Actually, this comes out of a rant fest I had with a friend the other night. I just finished John Weir's What I did Wrong, and I really enjoyed it. It was brilliant, funny, touching and sad. I'm now working on his other novel, The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket, which is also good, if not quite as entertaining, yet.

But, this is just background. Here's the actual complaint. There seems to be very little gay literature that I've encountered that doesn't leave me feeling, well, depressed. The exception to that would be Boy Meets Boy, but that's a YA novel, and I'm focusing on adult literature here. So, does anyone have any ideas for someone looking for a novel featuring gay characters that won't make me want to slit my wrists when I'm done? Doesn't have to be a romance, just needs a gay protagonist.

In a related complaint, are there ANY good lesbian novels out there? Because I must be looking in all the wrong places. All the decent books with gay characters seem to be about men, and I'd give a lot for a good book with a lesbian protagonist. In this case, I guess it could be depressing, though I certainly don't want to read 'The Well of Loneliness' again.

I'm really not looking for a 'oh my god I'm gay I must learn to accept myself' sort of book. I'd like to see mature gay characters, who are comfortable with themselves.

So... any suggestions, or just feelings on the topic?

I don't have a lot of experience in that genre, but I know what you mean about the depressing mood. Most novels set out to show how difficult and unaccepted the lifestyle is, not simply to have a character who happens to have a different sexuality. I've always found it annoying that those characters are treated as "abnormal" or "special," when the entire plot revolves around the idea that there's nothing wrong with them. Most YA books have that kind of hypocrisy now.

If you want to search through some titles, take a look at this website:

http://www.librarything.com/

It's an online catalogue of users' libraries. They write reviews, grade books, or just list out which ones they own. You can use the search tool for different tags, like "gay" or "lesbian" or whatever, and you'll find books that have those subjects.

Hey there! Thank you for the suggestion, I'll look into it.

Yeah, as a bisexual myself (and just try finding bi focused lit hah!), and one who's both comfortable with her sexuality and with her place in society, I want to read about characters who are lesbian/gay, but who's sexuality is not the focal point of the novel. That said, I can understand why this happens, because certainly these issues exist, and they need to be discussed, and literature tends to represent that need.

But that doesn't need to be the only genre in existence. I want to read mysteries, or sci-fi stories, where the character is gay/lesbian/trans-gendered but that isn't what the story is about. And unfortunately, thats what makes searching by genre difficult. Searching for 'gay sci-fi' is really stretching the abilities of even a decent search engine.

However, on the subject of YA lit, Boy Meets Boy is really an exception to every rule. It's brilliant, it's well written, and it takes place in an imagined town where everyone is ok with... well everything. Because of this, its really just a romance and a coming of age story, instead of a book about a isolated gay kid trying to make it in the world.

I'd also love to see some books with polygamous characters... but now I'm really getting demanding.

The Color Purple. Parts of it are sad, but there's definitely a female sexuality component there that you might appreciate. Granted it's not out-and-out lesbian literature, but there's enough hinting and subtext that it works out.

Ahh... subtext. Shall I throw that in there with Fried Green Tomatoes? I'll give it a try. I have heard excellent things about that book. And I think I know someone who owns it. You enjoyed it?

I don't know what sorts of books you're into, but I've read a few with gay characters that I really loved.

One of my absolute favorites is The Persian Boy.... and really anything by Mary Renault. She's a historian who studied Greece- Alexander the Great in particular- and then wrote a lot of historical Greek fiction. Obviously, there's some sadness in the end as Alexander did die young, but it's a really sweet book in my opinion.

Also... the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling is really amazing. If you can get into a sort of fantasy world that's not all that super magical, it's worth reading. She's an excellent writer, and I was happy by the end of the books. This is probably my favorite gay couple in fiction... Alec and Seregil. Because honestly, they're somewhere between adorable and really cool. :3 Her book The Bone Doll's Twin and subsequent volumes were also really great, although they don't involve gayness (at least not much).

Um, I think the other book I'm thinking of was called The Stone Prince and I THINK it was by Fiona Patton, but I can't be sure. It was basically set in an alternate version of England, and the political intrigue was pretty good... but it was really the concepts and the love story between the prince and his companion that drove the book. I have to say my favorite part about this book was that when someone said, "the Earl of XX" then it was a woman just as often as it was a man. It was great because there really was a sort of language equality.

