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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
10/10 absolutely no notes!!! Oh my god! This reflects the kinds of conversations I have with my irl friends and the environment in college I wish I'd had (though, I wasn't exposed to as many queer people nor aroace people in my own college years). So much love and heart poured into this book, so many topics and questions explored - some with answers, and some without. Thank you author for writing this book. One of my favorites of all time.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was pleasantly surprised that this felt a lot less YA than I'd anticipated. Jo and Sophie both felt fairly mature and well-rounded as characters whose brains aren't fully developed and none of the side characters annoyed me. My only drawback is that I could literally see the ending coming and I was just waiting for Jo and Sophie to see it coming too and got annoyed that they took so long to come to the same conclusion that seems so obvious to me.
-Two aromantic and asexual main characters
-Dual 1st person POV's
-Young adult audience/takes place during their second semester of college
-Lots of social media/texting format excerpts
I liked this! The premise is that Jo and Sophie are both first-year aro/ace college students who run anonymous advice social media accounts and become sort of rivals online, and then in real life they unknowingly meet and become really close friends.
Jo and Sophie are both likable characters, and I appreciated the ensemble of other queer characters from different backgrounds. There are lots of discussions about being aro/ace, having immigrant parents, societal expectations, and attending a historically women's college.
I do think that this book is longer than I felt was necessary; there's a lot of dialogue and randomly detailed description that could have been cut. And I think the tone of the narrative is very online and sometimes lacks a little nuance. But, overall, I love that this was a story about two people falling in love as friends and it's just great and heartwarming to read about!
In terms of content, I really appreciate that this was sort of light! The heaviest the subject matter ever got was fear of being eternally alone and some rude a-phobic comments online. There's some swearing, and allusions to hankypanky, but this book is overall very PG and upbeat!
-Dual 1st person POV's
-Young adult audience/takes place during their second semester of college
-Lots of social media/texting format excerpts
I liked this! The premise is that Jo and Sophie are both first-year aro/ace college students who run anonymous advice social media accounts and become sort of rivals online, and then in real life they unknowingly meet and become really close friends.
Jo and Sophie are both likable characters, and I appreciated the ensemble of other queer characters from different backgrounds. There are lots of discussions about being aro/ace, having immigrant parents, societal expectations, and attending a historically women's college.
I do think that this book is longer than I felt was necessary; there's a lot of dialogue and randomly detailed description that could have been cut. And I think the tone of the narrative is very online and sometimes lacks a little nuance. But, overall, I love that this was a story about two people falling in love as friends and it's just great and heartwarming to read about!
In terms of content, I really appreciate that this was sort of light! The heaviest the subject matter ever got was fear of being eternally alone and some rude a-phobic comments online. There's some swearing, and allusions to hankypanky, but this book is overall very PG and upbeat!
I was my mom’s plus one for her 50th reunion at Wellesley. I enjoyed meeting all the women in my mom’s class (and kicking myself for not applying when I was in high school!) and discussing books with them. Someone mentioned this book by a recent graduate. I immediately put it on hold. It took 4 months to get off the hold list for DC Public Library! Worth the wait! This was a super sweet book about “phileo” love.
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
A debut from a Wellesley student! Have to Stan. The characters were loveable and this book transported me to one of my favorite places on earth, Wellesley.
informative
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This one has been on my list for a while because I heard it has great ace/aro representation, which is hard to find. I actually considered DNFing throughout the first quarter of the book. I was just not invested. The story relies heavily on social media, which dates the text significantly. And it takes place in a college setting, and it feels like it was written by a college student, and the caliber of writing is pretty consistent with what you’d get in creative writing 101 courses. Not great imagery (everyone is described by hair/eye color, ugh), too many characters, flat characters, very reliant on dialogue for exposition, a lot of random injections of unnecessary details. The setting of this book is intensely insular. It all takes place on the campus of a progressive women’s college, so everyone naturally uses declared pronouns and gender theory speak that you don’t find in the real world. It is unique and perhaps utopian, but doesn’t feel very real. The plot wasn’t strong, the stakes were low, no stress. I will give it this: there are helpful discussion points about the way ace people view friendships, the way the queer community feels about them, and a bunch of other nuanced topics. For that alone, it was a worthwhile read. But it’s not very elevated literature.
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
teared up multiple times! holy shit i wish i had a book like this earlier in life! not 1 but 2 ASPEC MAIN CHARACTERS!!!!!! an ace character that gets severe motion sickness like talk about representation wowow VERY EMOTIONAL!!!!!