Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Sin amor

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

Sin amor by Alice Oseman

46 reviews

hollymileham's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

3.75

really wanted to love this but i just.. didnt? i think it was the writing style, the tone felt of immature to me which took away from the reading experience and i was never really fuly invested
pip and rooney >>>
i am glad to have read it though bc you dont find many books about this and the platonic love explorations were quite heartwarming

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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing 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

5.0

Definitely one of my new favorites. This book was amazing. It was so relatable and I was not expecting that. All the characters were detailed and lovely to read about. Following not only Georgia but her friends finding themselves was something I didn’t even know I needed to read.

As someone who thrives off of fanfiction, I loved all the comments about fanfics so much.

The humor was great and the more serious moments were done really well. I just really loved this book. The friendships were beautiful. It really showed you didn’t need a romantic, you could have platonic relationships and that is that.

Strongly suggest this for anyone who wants a lighthearted read with a happy ending, someone who might be in or questioning the ace community, people who want a realistic and relatable read that has amazing platonic relationships.

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nikexistiertnik's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing 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

4.5

it took me a little to get into the book, mainly because i didn't expect it to mention fanfictions that much and because i wasn't the biggest fan of the writing in the beginning.
BUT i loved the story and i started to enjoy the writing more the further the story progressed!
the characters were realistically portrayed and even though some of their interactions frustrated me, they didn't seem unrealistic or anything, so it was mostly frustrating in a "aaaaaaaaaah i know that's how people act and how i would sometimes behave but PLEEEAAASE talk" way
i loved the fact that alice shows the importance of our modern resources for people's sense of identities,

like having ellis as an older aro-ace character who didn't have the same possibilities as georgia, just because she grew up in a slightly different time

and one of the problems that many bipoc lgbtqia+ people face, which is that lgbtqia+ spaces are often predominantly white (and also cis).

i am a little sad that sunil was introduced as a non-binary character with a "he/they" pin on their jacket, meaning that he uses both he/him and they/them pronouns, but then sunil was only referred to as "he" by the other characters (mostly georgia). i know "he" is the preferred pronoun in that case, but i just kind of wished it would've at least been addressed when he DID talk about his identity.

also, i was kind of taken aback by how much alcohol they consumed - i know they're in university and that's kind of normal then, but i didn't particularly enjoyed that.
all in all, i still really loved the book and i enjoyed the ending SO MUCH, i was constantly shrieking, screaming, smiling, crying, and i just HAD to finish the last bit without further interruption even though i MASSIVELY have to pee now.
and i think reading it helped me a lot, because firstly, i learned some stuff about myself, and secondly, this morning, i couldn't bring myself to get up, but now i actually want to, and i think finishing the book plays a major part in that.

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sssssoup's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective 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

4.5

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emotionalsupportsandwich's review against another edition

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funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

3.5

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foreverinastory's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Thank you to Pride Book Tours, I Read YA and Scholastic inc for the physical ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Loveless is the story of Georgia. She's never been in love, but she wants to. She's determined to make University her fresh start. With her best friends and her roommate on her side, she knows she'll make it work this time. But when her romance plans wreak havoc among her friends, Georgia doesn't know what to do. Then new terms are thrown at her - asexual, aromantic - and Georgia is more uncertain of her feelings than ever.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and I feel like my initial review came off more negative than I intended it to so I'm editing it for clarity. This book is very readable. When I grabbed the UK audiobook I was planning to listen to it over the course of two days or so, which is slower for me than normal, but I've been super busy lately. However, once I started it, I marathoned the first 80% without stopping. I only finally turned it off to go to sleep, and I immediately finished it first thing the next morning.

Let me start with the one thing that really annoyed me first. Sunil (he/they) is a nonbinary Indian side character, who is also Georgia's college parent. They introduce their pronouns pretty early into the book. He is wearing a sticker that says (he/they), Georgia notices this. She never once uses they pronouns to refer to Sunil, only ever he. As someone who is gender expansive and uses multiple pronouns, this really bothered me. Sunil does not indicate to Georgia a preferred pronoun set between the two, so she should really use both or ask. She does neither and uses he all the time. Y'all if someone uses multiple pronouns and they don't tell you to only use one: MIX IT UP! Use them all! You can use whichever set is listed first, but for the love of shit, don't only use one unless you are explicitly told to. I know this is addressed in the US edition, but something still does not sit right with me about this situation. This was my main point of frustration with the book, but it did not keep me from loving the shit out of Sunil. They deserve their own book. He is the most precious out of all the side characters.

