Lists Are Hot: 10 LesBian Books You Should Read

By Natazzz on Friday, February 12, 2010 - 21:17

Lists Are Hot is a monthly column for all those that love lists. This time I want to share with you some of my favourite lesBian books.

I've always been an avid reader of anything and everything fictional, and sometimes non-fictional. From the moment I realised I was into women, I started reading books with lesBian content. Over the years I have read a lot of rubbish, but luckily also some gems. Here's my selection of 10 lesBian books I think you should read.

10. The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith was one of the first books with lesBian content I ever read. As a teenager I was always browsing in the library, hoping to find some queer content that I would then hide between books with very straight content when checking out.

This novel is about a young girl named Therese, who one day in the store she works at sees an older sophisticated woman named Carol, who she ends up falling madly in love with. To complicate matters, Therese has a boyfriend and Carol is in the middle of divorcing her husband and fighting for custody of their kids. But amidst it all the friendship between the two women quickly develops into something much more.

9. Schijn, hoop en liefde by Rianne Witte

For this list I was going to stick to books written in the English language, but I felt I had to make an exception for Schijn, hoop en liefde ('Pretence, hope and love') by Dutch author Rianne Witte. This novel tells the story of a closeted lesbian living on Holland’s Bible belt. It’s a fun and intriguing novel about coming out, religion, but especially about learning to stand up for yourself and living the life you want to.

The novel tells the story of Linda, a naive and insecure 20-year-old girl who lives with her parents, in a little village in the Veluwe (heart of the Dutch Bible belt). All her life she has been a good girl, and has done exactly what her parents expected of her. She's always known she is into girls, but this is something she has always tried to suppress. Being accepted and fitting in are things that are very important to her. That is why she has made trying to be insignificant and compliant into an art form.

When her friend Kayleigh encourages Linda to respond to a personal ad, little does she know that this one date is going to change her life forever. No longer being able to hide who she is, Linda is going to have to find a way to stand up for herself and start living her own life the way she wants to.

8. The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan

I've enjoyed the dark and mysterious writings of Caitlin R. Kiernan ever since I picked up a copy of Silk at a book fare. Her latest novel The Red Tree is even better than Silk, which is really saying something as that novel has always been my favourite.