kaia Sønderby
(Adult Sci-Fi) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book follows a neurodivergent teen who has worked hard to earn her place as the head of Xeno-Liaisons aboard the first contact ship Carpathia. But her skill at negotiating with alien species is about to be put to the ultimate test. This book has autistm rep, characters of colour and has a bi main character!!
(Young Adult Mystery/Thriller) Sapphic Disabled Character
It’s been four months since Sophie’s best friend, Mina, died in what everyone believes was a drug deal gone wrong – a deal they think Sophie set up. Only Sophie knows the truth. And now she’s out of rehab, and determined to find Mina’s killer, and the person who messed up her life all over again. Sophie is such a bad-ass main character and I wholly fell in love with her. Sophie is bi and struggles with addiction and also has chronic pain!
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
(Adult Horror) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book is SCARY!! It follows a new crew who are setting off 7 years after a disaster voyage that nobody survived. This book is about finding killer mermaids?!?! How cool is that??? We follow a bi MC who’s sister was killed on the original voyage and she’s determined to find out what happened. We also have an autistic love interest and deaf twins who use sign language!
(Young Adult Anthology) Sapphic Disabled Character
This anthology explores disability in fictional tales told from the viewpoint of disabled characters, written by disabled creators. With stories in various genres about first loves, friendship, war, travel, and more, Unbroken will offer today’s teen readers a glimpse into the lives of disabled people in the past, present, and future. I read this a couple days ago and there are two sapphic stories, all of them are very cute!!
Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
(Young Adult Fantasy) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book has bi rep and features a main character who uses a hearing aid and is plus size!! It’s about witches, magic and an ancient spellbook. Olive meets three wild, mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel and Rowan. When they discover the ancient spellbook, full of hand-inked charms to conjure back lost things, they realise it might be their chance to set everything right. Unless it’s leading them towards secrets that were never meant to be found …
Out of the Blue by Sophie Cameron
(Young adult fantasy) Sapphic Disabled Character
When angels start falling from the sky, it seems like the world is ending. Smashing down to earth at extraordinary speeds, wings bent, faces contorted, not a single one has survived. This book follows two POC main characters, has a f/f relationship and a bi love interest who has cystic fibrosis!
An Unheard Song by Laura Ambrose
(Adult romance novella) Sapphic Disabled Character
A story about a bestselling author who, after her second book doesn’t go well, decides to hire an author assistant. An Unheard Song is the third installment of the Romancing the Page series but can be read as a standalone, which features well-rounded, complicated women in the world of writing and publishing. The main character has agoraphobia.
The Labyrinth’s Archivist by Day Al-Mohamed
(Adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novella) Sapphic Disabled Character
Azulea has never left her home city, let alone the world. Her city, is at the nexus of many worlds with its very own “Hall of Gates” and her family are the Archivists. They are the mapmakers and the tellers of tales. They capture information on all of the byways, passages and secrets of the Labyrinth. Gifted with a perfect memory, Azulea can recall every story she ever heard from the walkers between worlds. She remembers every trick to opening stubborn gates, and the dangers and delights of hundreds of worlds. But Azulea will never be a part of her family’s legacy. She cannot make the fabled maps of the Archivists because she is blind.
(Adult Literary Fiction) Sapphic Disabled Character
So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new novel by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
Rhodes and Iliana couldn’t be more different, but that’s not why they hate each other. Hyper-gifted artist Rhodes has always excelled at Alabama’s Conservatory of the Arts despite a secret bout of creator’s block, while transfer student Iliana tries to outshine everyone with her intense, competitive work ethic. Since only one of them can get the coveted Capstone scholarship, the competition between them is fierce. We have a fat MC and a MC with depression!
Six Goodbyes We Never Said by Candace Ganger
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
Candace Ganger’s Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye. Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go. This book’s MC has OCD, we also have a POC main character and bi rep!
Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody
(Young Adult Fantasy Mystery) Sapphic Disabled Character
Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real. Or so she always believed…until one of them is murdered. This book has an abundance of rep! There is: a demiromantic ace boy, a bi MC who is blind, and lesbian side character!
