When Yellowjackets is airing, all I can think about is Yellowjackets, which tracks given my weekly 5,000+ word recaps of every episode. There are plenty of Yellowjackets-themed book lists out there, but none of them are specifically and categorically queer — until now! Behold: a list of books across genres that in some way evoke Yellowjackets in theme, content, structure, or mood. You’ll find a lot of feminist horror and fairytale-adjacent books on here but also books that feature ensembles of women or dual timelines.

Also, I know Yellowjackets is largely about teens, but I went light on the YA here, mainly because it isn’t my forte and because the series, despite teenage subjects, is not really a teen drama. Still, the few YA books I read do tend to be about feral gay girls, so I’ve included a couple!

Have books in mind you think should be added? Shout em out in the comments! I love when these lists feel collaborative and conversational, much like the Autostraddle Yellowjackets recaps and their corresponding comments sections.

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

Now, let me get ahead of any pushback to this pick by saying: Yes, I know it’s not an explicitly queer book. And yet, a novel so steeped in themes of toxic female friendship? Sorry, I’m claiming it. A Certain Hunger is also THE best Novel About Cannibalism (up there with Tender Is the Flesh). It’s about Dorothy Daniels, a food-critic-slash-serial-killer with a penchant for murdering and then devouring parts of her ex-boyfriends. Dorothy Daniels vibrates on the same frequency as Adult Shauna if you ask me!!!! Read the book that has enthralled my entire group chat (which probably reveals a lot about me and my friends).

The Lamb by Lucy Rose

Gross and gothic, The Lamb also satisfies the cannibalism quotient. The mother and daughter at its meaty heart live by the forest and have strange hungers and feral desires, which all feels very Yellowjackets!

Voice Like a Hyacinth by Mallory Pearson

Five young women make up the witchy ensemble of this novel, which is steeped in themes of ambition, friendship, ritual, and martyrdom. It’s also written by Autostraddle contributor Mallory Pearson, who wrote a fantastic essay about cannibalism and queerness that touches on Yellowjackets of course.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir about an abusive queer relationship investigates trauma and abuse’s impact on memory, and in a similar way, the neuroscience of memory is very much an influence on the way Yellowjackets is structured. Machado’s metaphor-making in this book (truly one of the best memoirs of the past decade) is complex and haunting.

Small Game by Blair Braverman

If it’s the “stranded in the wilderness” aspect of Yellowjackets that you’re most drawn to, then you must read Blair Braverman’s survival thriller Small Game, about a group of strangers tapped to star in a survival reality TV series called Civilization that goes horribly wrong. Also, you should listen to Blair Braverman’s episode of You’re Wrong About about Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, the plane that crashed in the Andes with a soccer team on board in 1972.

Fruiting Bodies by Kathryn Harlan

If it’s the strangeness of the wilderness and the ambiguity of the possible supernatural threads that you’re most drawn to when it comes to Yellowjackets, then this short fiction collecting containing eight strange, eerie, haunting, speculative stories is the one for you. Its characters are mostly queer and mostly women. Read more short fiction!

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

Sorrowland is about a pregnant teen who escapes a cult, but instead of re-entering society, she builds a life for herself and her twins away from the outside world. But her past and the abuse she fled from are never that far away. If Shauna’s transformation into a ball of violent rage after the loss of her baby compels you, this is one to check out. Few horror writers are as sharp in their critiques of America’s history of violence and racism than Rivers Solomon, and Sorrowland is no exception!

Dare Me by Megan Abbott

I’ll lead with a disclaimer in case anyone gets mad at me: The book is not as explicitly queer as the television series upon which it’s based, but I hate when people discredit this book for not being queer “enough.” Its exploration of toxic female friendship positively crackles with homoerotic tension and sapphic yearning. It portrays cheerleading as a brutal, violent, all-consuming body horror sport much like Yellowjackets is about the propensity for varsity soccer girls to go fully animalistic on one another. If THESE girls were stranded in the wilderness? I think they would have turned to cannibalism even quicker.

Brutes by Dizz Tate

The violence and horrors of girlhood are front and center for this novel set in fictional Florida town Falls Landing (which will look and feel familiar to anyone acquainted with Central Florida). It’s about a gang of 13-year-old girls — and one gay boy — obsessed with the preacher’s daughter, Sammy. Then Sammy goes missing.

How It Works Out by Myriam LaCroix

Yellowjackets doesn’t technically feature parallel universes, but something about a parallel/multiverse book does feel tangentially related to the way narrative functions on the show. Plus, this book has cannibalism AND queer romance! It’s about Myriam and Allison, who fall in love at a punk show and then experience through relationship through a kaleidoscope of hypothetical universes.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Sapphic gothic horror full of obsessive girls, rituals, storied lore, and hauntings? While the stories are quite different on the surface, Yellowjackets and Plain Bad Heroines touch in many ways!

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

I love this novel so much that I’m married to its author! In all seriousness, my wife’s first novel might not seem very much like Yellowjackets on its surface, but it unfolds with dual storylines about the characters’ teen/young adult and adult years and also features, well, dead things. Its characters are quietly haunted, and there’s everyday strangeness in its pages.

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

It specifically has to be this edition that features annotations from CMM, which pull the queer subtext into main text! Carmilla is THEE toxic female friendship novel. And vampires and cannibals are closely connected in my mind.

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

As far as queer books like Yellowjackets go, this might be the most on-the-nose one. Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are four girls about to graduate heading to a music festival in the desert. They are “hollows” aka part of the population who underwent a transformation called the Hollowing that makes them need to consume human flesh to live. Luckily, they’ve got a cooler full of synthetic flesh to ease their hunger at the festival, but things go feral when Val kills and eats one of the boys in the featured band. A story about the horrors of girlhood that’s explicitly cannibalistic?! Yeah, Yellowjackets fans are gonna eat this one up.

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

Here is a less obvious selection, but Big Swiss‘s exploration of violent trauma and sexual desire fits in with the overall themes and narrative scope of Yellowjackets. Also, there’s a loose insect-based connection in the sense that Big Swiss features a house full of bees. This one is definitely for the feral girls.

Penance by Eliza Clark

Evil queer girl murderers are at the heart of this deeply disturbing and provocative book with an extremely unreliable narrator!!! To me, this book feels like a mixture of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects AND Dark Places — but GAY. And if that doesn’t sell you, well this might not be the book list for you!

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