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xcampuskiddo's reviews
245 reviews
Antisocial by Heidi Cullinan
4.0
I didn't realize before reading that one of the main characters was going to be ace, and when that started to be a question, as an ace person, I started to get very nervous. I've only read a few m/m books now with an ace spectrum main character. One was too formula, the next was almost absolutely perfectly portrayed, and Skylar Stone falls somewhere in the middle for me.
Before I go any further, let me clarify that I am a huge fan of Heidi Cullinan's works overall, and that because of this, I have become very familiar with her style. I knew to expect some pretty rigid tropes with secondary characters, and an infodump or two at some point, so while they are tiresome and potentially detract from or even jar the plot in a sort of PC-soapbox way, for me they weren't make-or- break issues. It's just how she writes things, so take it or leave it. Let me also reiterate that, while I do identify as ace, I cannot and do not speak for everyone on the ace spectrum, and I don't expect that an ace-presenting fictional character can accurately represent all real-life ace-identifying people.
That said, I really, really struggled with Skylar as an ace character at first, and there were bits of his experience that were a little frustrating or even jarring for me. He is coming to terms with his sexuality later in his maturity than the other characters, all of whom seem pretty comfortable with themselves (and willing to share a lot of information in easily digestible packets when they meet Pamela, who seems more like a plot device much of the time than a fully fleshed-out character). He's also dealing with a lot of other stressors related to school and family, and everything seems to come at him just right to cause a fairly epic meltdown when his squish, Xander, finally inadvertently hits his sexuality weak spot. From that point, it's basically an uphill climb through the rest of the book for Xander to put Skylar back together again. Other reviewers have noted, not incorrectly, that there is a lot of allo savior complex going on; for me, this never pinged, because I read it more in the larger context of what Skylar had hanging over his head. There have also been complaints that Xander is painted (no pun intended) as a miraculously patient allo who takes Skylar under his tutelage in order to slowly and gently show him his sensual side, and that their relationship basically teaches that aces can only be successful in a relationship when an allo is at the helm. I also saw this differently - I read Xander as being allo, but either with a reduced libido or with enough sexual hang-ups of his own that he was relieved that Skylar would be putting on the brakes rather than rushing into something that Xander wasn't ready for, himself. I also didn't have an issue imagining that he could just be a patient allo, since I am an ace in a very successful long-term relationship with a very allo partner who also respects me and my limits and boundaries. With that said, where Skylar's ace portrayal lost me was with his extreme reluctance/caution in advancing a physical relationship with Xander. In all of her infodumps - most notably, the one by Zelda to Skylar - the author never mentions the difference or separation between ace spectrum and the spectrum of sex favorable/neutral/averse/repulsed. There's even a marvelous opportunity to expand on these ideas when Zelda sets the boundary that they don't want explicit details when Skylar is asking them for advice or information, but while Skylar is hung up on how a label might change his own sense of himself and doesn't seem very clear on what it means to be ace spectrum, he doesn't even question the meaning of sex-averse, and Zelda doesn't give him any more information even though they are almost aggressively trying to convince Skylar to pick a label or a description of himself.
In the end, Skylar reads almost as a blushing innocent when it comes to bedroom interactions with Xander, rather than as someone who is truly trying to figure out his personal boundaries around sexual contact; it's hard to get a sense of whether he is gray and partially sex-averse, demi and uncertain, or ace and just not that into physical contact. He is clearly sensual, that much is clear, but his few forays into more sexualized contact, like kissing, come across not as unarousing (the piece that many aces experience and many allos perceive as rejection), but as overstimulating or almost overwhelming even as the description of the contact is underwhelming.
Overall, while I can't say that Skylar's expression and experience as an ace-spectrum character isn't reflective of any ace-identifying person in real life, I can say that it's not representative of my own experience as an ace person. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to a person, not the lack of sexual desire or the lack of sexual experience. While many aces are also sex-averse, there are many others, like myself, who are sex-favorable and enjoy a whole range of sexual experiences once we're in the right headspace. I wouldn't have minded if Skylar had decided that he just couldn't imagine wanting to kiss or touch Xander in sexually intimate ways, and I wouldn't have minded if he only wanted the sensual play without the other physical contact, and I wouldn't have minded if he jumped on one of his aroused moments with Xander and used it to push or stoke himself into a more sexual headspace. What bothered me was that, in a story about an ace-presenting character who appears at least occasionally sex-favorable who also refuses to claim a label (mostly due to personal insecurity and perhaps a sense by the author herself of not really knowing enough about the ace experience to start labeling him) even though the author boxes almost every other character into a rigid trope by orientation, gender identity, ability, and minority status, he never read as really ace, but more as timid. He admitted to thinking about wanting to kiss Xander, or to take things further, but even in scenes where he was openly admitting that he was thinking about trying those things RIGHT THEN, he didn't act on any of it most of the time because...that would suddenly make him a sexual character? That was the only thing I could think of that would account for so much wishy-washiness on his character's part, was a fear by the author that to have him do ANYTHING more would make him no longer authentically ace, and that is why this depiction of an ace character rises above the really formulaic caricature I read in one book, but doesn't bring him to the level of realism as the character (who also never really claims a label) of the other book. I will probably always read Heidi Cullinan's latest works, but I hope she can build in more authenticity for her characters in the future, and bring them back to the painstakingly crafted level of characterization (requiring no weird infodumps) that drew me to her earlier books and made me a fan in the first place.