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
This is a super fun book about Liz who decides to run for prom queen in order to win the scholarship money so she can afford to go to college. The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She’s smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true? This book is full of POC rep and Liz has anxiety, her brother also has sickle cell disease.
Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic + Disability
When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she isn’t sure if she’ll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (along with her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new…the same girl her brother is in love with.
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
Three friends, two love stories, one convention: this fun, feminist love letter to geek culture is all about fandom, friendship, and finding the courage to be yourself. This book features a bi MC who is Chinese-Australian and a fat MC who has anxiety and autism!
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic + Disability
This book has multiple POC main characters, including a lesbian MC and an autistic MC. Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and in the process trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story.
Their Troublesome Crush by Xan West
(Adult Romance Novella) Sapphic Disabled Character
In this queer polyamorous m/f romance novella, two metamours realize they have crushes on each other while planning their shared partner’s birthday party together. Ernest, a Jewish autistic demiromantic queer fat trans man submissive, and Nora, a Jewish disabled queer fat femme cis woman switch, have to contend with an age gap, a desire not to mess up their lovely polyamorous dynamic as metamours, the fact that Ernest has never been attracted to a cis person before, and the reality that they are romantically attracted to each other, all while planning their dominant’s birthday party and trying to do a really good job.
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
(Adult High Fantasy) Sapphic + Disability
This book has multiple main characters with disabilities including a character with a prosthetic arm, a character with a prosthetic leg and a character who uses a cane. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco
(Young Adult Fantasy) Sapphic + Disability
This book features a f/f romance as well as a male side character with a missing limb. Generations of twin goddesses have long ruled Aeon. But seventeen years ago, one sister’s betrayal defied an ancient prophecy and split their world in two. While one sister rules Aranth—a frozen city surrounded by a storm-wracked sea —her twin inhabits the sand-locked Golden City. But when shadowy forces begin to call their daughters, Odessa and Haidee, back to the site of the Breaking, the two young goddesses —along with a powerful healer from Aranth, and a mouthy desert scavenger —set out on separate journeys across treacherous wastelands, desperate to heal their broken world. No matter the sacrifice it demands.
(Young Adult Fantasy) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book has a non-binary character who is chronically ill. In Kyrkarta, magic—known as maz—was once a freely available natural resource. Then an earthquake released a magical plague, killing thousands and opening the door for a greedy corporation to make maz a commodity that’s tightly controlled—and, of course, outrageously expensive. Which is why Diz and her three best friends run a highly lucrative, highly illegal maz siphoning gig on the side. Their next job is supposed to be their last heist ever.
The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic + Disability
The Larkin family isn’t just lucky—they persevere. At least that’s what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn’t drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer. But wrecks seem to run in the family. Tall, funny, musical Violet can’t stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life. Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family’s missing piece – the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children.
The Grief Keeper by Alexandra Villasante
(Young Adult Contemporary Sci-Fi) Sapphic Disabled Character
The Grief Keeper is a tender tale that explores the heartbreak and consequences of when both love and human beings are branded illegal. With no options remaining when her asylum request gets denied, Marisol jumps at an unusual opportunity to stay in the United States. She’s asked to become a grief keeper, taking the grief of another into her own body to save a life. It’s a risky, experimental study, but if it means Marisol can keep her sister safe, she will risk anything. She just never imagined one of the risks would be falling in love, a love that may even be powerful enough to finally help her face her own crushing grief. The love interest in this book has PTSD and depression.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
(Adult Historical Fiction) Sapphic Disabled Character
One of our favourites, and it’s guaranteed to make you cry. This book has a sapphic character who develops a disability later on in the book (I can’t say much without spoiling sorry but if you want to know feel free to dm me on twitter or something!!) The novel tells the story of the fictional Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, who at the age of 79 decides to give a final interview to an unknown journalist, Monique Grant.
(Young Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book is dual-perspective between a mute queer girl and an amputee. Amara is never alone. Not when she’s protecting the cursed princess she unwillingly serves. Not when they’re fleeing across dunes and islands and seas to stay alive. Not when she’s punished, ordered around, or neglected. She can’t be alone, because a boy from another world experiences all that alongside her, looking through her eyes.
