Scan barcode
blue_birdy's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Biphobia and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Misogyny
cdoubet's review against another edition
emotional
tense
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? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying and Cursing
Moderate: Alcohol, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Infidelity
wickedgrumpy's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
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
This book made me cry at least twice, in a good way.
I guess one side note: I saw a couple reviews complaining about how Sunil is introduced as non-binary with he/them pronouns but then is exclusively addressed with he/him afterwards so what is the point in the he/them?
To that I will quote the book:
I guess one side note: I saw a couple reviews complaining about how Sunil is introduced as non-binary with he/them pronouns but then is exclusively addressed with he/him afterwards so what is the point in the he/them?
To that I will quote the book:
A shy-looking student raised a hand and, in a quiet voice, asked, "Do you prefer 'he' or 'they' pronouns? Or ... do you use both?"
Sunil smiled. "I personally like 'he/him' slightly more. Thanks for asking."
It might be a minor preference but it's still stated and I think it shows respect for the character to use he/him pronouns.
There isn't going to be one perfect book that represents everyone on the aro/ace spectrum but I think this book was a really great story about self-discovery, sexuality, and how messy life can be when you're still trying to figure out who you are.
Content Warnings
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia, Alcohol, Sexism, Sexual content, and Misogyny
foreverinastory's review against another edition
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Alcoholism, Acephobia/Arophobia, Sexual content, Alcohol, Cursing, and Mental illness
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Vomit, Biphobia, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Bullying, Outing, and Gaslighting
saturn26's review
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol and Cursing
Moderate: Acephobia/Arophobia, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Vomit
Minor: Toxic relationship
More...