Evening all, I'm looking for a non-creepy age-gap relationship story where the woman is older
I'm curious to see how this is written about in fiction as it occurs to me I've always avoided "age gap romance" stories because my assumption is that they're all "older man and younger woman" and that they're going to be kind of gross or creepy in some way which, it occurs to me, almost certainly isn't true. Of course it might be lol but I thought this would be a good community to ask.
(Doesn't have to be a perfect, wholesome relationship btw, can be dysfunctional and 'normal', just not horribly toxic. I have heard of 'Outlander' of course but I'm not entirely sure I'd enjoy that given some of the things I've heard about it)
Better still if (a) the story isn't actually romance genre, as I must admit I don't usually enjoy those, but happens to have a reasonably major romantic arc or relationship as part of a story about something else (b) preferably not high fantasy or hard sci fi, I'm more a fan of historical/contemporary/literary fiction and (c) where they're in a straight-presenting relationship but one or both of the main characters is bisexual/queer if at all possible – and/or if the story can be read as heavily queer-coded.
Other things… I'm indifferent to spice levels, will probably skim-read any sex scenes but I'm not outraged by their existence or anything. But I do want a strong plot, not just a smut book with a bit of gristle between sex scenes lol. Also I do mean a "proper" age gap, so at least ten or so years, but please note the younger one does need to be at least in his twenties and no longer at school as I'm not looking for anything dodgy or rapey or morally worrying.
Doesn't have to fit every single one of these conditions of course, the only non-negotiable is that they're both consenting adults (no teacher/student, step-parent or anything like that).
Thanks!
by cathal-oh-really
1 Comment
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney! One of my favourite books ever and there’s a 14 year age gap