Living Vicariously Through Fictional Lesbians

(This should probably go on my entertainment blog, but it felt better here.)

Not too long ago I discovered BookBub, a site that e-mails you when Kindle books go on sale.  If you read a lot of e-books, it's worth checking out.  You tell them what categories you read, and they send you a daily e-mail with links to cheap/free books.  I've collected a large library of free Kindle books this way. 

I always thought romance stories were boring.  But BookBub showed me a category of romance novel I'd never really thought about - Lesbian romance.  Curious, I downloaded a few of the free ones just to see what I thought.

Well... I love them.  As it turns out, I don't hate romance after all, I just don't like reading about men.  Not that I dislike male characters, but my secret inner lesbian can't relate to them, and doesn't really care whether they "get the girl" or whatever.  And if the main character is female, well sure I want her to be happy, but I can't relate to wanting a man.

So it turns out lesbian romance is right up my alley.  Now let's be clear - I'm not talking about porn (though the occasional explicit scene doesn't bother me), but more like romantic comedies.  I've read several of them now, and like any other genre, some are better than others.  A couple of them were downright dull, but there have been a few standouts.

Here's a sampling of some of the ones I liked most:

The Rules of Love by Cara Malone
This is just a basic romance story between two lesbian college students.   Ruby is popular, but a great student.  Max has Asperger syndrome, and is very focused on her studies.  At first they see each other as rivals, but later give in to sexual tension.  But are they on the same page?  Is it just a fling, or the beginning of a relationship?

I liked this one because it was breezy - nothing earth-shattering, just the kind of light-hearted book you might read on an airplane to pass the time.  I was impressed at how well Asperger syndrome was portrayed (though it's not like I would know).  It has two follow-up books, which I am considering reading.  It's written in third person, but each chapter alternates which protagonist's point-of-view is in focus.

For those uncomfortable with love scenes, I should warn you that there are a couple.  The first one actually takes several (short) chapters, because as I mentioned above, that's how it switches point-of-view.  It takes a few chapters so you can see how each character perceives each part of the encounter.  The sex scenes are tastefully written IMO, but still fairly explicit.

Rulebreaker by Cathy Pegau
Liv Braxton is a professional criminal on a mission of corporate espionage, hoping to blackmail a major company.  She gets hired as a personal assistant to Zia Talbot, a no-nonsense executive with a weakness for beautiful assistants.  Can Liv find the incriminating files before being discovered?  And can she do it without falling for Zia herself? 

This was the first sci-fi lesbian romance I've read, and I hope I find more like it.   In fact, it has inspired me.  I don't want to go into detail, but I am considering writing some GLBT sci-fi of my own.  The world needs more of that out there.

Again, a warning for the squeamish - this one does have one explicit love scene.  Which makes me wonder where one draws the line between erotic literature and normal romance stories.  How explicit does it need to be?  How many such scenes need to be in the book?  How deep does the plot need to be, and does it matter if the sex is crucial to the plot?  Of the lesbian romances I've read so far, I'd only call a couple of them "erotica" or "porn" (and Rulebreaker wasn't one of them), but that definition's going to vary from person to person.

Solve For i by A E Dooland 
This is my favorite lesbian romance so far.  Gemma is a neurotic math wiz, working a menial job at a major corporation.  She has always thought of herself as straight, but has recently started having odd yearnings towards her long-time best friend, Sarah.  Thus begins a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, where Gemma eventually realizes she's gay and has to find a way of coming out to her friends.

Though Gemma and I live extremely different lives, I identified with Gemma more than I have ever identified with a fictional character.  It's written in first person, and the author has a real understanding of crippling social anxiety.  Often Gemma would be asked a question, and she would spend so long weighing all her possible answers - just knowing that every answer was the wrong one - until she finally wouldn't say anything at all.  I've been there.

I can't tell you how many times Gemma even annoyed me with her fear-induced procrastination.  And each time I would think, "Dammit Gemma, you need to tell them right now... but yeah, I probably would have done the same thing."  And that's the crux of it; it was like reading a character with my own worst qualities.
 
And yet, I would personally beat a puppy to death with a kitten just to have her problems.  As much as she is a colossal screw-up (as am I), she's also a cute redhead lesbian with a decent job and several close friends.  And by the end of the book she has overcome a lot of her fears and problems.  If I overcame my social anxiety and fears, I'd still be a middle-aged fat guy with massive debt and the wrong genitals.  In some respects, reading these lesbian romances may not be the best thing for me - when I snap back to reality afterwards, I grow even more depressed.

But anyway, it's a wonderful book.  It actually made me laugh and cry several times, and I haven't cried from a book since high school.  I plan to read Dooland's other books set in the same universe: Under My Skin and Flesh & Blood (which I believe take place before Solve For i, but feature some of the side characters). 

Explicitness factor: Not very high.  There are two love scenes, sort of.  One of them is a bit explicit, but not much worse than you might see in a Dean Koontz book. 

So if you only read one lesbian romance novel this year... oh, who am I kidding, no one who reads this blog is going to be into that.  Regardless, Solve For i had a deep personal connection for me.  Anyone who does decides to read it will understand the way I think a little bit more.