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RIYADH (Reuters) - Gay teenagers, predatory lesbians, women drinking alcohol at weddings, husbands with unsavoury sexual demands.

With characters like that, "The Girls of Riyadh" is not your run-of-the-mill depiction of life in Muslim Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most restricted and conservative societies.

Though technically banned here, Rajaa al-Sanie's frank and sometimes shocking insight into the closed world of Saudi women is making waves four months after its publication in Beirut.

Local press commentators have asked the young Saudi to disown the book for besmirching women in the conservative kingdom and interviewers on Saudi-owned satellite channels have accused her of portraying its men as boorish bores.

But many young people using popular Internet chat rooms have praised Sanie's debut novel for its honesty. Prominent writers have lauded the work as part of a new trend which, through focussing on the psychology of the individual, suggests that human needs come above the demands of society and religion.

"I never imagined the reactions will lead to a big stir," said Sanie, who wears the Islamic headscarf. "Men are not used to this sincere and frank dialogue. There is a minority in any society that resists any change -- some of them are women."

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, follows the austere Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam. Women must be fully covered and accompanied by a male relative in public. Mixing of unmarried men and women is forbidden and women are banned from driving.

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise from "The Girls of Riyadh".

MINEFIELD OF TABOOS

The book centres on four women from affluent homes who must navigate a minefield of rules and taboos on sex, marriage and social caste to get and keep their men.

Those who fail face rejection and, like many of Saudi Arabia's moneyed elite, retreat to foreign capitals to lick their wounds in more liberal surroundings.

In one passage, one of the four girls returns from Los Angeles to find that "love in her country is treated like an out-of-place joke that you can have fun with for a while, before it's removed from circulation by higher authorities".

More of Woman shocks Saudi world with 'The Girls of Riyadh' @ Reuters.uk, UK