Hi, and welcome to another Autostraddle quiz! Today’s topic is very near and dear to my heart: lesbian literature featuring age gap relationships and, a natural byproduct of that, mommy issues! What a wonderful canon to explore.
Now, inevitably every time I make a book-themed personality quiz, folks in the comments ask for me to list all the books featured as results. I don’t mind you asking, but I wanted to provide some context as to why I won’t do this!
These quizzes serve several functions, including providing some fun and light content for the weekend that I presume many welcome as a short reprieve from the news, doomscrolling, etc. I often work jokes about procrastination into the quizzes I write, because I assume a lot of you are indeed procrastinating on some level when you take one! I love it and am happy to serve! But quizzes are also often our pieces that receive the highest traffic for the week. I wish our most widely read pieces were our more standard Literature content or our in-depth political opinion pieces or our reported features, but they simply are not! And hey, a lot of that is outside our control, often impacted by search engine and social media algorithms (and increasingly by people turning to AI for information rather than journalism and media). But one thing that has consistently garnered decent (and sometimes viral) traffic? Personality quizzes.
We try our hardest not to just make these quizzes feel like empty ass “clickbait,” I promise. And in fact, those accusations tend to bother me in an outsized way, because putting these quizzes together actually takes a lot of time. Yes, they are sometimes silly! But they are still being written by creative and humorous queer people and not just some clicky slop.
So, no, I’m not going to list the books. Because then people will not take the quiz and will just look at the full list of books in the comments or up here. And that would mean less traffic and less time spent on this page right here, where I’m hoping you’ll not just exit out of Autostraddle when you’re done but rather read something else, something perhaps of a bit more substance. If you want straightforward book recommendations, we have so many lists on the site! And there are a lot more queer novels featuring age gap relationships than the eight featured in this quiz, so I can maybe one day put exactly that longer list together for you and publish it on the site, especially if there’s interest in this quiz!
Anyway, sorry for this longer-than-usual intro. I just thought I’d draw back the curtain a bit on the editorial process and strategies at play. You can take the quiz now! I hope you will! And I hope you’ll read something else we’ve published after. In fact, if you do read something else, why don’t you should it out in the comments?
What Queer Novel Featuring an Age Gap Relationship Should You Read?
I got Mrs. S by K Patrick. “You either are butch or are a deep admirer of butches or both.” Yup, all of the above! Already been on my TBR for a while, but now I’m even more excited to read it – thank you.
I tried a bunch of different answers but I still got “We Do What We Do in the Dark”, so I guess I really have to read it now :)
Re: the popularity of the quizzes, I’m a daily Autostraddle reader (and merch owner!) and I’ve found the quizzes to be the easiest to share with my friends/partner who are queer but not huge queer media readers – they’ve definitely become a lot more familiar with Autostraddle now, it’s become a weekly routine to send the quizzes to the group chat
Thank you for your work as always!!
I also do this! They’re really popular. Co-signing the thank you!
this is great to know! thank you!
I appreciate the intro here, sometimes I’ve wondered why all the potential results aren’t shown at the end of posts like these – now I know!
I got Mistakes Were Made. Not surprised, since I already own a copy.
The Price of Salt! Yes I’ve read it, but you’re right – i SHOULD reread it. I deserve that.
Also really enjoy the curtain peel back here! I actually really like that you don’t list all the books – it means that it’s even more fun to comment down here, because you’re revealing one bit of the list to others so it’s like a puzzle you’re all putting together!
I got Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blackley-Cartwright
“You clearly crave chaos.”
No, I really, really don’t. Not many of the questions had obvious answers for me and I was really just trying to avoid answers that would give me a book with an upsetting to me imbalance of power or an icky to me pairing with a mother-figure. Not very successfully, it turns out.
I got “We Do What We Do in the Dark” by Michelle Hart
“Mommy issues with a side of grief!”
Okay then ! I shall gird myself and turn those pages !
The book I got I’ve unfortunately already read. “Mistakes were made.” But I’ve got to say, I WOULD recommend. Spicy and the right dose of chaotic.