AfterElton’s 50 Best Gay Books!

8. Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Gay teen angst? Not in the young adult novel Boy Meets Boy, which presents a glorious alter-verse where gay people are accepted and celebrated. There’s no coming out, no gay bashing, no disapproving parents — and coming after decades of doom and gloom in young adult literature, Levithan’s “alternate” take on being gay was downright revolutionary. The novel has been repeatedly challenged and banned, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the classic it is.

9. A Home At The End of the World by Michael Cunningham

Cunningham won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his novel The Hours (which placed further down this list), but AfterElton.com readers preferred Cunningham’s more personal 1990 novel about the tumultuous life and loves of a gay man as he grows up through the drug-addled haze of the 60s and finally finds a place for himself in the 70s. What is a home anyway? Cunningham knows what most gay people eventually learn: it’s whatever place you share with the people you love.

10. Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez

Three boys, three very different ways to be a gay or bi teen. When Sanchez’s gay teen novel was published in 2001, the conventional wisdom was that such a book would never sell. But once again, the conventional wisdom was completely wrong: Rainbow Boys went on to become a surprise bestseller and heralded the start of the new genre of gay teen lit, currently one of the most rich and vibrant in all of publishing. Sanchez’s freshman effort led to two sequels (including Rainbow High, further down on this list) and a growing list of other well received, gay-themed teen and middle grade novels.