I wish there were more translated Chinese danmei (boys' love) novels that had the same depth for lesbian stories. The queer webnovel scene in China is vast, but a lot of the popular GL (girls' love) tends to be shorter or more trope-driven. There are gems, though, if you dig. I remember a historical one about a female general and a princess that had amazing political intrigue... the titles always escape me. The fan translation communities work so hard to bring these stories over. It's a whole other world of essential reading, often exploring dynamics and settings you rarely see in Western publishing.
You know, a lot of people talk about 'Annie on My Mind' as the classic, and it is, but that really stays in the high school years. For a true, sprawling journey from awkward teen to messy adult, 'The Summer of Jordi Pérez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles)' by Amy Spalding is a fantastic, upbeat start, and then following Abby IRL into her twenties in the sequel 'And Then I Met You' gives you that wonderful continuation of life, career, and relationship anxieties. It feels so real because the character's voice matures naturally with the writing.
Another deep cut is 'The Stars and the Blackness Between Them' by Junauda Petrus. It's magical realism, following Mabel from a strict Trinidadian household into a new life in Minneapolis, dealing with first love and profound loss, and the narrative carries her spirit into young adulthood in a way that’s less about linear time and more about emotional growth. The prose is breathtaking.
If you want something with a more historical bent, 'The Last True Poets of the Sea' by Julia Drake isn't exclusively a romance; it's a riff on 'Twelfth Night' about a girl sent to her family's coastal town after a crisis. Her journey of self-discovery, confronting family legacy and mental health, charts a quiet, powerful path from a shattered teen to someone beginning to piece together a future.
Lol, all these great books and my most realistic queer coming-of-age memory is just me at 14, obsessively reading and rereading the one vaguely subtextual scene between two female characters in a mainstream fantasy novel and having a whole existential crisis over it. Fiction was my lifeline, but the real story was much messier and involved a lot more AIM chats. Sometimes the 'realistic' story is the one we don't have a book for yet.