Before I go any further, let me clarify that I am a huge fan of Heidi Cullinan's works overall, and that because of this, I have become very familiar with her style. I knew to expect some pretty rigid tropes with secondary characters, and an infodump or two at some point, so while they are tiresome and potentially detract from or even jar the plot in a sort of PC-soapbox way, for me they weren't make-or- break issues. It's just how she writes things, so take it or leave it. Let me also reiterate that, while I do identify as ace, I cannot and do not speak for everyone on the ace spectrum, and I don't expect that an ace-presenting fictional character can accurately represent all real-life ace-identifying people.
That said, I really, really struggled with Skylar as an ace character at first, and there were bits of his experience that were a little frustrating or even jarring for me. He is coming to terms with his sexuality later in his maturity than the other characters, all of whom seem pretty comfortable with themselves (and willing to share a lot of information in easily digestible packets when they meet Pamela, who seems more like a plot device much of the time than a fully fleshed-out character). He's also dealing with a lot of other stressors related to school and family, and everything seems to come at him just right to cause a fairly epic meltdown when his squish, Xander, finally inadvertently hits his sexuality weak spot. From that point, it's basically an uphill climb through the rest of the book for Xander to put Skylar back together again. Other reviewers have noted, not incorrectly, that there is a lot of allo savior complex going on; for me, this never pinged, because I read it more in the larger context of what Skylar had hanging over his head. There have also been complaints that Xander is painted (no pun intended) as a miraculously patient allo who takes Skylar under his tutelage in order to slowly and gently show him his sensual side, and that their relationship basically teaches that aces can only be successful in a relationship when an allo is at the helm. I also saw this differently - I read Xander as being allo, but either with a reduced libido or with enough sexual hang-ups of his own that he was relieved that Skylar would be putting on the brakes rather than rushing into something that Xander wasn't ready for, himself. I also didn't have an issue imagining that he could just be a patient allo, since I am an ace in a very successful long-term relationship with a very allo partner who also respects me and my limits and boundaries. With that said, where Skylar's ace portrayal lost me was with his extreme reluctance/caution in advancing a physical relationship with Xander. In all of her infodumps - most notably, the one by Zelda to Skylar - the author never mentions the difference or separation between ace spectrum and the spectrum of sex favorable/neutral/averse/repulsed. There's even a marvelous opportunity to expand on these ideas when Zelda sets the boundary that they don't want explicit details when Skylar is asking them for advice or information, but while Skylar is hung up on how a label might change his own sense of himself and doesn't seem very clear on what it means to be ace spectrum, he doesn't even question the meaning of sex-averse, and Zelda doesn't give him any more information even though they are almost aggressively trying to convince Skylar to pick a label or a description of himself.
In the end, Skylar reads almost as a blushing innocent when it comes to bedroom interactions with Xander, rather than as someone who is truly trying to figure out his personal boundaries around sexual contact; it's hard to get a sense of whether he is gray and partially sex-averse, demi and uncertain, or ace and just not that into physical contact. He is clearly sensual, that much is clear, but his few forays into more sexualized contact, like kissing, come across not as unarousing (the piece that many aces experience and many allos perceive as rejection), but as overstimulating or almost overwhelming even as the description of the contact is underwhelming.
Overall, while I can't say that Skylar's expression and experience as an ace-spectrum character isn't reflective of any ace-identifying person in real life, I can say that it's not representative of my own experience as an ace person. Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to a person, not the lack of sexual desire or the lack of sexual experience. While many aces are also sex-averse, there are many others, like myself, who are sex-favorable and enjoy a whole range of sexual experiences once we're in the right headspace. I wouldn't have minded if Skylar had decided that he just couldn't imagine wanting to kiss or touch Xander in sexually intimate ways, and I wouldn't have minded if he only wanted the sensual play without the other physical contact, and I wouldn't have minded if he jumped on one of his aroused moments with Xander and used it to push or stoke himself into a more sexual headspace. What bothered me was that, in a story about an ace-presenting character who appears at least occasionally sex-favorable who also refuses to claim a label (mostly due to personal insecurity and perhaps a sense by the author herself of not really knowing enough about the ace experience to start labeling him) even though the author boxes almost every other character into a rigid trope by orientation, gender identity, ability, and minority status, he never read as really ace, but more as timid. He admitted to thinking about wanting to kiss Xander, or to take things further, but even in scenes where he was openly admitting that he was thinking about trying those things RIGHT THEN, he didn't act on any of it most of the time because...that would suddenly make him a sexual character? That was the only thing I could think of that would account for so much wishy-washiness on his character's part, was a fear by the author that to have him do ANYTHING more would make him no longer authentically ace, and that is why this depiction of an ace character rises above the really formulaic caricature I read in one book, but doesn't bring him to the level of realism as the character (who also never really claims a label) of the other book. I will probably always read Heidi Cullinan's latest works, but I hope she can build in more authenticity for her characters in the future, and bring them back to the painstakingly crafted level of characterization (requiring no weird infodumps) that drew me to her earlier books and made me a fan in the first place.