I haven't read a lot of lesbian fiction yet, but I'd be thrilled to hear about more titles. I did read and adore The Color Purple. Yeah, the first time I read it, I wasn't really sure if what I thought was happening was really happening, but it's definitely a lesbian book.

Wraththu by Storm Constantine probably doesn't really count as either gay or lesbian... as humans evolve into something Other than man and woman, though everyone is referred to as male. Except the few females. For me, all the emotion in this book was contained in the first section and the last chapter with Pell and Cal so in the middle there are hundreds of pages where I didn't really care what was happening. But it's so incredibly well written that it's worth it, regardless.

Hooray! I look forward to seeing more suggestions! :3

Awesome! I am incredibly grateful for all these suggestions. It will hopefully greatly expand my available reading selection. I must sound so picky. It's not that I don't like straight fiction, its just, I get tired of that being all that I have on the shelves. There's more to me than that, so there should be more to the book I read, too.

Nightrunner sounds interesting, and I bet we carry it at my work, so I shall make a point of looking into it come Saturday. Unless, of course, they carry it on PBS, in which case, I may very well order it tonight. I happen to love fantasy words that aren't overwhelmingly magical, so it should be right up my alley.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm into. I'm usually a fantasy fan, but I've been branching out a lot lately, so I'm in a place where I'll try anything at least once. Which reminds me, as long as I'm asking for recommendations, maybe I should give a few.

From Blue to Black by Joel Lane is a brilliant book. It's depressing as all hell, and then some, but it's really, really good. Joel Lane's prose is so full of anger and beauty that it really hurts to read, but it's an appreciative hurt. I wouldn't call it fantasy, but there's an almost surreal feel to it, none the less. It can be hard to get ones hands on, though. I had to order it offline.

Originally Posted by Morien

I did read and adore The Color Purple. Yeah, the first time I read it, I wasn't really sure if what I thought was happening was really happening, but it's definitely a lesbian book.

The same thing happened to me. It was one of two dozen choices for a reading project I did in 10th grade. I was sort of shocked by the time I finished it, thinking that no teacher would ever assign such a "gay" book. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm trying to finish up reading two other books and then I might pick it up again for a reread.

More teachers need to make truly 'gay' books available in highschool classes. And I'm not talking about books where the concept is all subtext either. Heh, but now I'm getting political, huh?

Back to the subject at hand. Today I'm thinking of authors I've read who didn't quite meet with what I'm looking for, but none the less were good in portraying a world with more than one sexuality.

I think Mercedes Lackey is wonderful in that her worlds are peopled with people of a variety of sexualities. Though they often aren't foregrounded characters, at least that sense of variety and possibility is there, she doesn't create a world that is devoid of alternatives. Unfortunately, I can't say that I'm a huge fan of her writing, in part because of the same reasons I used to love it. For me, her books carry to much of a message, and to obvious of one. Good for a seventh grader, who needs everything spelled out, but less optimal for an adult. So today, cheers to Mercedes Lackey.

• Oh, man, I totally know what you mean.
  
  Straight romance does nothing for me, emotionally, so I'm pretty much at a loss 80% of the time when it comes to, uh, any form of media, because it's almost guaranteed that the main characters will straight and romantically involved in some way. [/run on sentence] And like you said, what little there is... of anything... is mostly depressing and/or totally about being gay. Oh, what I'd give for a big explody action movie with a gay protagonist... preferably in love with his geeky comic-relief sidekick. But that's another story for another time.
  
  So, uh. Well. Morien pretty much covered most of what I was going to say; I can totally recommend The Persian Boy and Nightrunner. Wraeththu is more... crazy magical hermaphrodite novel than gay/lesbian, but it's still one of my favorite series. Definitely recommend it. But only if you can handle 2,000+ pages of... anything. It also filled my need for a character who's a scary emotionally-stunted cannibal, who has sex with both his mother and his half-brother/kinda-son. Aaand I've just made sure no one wants to read these books, ever. xP
  
  There's the Fall of The Kings by Ellen Kushner, which is sort of fantasy, but I think that may come under depressing. Or at least "Most Anti-Climactic Ending Ever".
  
