Take a photo of a barcode or cover
squestionmark 's review for:
Loveless
by Alice Oseman
Spoiler alert
I had high hopes for a relatable aspec character in this book, but it was rather disappointing.
There were so many great opportunities to point out how misogyny drives sex-obsession in our society from the perspective of an asexual girl, but instead of any deep thought on society, the privileged white brit main character spent most of the book hating herself for being aroace then using and hurting her friends. For example, this paragraph:
“But why are, like, most teen movies focused around the fact that teenagers feel like they’re going to die if they don’t lose their virginity?” I asked, then almost immediately figured out what the answer was. “Oh. This is an asexual thing.” I laughed at myself. “I forgot other people are obsessed with having sex. Wow. That’s really funny.”
It’s not even true! People generally being so sex-obsessed isn’t even about sex or their being allosexual *on a societal level*. It’s much deeper than that. A little critical thinking about our society will tell you that much.
I didn’t even want the main character to get a happy ending by the time I got midway through the book because of how insufferable, self-absorbed and lacking in self-awareness she was.
The book also treated queer identities like tokens too. Many of the characters introduced revealed their queerness (or their two dads) in a forced way that felt token-ish. The split attraction model was treated similarly when the main character first researched it, in a tokenish way that made it almost meaningless - the sort of way some allos employ SAM online to disguise their misogyny or homophobia.
Many other characters were underdeveloped like Sunil who was so central but so shallowly fleshed-out. The writing was definitely telling instead of showing. The over-the-top college proposal (in place of a meaningful, drawn-out plan) to Pip was lazy and the details were wonky too - which cellist/violist would ever agree to get in a boat with their instrument for a dramatic proposal??? The eventual appreciation for platonic love, Pip and Rooney’s delicious enemies-to-lovers subplot and the main character’s redemption arc made reading the book slightly bearable, but it was still rather tepid overall.
I had high hopes for a relatable aspec character in this book, but it was rather disappointing.
There were so many great opportunities to point out how misogyny drives sex-obsession in our society from the perspective of an asexual girl, but instead of any deep thought on society, the privileged white brit main character spent most of the book hating herself for being aroace then using and hurting her friends. For example, this paragraph:
“But why are, like, most teen movies focused around the fact that teenagers feel like they’re going to die if they don’t lose their virginity?” I asked, then almost immediately figured out what the answer was. “Oh. This is an asexual thing.” I laughed at myself. “I forgot other people are obsessed with having sex. Wow. That’s really funny.”
It’s not even true! People generally being so sex-obsessed isn’t even about sex or their being allosexual *on a societal level*. It’s much deeper than that. A little critical thinking about our society will tell you that much.
I didn’t even want the main character to get a happy ending by the time I got midway through the book because of how insufferable, self-absorbed and lacking in self-awareness she was.
The book also treated queer identities like tokens too. Many of the characters introduced revealed their queerness (or their two dads) in a forced way that felt token-ish. The split attraction model was treated similarly when the main character first researched it, in a tokenish way that made it almost meaningless - the sort of way some allos employ SAM online to disguise their misogyny or homophobia.
Many other characters were underdeveloped like Sunil who was so central but so shallowly fleshed-out. The writing was definitely telling instead of showing. The over-the-top college proposal (in place of a meaningful, drawn-out plan) to Pip was lazy and the details were wonky too - which cellist/violist would ever agree to get in a boat with their instrument for a dramatic proposal??? The eventual appreciation for platonic love, Pip and Rooney’s delicious enemies-to-lovers subplot and the main character’s redemption arc made reading the book slightly bearable, but it was still rather tepid overall.