Everyone I've met like that is the sort of person who gets mad when CS employees aren't nice to them or their co-workers won't cover a shift for them anyway

My condolences, I'm so sorry 🫂

Off and we crash into a mountain. Do you like metaphors? Subtlety? Following through on plot threads? Satisfying resolutions? You will find none of that here. A miserable read that retroactively made me hate the first two books which I quite enjoyed.
Home is Where The Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao - Sequel to Iron Widow. Both too much and not enough happen. Overly long, under developed mess of a 2nd entry and doubt the third can recover.
The Book That Held Her Heart by Mark Lawrence - 3rd entry. Clearly had no vision for this trilogy, the wheels fully come

In a year of somw disappointing seuqels/3rd books, here are some I would not recommend

Good Girl's, Bad Blood/Good As Dead by Holly Jackson - destroys anything good about the first book
The Maid's Secret by Nita Prose - half the book tells a flashback we already know. A bad 3rd sequel.

Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide by Mone Sorai - slow burn but surprisingly fun

Manga/Comics
Boys Run The Riot by Keito Gaku - trans identity in Japanese HS
Something Is Killing The Children by James Tynion IV
Blue Flag by KAITO - Surprise, everyone is queer!
Dandadan by Yukinobu Tatsu - surprisingly good despite a very alarming first couple of chapters
Wynd by James Tynion IV

Cozy mysteries/general fiction:
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson - YA. don't bother with the sequels.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
The Only Light Left Burning (Book 2) by Erik J. Brown - YA queer survival in a global apocalypse. Made me cry like a baby.

Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell - a horror love story

Horror:
The Troop by Nick Cutter - glorious body horror that left me numb for days
What Feasts At Night (Sworn Soldier series) by T. Kingfisher
We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - short, weird, terrifying

Non Fiction
Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward
The House Of My Mother by Shari Franke - Family blogger abuse
We Are Not Strangers by Josh Tuininga - graphic novel. A Jewish man helps his Japanese American neighbors during WWII in Seattle

If you like sci-fi/fantasy:
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Well of Ascension (Mistborn book 2) by Brandon Sanderson - his prose is not pretty, but his world building is *chef's kiss*
How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry - sequel to The Giver

Harriet Tubman Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen - race, identity, queerness
My Body Unspooling by Leo Fox - fantastically weird comics
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Books I would recommend if you like weird/quirky (no particular order)
Piranesi by Sussanah Clarke - identity, spirituality, and meaning. Soon to be an animated film by
The Hike By Mike Magary - adult male Alice in Wonderland
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid - identity, loss, regrets.

People see what they remember sometimes, they don't look at you new each time. And maybe denial, or ignorance, willful or not, depending on how familiar they are with trans people.