  As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann, historical, set in 17th century England-- both depressing AND anti-climactic, but I have to recommend it anyway. It's deep, man.
  
  The Fire's Stone by Tanya Huff, fantasy, not depressing. Okay, I've got one so far!
  
  I've only just started reading Sarah Water's Fingersmith, which has a lesbian protagonist, so I don't know much about it; Victorian insane asylums are involved, so it's probably going to be a bit of a downer, at least during the middle parts. I haven't read Tipping the Velvet by the same author, but the TV mini-series was very good, and so I imagine the book would be even better. There's also Affinity and the Night Watch, same author, and that's all I know.
  
  And, well, uh. I have a list of books that I've added willy-nilly to my to-read list, and I really can't tell you a thing about them or whether or not they'd make you want to kill yourself, but hey-- why not?
  
  The Vintner's Luck/Elizabeth Knox
  Crossing Jordan/Jack Dickson
  Kirith Kirin/Jim Grimsley
  The Chosen/Ricardo Pinto
  The God Eaters/Jesse Hajicek
  A Strong and Sudden Thaw/R. Day
  
  Ahh... I'm terrible at recommendations. Especially at one in the morning.
  

I have the exact same feelings! Haha, I'm bi myself and I've been trying for ages to find decent literature with gay characters. The book Tithe has a gay man, though he's more of a comic relief character, sadly. I'm a writer myself and always make a point to have at least one gay/bi/sexually ambiguous character.

Well a good lesbian book though it is a real romance book but its the first book that really made me want to jump in the book and kill a character, is called Wolfcry by Amelia Atwater-Rhode but unfortunately it is the fourth book in a series
yes it is a young adult book but it is really worth your time I won't give away any of it but it is a fantasy but not revolving around magic though they can change into animals
This is the only book in her series that does have a lesbian romance in it but thats part of what makes it unexpected and so wonderful.
I recommend the whole series though since you asked for lesbian that is what I will tell you
The series is Kiesha'Ra
So I really suggest this book to people but watch out it has a lot of weird names that throw people off and get them confused with who is who

I read one book with lesbians, but it was more of a psychological power play rather than romance. It was about an awkward girl at a bording school, and she gets taken advantage of by a popular, cruel, charismatic girl. The popular girl has all the strings and she takes the awkward girl under her wing and alternatively puts her down and then makes her feel special because she was "chosen" by the popular girl... and in the end the popular girl betrays the awkward girl too many times for her to comply with it anymore, and the awkward girl's life is ruined and the popular girl tries to give her a token or something, but the awkward girl refuses it. It was interesting, to say the least.

Hah, I totally lost track of this thread. Oops. And all the new pretty recommendations too. I've added a bunch of those to my wishlist, though a lot of them seem to be in high demand. Ahh well, such is life using PBS. It's worth it in money saved. I work at a bookstore and I still can't afford books. Tragic.

I've been working my way through another book by John Weir, which sadly, isn't nearly as good as the first one I read. Still, I think I'll get into it once I lower my expectations a bit.

I feel the same way. All the books I find are usually teenage- oriented, and rather angst ridden and sad. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'd like something new every once in a while. I'm going to check out some of these books on the list.

And yes, there is nothing about bisexuals out there. ;_; It's a pity.

Gay Characters

Swordpoint - Ellen Kushner [High Fantasy]
*Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
[Historical Fiction/Romance]
*Drawing Blood - Poppy Z. Brite [Horror]
**Earthly Joys - Philippa Gregory [Historical Fiction]
Nightrunner Books - Lynn Flewelling [High Fantasy]
**As Meat Loves Salt - Maria McCann
[Historical Fiction]
*Warlord: Books - Elizabeth Vaughan [Romance/Fantasy]

Lesbian Characters

*Heartreaders - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [High Fantasy]
*Annie On My Mind - Nancy Garden [YA]

Bisexuals

Kushiel Series - Jacqueline Carey
[High Fantasy, BDSM]
Beauty Series by Anne Rice
[Fantasy, BDSM, Erotic Literature]


Suggestive/Subtext

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett.

I'm not going to lie a lot of these can still be depressing... but they're worth looking into.
Especially for those of you who said you were tired of YA books. I'll put a * by the ones that are sad and ** by the ones I feel are really, really, depressing.