Ready to Celebrate Pride Month? Dive into these books with characters who have Crohn’s or Colitis along with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. Did I mention they all include a romance? What better way to celebrate Pride month and IBD visibility!

First on the list is Digging Deep by Jay Hogan. This book follows Drake, a gay, male midwife with Crohn’s disease who has given up on love. That might change, however, when he gets arrested by a senior detective at the local police station and they hit it off. Can they start a real romance while coping with Drake’s disease? Read it to find out!
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Nothing to Lose by E.M. Lindsey is a gay romance novel where a baker with Crohn’s disease is living a semi-happy life until a grumpy man in a wheelchair moves in next door. They start out as enemies, but the nice one slowly wins over the grumpy one. A slow-building enemies to lovers story.
Goodreads – Amazon

In Will on the Inside by Andrew Eliopulos, Will is a middle school soccer player with a great friend group of popular kids until he gets sick and is diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. After being sidelined for the season and becoming more distant from his friends he meets a new friend, Griffin, and they begin hanging out. The catch is that Griffin just asked a guy to the school dance. What will his old friends think? Will has to grapple between his Christian faith and his strange feelings for his new friend while adjusting to his illness.
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The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet by Jake Maia Arlow features a Jewish middle school girl named Al. She lives in the same building as her best friend. whose mom runs a bakery on the bottom floor. Al has to limit what sweets she eats when her stomach starts betraying her and she has a few bathroom emergencies that don’t end well. After she’s diagnosed with Crohn’s she begins attending a support group for kids with IBD. She becomes close with another girl in the group and begins to have feelings for her, but she’s afraid to tell her mom and her best friend about her feelings, and has to come to terms with the multitude of changes in her life. This is a funny coming of age novel that does a great job portraying IBD and middle school angst.
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Bonus Book:

Okay. So, The Wolf at the Door by Charlie Adhara technically doesn’t involve a character with IBD, but it does have a main character who is an agent from the Bureau of Special Investigations. He had intestinal damage after being attacked by a werewolf. He has many similar symptoms to IBD, though he may have some side effects of the supernatural variety as well. He starts out suspicious of his new partner, but as they track down a killer, they begin to develop a different kind of partnership.
Goodreads – Bookshop – Amazon