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A review by theglossreview
Loveless by Alice Oseman
3.0
The first time I read Loveless, I was left confused. I felt strongly compelled to rate it 5 stars because it represents asexuality … but I also felt tempted to agree with certain 1 star reviews regarding problematic aspects of the book.
Therefore, I am writing this review during the second reading of Loveless.
The first quarter of the book provides an excellent setup. Great start. The strange thing about Georgia is that some of the things she says are 100% relatable, with uncanny similarities to how I’d say them. Other statements and actions, however, are contradictory and strange. She believes that she can’t figure out anything by herself, therefore desperately asking for advice, thereby making her insecure decision-making into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now, let’s see how things turn out for Georgia, Pip, Jason and Rooney in the next three quarters of the book.
“It was going to be an absolute disaster, but that wasn’t stopping any of us.”
Indeed, the biggest part of the plot consists of Georgia messing up everything with everyone, well and truly. A lot of this is conveyed via text messages. Georgia‘s texts are HORRENDOUS. She possesses the ability to magically turn off the auto-capitalisation of nouns and the first word of each sentence EVEN while using the same device as someone who’s words do get capitalised by autocorrect. So either … or:
1) Georgia has the superpower to make all screens spell all of her sentences in lower case and WITHOUT punctuation.
2) Georgia INTENTIONALLY turns off the autocorrect and misspells every single sentence.
That would’ve been bad enough already, the fact that she’s the MAIN CHARACTER and a student of ENGLISH LITERATURE none withstanding. That’s just sad.
Indeed, around the 70% mark, all the book made me feel was irritated with Georgia. Why would she hurt her friends so badly? Why couldn’t she understand the difference between being sex positive or addicted? Why couldn’t she make ANY EFFORT beyond sending three texts to save or strengthen her friendships? And her friends themselves? And why, oh why, can she, the literature student, not spell a single sentence right? It is all well and truly unbelievable. It is also unbelievable (slight spoiler alert!!!) that at this point two asexual characters are introduced. Georgia just happens to overhear (yes, eavesdrop!!!) on both of them coming out to someone else. One of them comes out of the blue (or rather, Georgia SOMEHOW becomes the first person to introduce this person to the terms asexual and aromantic, even though this person is 10 years older and more experienced than her, which is almost offensively unbelievable), exactly at the time when the plot calls for it. It’s simply unbelievable that this coming out did not happen any sooner or later or by Georgia asking about it, but simply by overhearing opportune conversations. That’s just lazy writing. Almost as lazy as spelling everything in lower case, except that actually requires superpowers or laser focused intention.
But here is where the laziness gets hugely problematic!!! The book’s theme is asexuality and aromanticism. It does that well. It’s somewhat confusing why Georgia, who “loves Love” and imagined “thousand of romantic scenarios” says she’s asexual because she never pictured herself in a sexual situation but aromantic ALTHOUGH she constantly pictured herself in romantic situations. The first aspect is consistent, the second is contradictory. She talks about romance as if she expected and wanted it, and then… just suddenly… not?
Another huge problem is that the difference between sex positive and addicted is not clarified, but rather muddled.
Thirdly, the author is trying to do too much in too little time. The topic of gender and pronouns is introduced, just to get finished off within a few short and confusing sentences. Just… no. Don’t. The author should have stuck to the exploration of diverse sexual and romantic orientations. Bringing behaviours, addictions and pronouns into it made it a huge mess. It just backfired. Too little time, too many topics.
In conclusion, I give it three stars for the good quotes and the partially relatable description of the university experience, amongst others. Two stars deducted for the above problems.
Therefore, I am writing this review during the second reading of Loveless.
The first quarter of the book provides an excellent setup. Great start. The strange thing about Georgia is that some of the things she says are 100% relatable, with uncanny similarities to how I’d say them. Other statements and actions, however, are contradictory and strange. She believes that she can’t figure out anything by herself, therefore desperately asking for advice, thereby making her insecure decision-making into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now, let’s see how things turn out for Georgia, Pip, Jason and Rooney in the next three quarters of the book.
“It was going to be an absolute disaster, but that wasn’t stopping any of us.”
Indeed, the biggest part of the plot consists of Georgia messing up everything with everyone, well and truly. A lot of this is conveyed via text messages. Georgia‘s texts are HORRENDOUS. She possesses the ability to magically turn off the auto-capitalisation of nouns and the first word of each sentence EVEN while using the same device as someone who’s words do get capitalised by autocorrect. So either … or:
1) Georgia has the superpower to make all screens spell all of her sentences in lower case and WITHOUT punctuation.
2) Georgia INTENTIONALLY turns off the autocorrect and misspells every single sentence.
That would’ve been bad enough already, the fact that she’s the MAIN CHARACTER and a student of ENGLISH LITERATURE none withstanding. That’s just sad.
Indeed, around the 70% mark, all the book made me feel was irritated with Georgia. Why would she hurt her friends so badly? Why couldn’t she understand the difference between being sex positive or addicted? Why couldn’t she make ANY EFFORT beyond sending three texts to save or strengthen her friendships? And her friends themselves? And why, oh why, can she, the literature student, not spell a single sentence right? It is all well and truly unbelievable. It is also unbelievable (slight spoiler alert!!!) that at this point two asexual characters are introduced. Georgia just happens to overhear (yes, eavesdrop!!!) on both of them coming out to someone else. One of them comes out of the blue (or rather, Georgia SOMEHOW becomes the first person to introduce this person to the terms asexual and aromantic, even though this person is 10 years older and more experienced than her, which is almost offensively unbelievable), exactly at the time when the plot calls for it. It’s simply unbelievable that this coming out did not happen any sooner or later or by Georgia asking about it, but simply by overhearing opportune conversations. That’s just lazy writing. Almost as lazy as spelling everything in lower case, except that actually requires superpowers or laser focused intention.
But here is where the laziness gets hugely problematic!!! The book’s theme is asexuality and aromanticism. It does that well. It’s somewhat confusing why Georgia, who “loves Love” and imagined “thousand of romantic scenarios” says she’s asexual because she never pictured herself in a sexual situation but aromantic ALTHOUGH she constantly pictured herself in romantic situations. The first aspect is consistent, the second is contradictory. She talks about romance as if she expected and wanted it, and then… just suddenly… not?
Another huge problem is that the difference between sex positive and addicted is not clarified, but rather muddled.
Thirdly, the author is trying to do too much in too little time. The topic of gender and pronouns is introduced, just to get finished off within a few short and confusing sentences. Just… no. Don’t. The author should have stuck to the exploration of diverse sexual and romantic orientations. Bringing behaviours, addictions and pronouns into it made it a huge mess. It just backfired. Too little time, too many topics.
In conclusion, I give it three stars for the good quotes and the partially relatable description of the university experience, amongst others. Two stars deducted for the above problems.