(Young Adult Contemorary) Sapphic + Disability
Bo Dickinson is a girl with a wild reputation, a deadbeat dad, and a mama who’s not exactly sober most of the time. Agnes Atwood has never gone on a date, never even stayed out past ten, and never broken any of her parents’ overbearing rules. Rules that are meant to protect their legally blind daughter—protect her from what, Agnes isn’t quite sure. Despite everything, Bo and Agnes become best friends. And it’s the sort of friendship that runs truer and deeper than anything else. This book has a bi girl and a blind MC, both of which are #OwnVoices!!
Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi
(Adult Sci-Fi) Sapphic Disabled Character
Alana Quick is the best damned sky surgeon in Heliodor City, but repairing starship engines barely pays the bills. When the desperate crew of a cargo vessel stops by her shipyard looking for her spiritually advanced sister Nova, Alana stows away. Maybe her boldness will land her a long-term gig on the crew. But the Tangled Axon proves to be more than star-watching and plasma coils. The chief engineer thinks he’s a wolf. The pilot fades in and out of existence. The captain is all blond hair, boots, and ego . . . and Alana can’t keep her eyes off her. Alana is queer and also has chronic pain and a muscle disease. This book is filled with POC characters and diversity!
As I Descended by Robin Talley
(Young Adult Dark Academia) Sapphic Disabled Character
For this one, there is at least one sapphic character who is disabled! I couldn’t find out what specific disabilities are in this book but based on a couple reviews there are multiple! This is a modern retelling of Macbeth but queer!!
The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James by Ashley Herring Blake
(Middle Grade Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
When Sunny St. James receives a new heart, she decides to set off on a “New Life Plan”: 1) do awesome amazing things she could never do before; 2) find a new best friend; and 3) kiss a boy for the first time. Her “New Life Plan” seems to be racing forward, but when she meets her new best friend Quinn, Sunny questions whether she really wants to kiss a boy at all. When the reemergence of her mother, Sunny begins a journey to becoming the new Sunny St. James.
How It Feels to Float by Helena Fox
(Young Adult Contemporary) Sapphic Disabled Character
One of my personal favourites!! Biz knows how to float. She has her people, her posse, her mom and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who tells her about the little kid she was, who loves her so hard, and who shouldn’t be here but is. So Biz doesn’t tell anyone anything. Not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And she doesn’t tell anyone about her dad. Because her dad died when she was six. And Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface—normal okay regular fine. This book is very heavily focused on mental health! Biz is bisexual and has depression.
The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
(Young Adult Fantasy Horror) Sapphic + Disability
Uprooted from the city, Violet doesn’t have much hope of fitting in at her new school in Four Paths, a town almost buried in the woodlands of rural New York. The fact that she’s descended from one of the town’s founders doesn’t help much, either—her new neighbours treat her with distant respect, and something very like fear. When she meets Justin, May, Isaac, and Harper, all children of founder families, and sees the otherworldly destruction they can wreak, she starts to wonder if the townsfolk are right to be afraid. When bodies start to appear in the woods, the locals become downright hostile. Can the teenagers solve the mystery of Four Paths, and their own part in it, before another calamity strikes? I’m not sure there’s any more than 2 straight characters in this book, there is an abundance of lgbtq+ rep, and one main character has a missing limb, however, she is straight!
(Young Adult Sci-Fi Graphic Novel) Sapphic Disabled Character
This book is such a soft and adorable read. It’s a webcomic and can be read for free online!! In the near-future, people use technology to give the illusion of all kinds of body modifications—but some people have “Egan’s Syndrome,” a highly sensitive immune system that rejects these “mods” and are unable to use them. Those who are affected maintain a “natural” appearance, reliant on cosmetics and hair dye at most to help them play with their looks. Sunati is attracted to Austen the first time she sees her and is drawn to what she assumes is Austen’s bravery and confidence to live life unmodded. When Sunati learns the truth, she’s still attracted to Austen and asks her on a date. Gradually, their relationship unfolds as they deal with friends, family, and the emotional conflicts that come with every romance. Alos has eating disorder rep, so please check any other tws!!
Thanks for reading!! As always, if you think any of these books shouldn’t be on this list, or the rep is wrong, or the rep is harmful, PLEASE let us know!!!
Sasha and Amber Read 