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cassie7e's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
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
3.0
Love having a black ace (and biromantic!) character! I recommend this for young aces or anyone who likes a young-adult-figuring-themselves-out story. It's useful if a lot of these concepts are new, and I seem to be the only ace reader who didn't hate this book. But it wasn't fantastic either. I think I would have loved this book if I found it while I was a teen/still in college. It works as an introduction to asexuality (and having a separate romantic orientation!) but doesn't delve into what that means for navigating relationships.
For an ace book that starts off commiserating with ace readers about how unrelatable being attracted to random people is, we still get instalove the second Alice lays eyes on Takumi. Aside from confusing Alice and making her question her identity, the book doesn't really explore how ace people can have varied experiences and still be ace. The text also doesnt seem to understand that romantic crushes aren't the same as finding someone so hot your face melts (which is what appears to happen here, and is so unrelatable to me that I wondered from the start if the author even knew what she was talking about). I wanted Alice's romantic side to be the focus but instead she is constantly questioning her sexual relationships, and jumps right into a situationship with Takumi that certainly reads as romantic to me (I mean, sharing a bed with your crush who keeps saying they like you??) but is only called a friendship by both parties for way too long. Instead of us getting to witness the development of their intimacy and actually see any chemistry, major breakthroughs in vulnerability and fun activities happen *off page*. Which is especially jarring since the narration carries on with the same tone and pace whether an hour has passed or apparently months. It made it really hard to track the progression of the story or believe in the emotional arcs.
So if Alice's romantic experiences aren't the focus, is asexuality in relationship explored? Not really. Alice is too immature and fearful to share with Margot that she's ace, which is appropriate for her age and insecurity. However the book doesn't distinguish between Margot's need for sexuality in her relationship from her judgement of Alice's lack of sexual engagement. Similarly there's not a discussion with Takumi about how he (who is not ace) will feel fulfilled in a relationship with Alice, who doesn't care about sex at all, nor want to have sex ever again even though she has at least once enjoyed herself. (Honestly I think most of Alice's hangups around sex come from sleeping with people she didn't even like, and who didn't care about her pleasure, but the book doesn't acknowledge that aspect of her past either.)
There's also a lot of friendship drama as Alice and Feeny (sp?) hurt each other without either entirely being in the wrong, and both refusing to talk about it. This is also developmentally realistic (fits my experience of teen girls in college) and maddening. But I appreciate that the book doesn't use this as an excuse to break the friendship and they do work through it. Prominent is an underlying fear of friends who are like family being fine without you, not needing you as much as you need them because they have their partner. (What if we normalized expansive relationship formats beyond the couple/nuclear family instead of putting people - especially aros and aces - in situationships with coupled friends? 👀) The book could have more intentionally explored reassurance within friendships and have the characters reckon with the priorities they put on their friendship vs romantic relationships. There's an opportunity here to show how deep and reliable friendships can be that is just missed.
As a fully fledged adult, what this book explores is not new or nuanced for me, and how people form and maintain complex relationships is far more interesting. This book is not that.
For an ace book that starts off commiserating with ace readers about how unrelatable being attracted to random people is, we still get instalove the second Alice lays eyes on Takumi. Aside from confusing Alice and making her question her identity, the book doesn't really explore how ace people can have varied experiences and still be ace. The text also doesnt seem to understand that romantic crushes aren't the same as finding someone so hot your face melts (which is what appears to happen here, and is so unrelatable to me that I wondered from the start if the author even knew what she was talking about). I wanted Alice's romantic side to be the focus but instead she is constantly questioning her sexual relationships, and jumps right into a situationship with Takumi that certainly reads as romantic to me (I mean, sharing a bed with your crush who keeps saying they like you??) but is only called a friendship by both parties for way too long. Instead of us getting to witness the development of their intimacy and actually see any chemistry, major breakthroughs in vulnerability and fun activities happen *off page*. Which is especially jarring since the narration carries on with the same tone and pace whether an hour has passed or apparently months. It made it really hard to track the progression of the story or believe in the emotional arcs.
So if Alice's romantic experiences aren't the focus, is asexuality in relationship explored? Not really. Alice is too immature and fearful to share with Margot that she's ace, which is appropriate for her age and insecurity. However the book doesn't distinguish between Margot's need for sexuality in her relationship from her judgement of Alice's lack of sexual engagement. Similarly there's not a discussion with Takumi about how he (who is not ace) will feel fulfilled in a relationship with Alice, who doesn't care about sex at all, nor want to have sex ever again even though she has at least once enjoyed herself. (Honestly I think most of Alice's hangups around sex come from sleeping with people she didn't even like, and who didn't care about her pleasure, but the book doesn't acknowledge that aspect of her past either.)
There's also a lot of friendship drama as Alice and Feeny (sp?) hurt each other without either entirely being in the wrong, and both refusing to talk about it. This is also developmentally realistic (fits my experience of teen girls in college) and maddening. But I appreciate that the book doesn't use this as an excuse to break the friendship and they do work through it. Prominent is an underlying fear of friends who are like family being fine without you, not needing you as much as you need them because they have their partner. (What if we normalized expansive relationship formats beyond the couple/nuclear family instead of putting people - especially aros and aces - in situationships with coupled friends? 👀) The book could have more intentionally explored reassurance within friendships and have the characters reckon with the priorities they put on their friendship vs romantic relationships. There's an opportunity here to show how deep and reliable friendships can be that is just missed.
As a fully fledged adult, what this book explores is not new or nuanced for me, and how people form and maintain complex relationships is far more interesting. This book is not that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia
Moderate: Sexual harassment
Minor: Racism, Vomit, and Alcohol