The best LGBTQ+ books that are also movies (…or should be)

I loved this book because it was the ultimate slow-burn romance coupled with an older woman coming out story, which was truly original at the time. As is almost always the case, the novel is better than the movie, but this one brilliantly made the transition to the film renamed Desert Hearts, which was helped by the amazing chemistry between the actresses and a director that did not shy away from sex scenes which were both graphic, yet beautiful. 

Set back in the 1950s, this sizzling & heartwarming matchup is the trifecta of opposites attract: class, age, and attitude towards coming out, this book was a romance with substance, sprinkled with a bit of comedy, my favorite recipe. 

“Charming” is the word that comes to mind when describing the humor in this 1987 novel. Yet, the message about how women struggled pre-women's liberation movement, is clearly present and still resonates today.  The story is told by the weaving together of past and present when an elderly woman recalls the great love of her life, who just happens to be a woman named Ruth.  

Set in the deep south in Alabama, where gay was an unspoken word (correction: it was spoken, but it meant: happy) the love story has layers where female empowerment is contrasted between the two women and comes beautifully to life in both the novel and the film. The hometown humor commentary by newspaper reporter, Dot Weems and writer & comedian Fannie Flag was way ahead of her time with the Love Is Love theme, long before that concept swept the internet.

Groundbreaking at the time, simply because it featured a happy ending between two women…what a concept! Seems like this should not have been a tall order, yet, in 1952, it was a revolutionary idea that a lesbian love story would not end with tragedy which was the recipe of the day if a writer dared to write about forbidden love. 

If you are addicted to push/pull in romance stories where the stakes are high but the characters are willing to jump higher, you may fall in love with this book. 

The novel was mesmerizing and lovingly translated into film. Hollywood learned that if you want a straight audience to easily imagine how a woman who had been living a straight life previously (though not authentically) could fall for another woman, simply cast Cate Blanchett in the film and, boom, everyone gets it.

I love a first-person narrative that sucks you in, and this compelling coming-of-age story as told by Molly Bolt, is a whopper. Not since the voice of Scout narrating To Kill a Mockingbird has a voice touched generations with its telling of her own story. This was the book that made me want to be a writer. I wanted to be brave like Molly…and brave like Rita Mae.

From childhood to adolescence, and all through college, we follow our hero Molly as she comes into her own about her sexuality with uncompromising strength and flat-out hilarious storytelling. It is remarkable that Rita Mae Brown’s 1973 novel has not yet found its way to the silver screen and it is the single book that made me want to be a writer. It seems that a story with such a strong roadmap, written long before the roads were paved, deserves a film. Sign me up for any story with irreverent humor, heart, & soul which keeps you routing the hero, even a slightly flawed one.

I read this Pulitzer Prize-winning book after watching the Academy Award-winning film and imagined this would be the single exception where a book could not possibly be more impactful than the 1985 film. I could not have been more wrong. Published in 1982 by American author Alice Walker, the novel also won the National Book award for fiction, yet I still was not prepared for the greatness of what I was about to read. The Color Purple is a gut-wrenching, and unflinching portrayal of the bigotry and abuse that black women suffered, especially in the south. The story follows Celie and her sister Nettie through a series of letters that span over twenty years which reveal a fascinating history of Africa that is not commonly known to most readers. 

The letters tell the story of love, exploitation, forgiveness, and redemption, and the graphic depiction of abuse that black women commonly experienced at that time. What was not common was Walker’s explicit depiction of the love and sexual exploration between two women, unprecedented at the of its publication. The two women are brought together by Celie’s husband, who brings his mistress home to live with them. Alice Walker does not shy away from the love that grows between the women, and as difficult as it is to read about the trauma, it is a safe prediction that most readers will be in awe of this book.