We see Georgia's experiences and acceptance of her sexuality, and this is only ONE experience of a very large spectrum. It's never talked about in the book but there are different attitudes towards sex: repulsed, neutral and positive. Georgia is a sex-repulsed character. If you are neutral or positive, this book might be harder to relate to. Before Georgia hears the words asexual and aromantic, she tries to put herself into romantic and (consensual) sexual situations to see what will happen. All of these experiences end with her being repulsed by them. It was so important to show this experience on page and I'm glad we're finally getting such deliberate on page exploration of asexuality and aromanticism. Seeing Georgia go through all of these experiences, come to accept her asexuality and aromanticism and realize she's still a whole person capable of loving people was such a powerful narrative.

Georgia had so many relatable quotes and thoughts. I definitely laughed at some of them because they're the same things I've thought before. We are SO asexual. There were times it was harder for me to relate because our sex attitudes are different, but she always felt like a realistic and sympathetic character. I felt sad about all the drinking she did when she didn't really seem to want to. There's nothing wrong with pushing your boundaries or doing things to fit in. I hope that society gets better at letting people be their whole selves and that the societal pressures of social drinking and other situations becomes less prevalent. This is not meant to be a criticism of Georgia and her actions but rather the environment that made her feel like she didn't have choice.

I'm really glad this book exists and now it has finally published in the US it will become more accessible to people. I'm especially thinking of young queer teens who are questioning or don't even know asexuality is a thing. We need more ace and aro icons. We need more education about these experiences and more media that shows them. I would really love to see more sex positive asexual stories.

I loved all of Georgia's friends. Rooney was precious. I'm a fan of pansexual rep. Though I know other pan reviewer's have had issues with this rep (see: Melanie's review). Rooney was such a fun character and I really enjoyed seeing all her antics in this book. I wish we got a deeper understanding of things going through her head. But from what we do see, I was very empathetic to her. Rooney has trouble letting people in and can be very guarded about her emotions. That was 100% relatable for me.

I really loved the ending where Georgia does all these actions to show her friends how important they are to her. Georgia has learned from her mistakes and will continue to be better. Also I head canon Rooney and Georgia have a QPR especially after what Rooney told her about how she's never leaving Georgia behind, that part had me in my feels. Seeing all of her friends come through for the Shakespeare society was so much fun. I loved seeing their mash-up play and watching all of their chaotic practices. There was so much sexual tension between some of these characters 👀. IYKYK.

Overall, I had a ton of fun with this book. I want more stories like this where we see a group of friends fall more platonically in love in each other. I want more platonic grand gestures. I want more asexual MCs and their found families.

Rep: white British aroace questioning cis female MC with anxiety, Latina-British lesbian female side character, white British supposedly heterosexual cis male side character (I very much read him on the ace spectrum), Indian-British gay asexual nonbinary side character, white British bisexual aromantic female side character, white British pansexual questioning cis female side character, various other queer side characters.

CWs from the author: internalized amisia, verbal amisia, deliberate amisic attitudes, accidentally amisic attitudes due to ignorance/lack of knowledge about a-spec identities, frank discussions of sex and masturbation, two brief incidents of exclusionary attitudes, references to past emotionally abusive relationships, references to past bullying.

Additional CWs from me: alcohol consumption, cursing, homophobia/homomisia, sexual content (discussions, off page sex between side characters), alcoholism, mental illness (anxiety), misgendering (non-use of multiple pronouns for a character who uses multiple pronouns). Moderate: bullying/peer pressure, outing, transphobia/transmisia, lesbophobia/lesbomisia, gaslighting, toxic friendship, toxic relationship, vomit, biphobia/bimisia, drug use, misogyny.

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tri_lo_bite's review against another edition

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emotional 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

3.5

I was really excited when this came in at the library. And after reading it, I really don’t know how to feel.

Read for the Read Harder 2022 prompt: Read a book with an asexual and/or aromantic main character.

I think that this was a good book. I think that it was also incredibly British, which was on one hand very fun, and an interesting look into British university culture, but on the other hand a little concerning I mean do y’all really have a drinking culture like that?? How are you still alive?!

I think I enjoyed it. Honestly, the self loathing was incredibly triggering and hard to read. I felt very uncomfortable for a lot of the book. But I liked the characters, they felt very realistic, I loved the growth. And I loved aroace rep!

I think that the intended audience for this one is probably amato allo folks and I guess that’s fine I dunno. Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about this one.

3.5 stars?

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