Dive into the Mind of the Aromantic Asexual - Loveless
Book information:
Author: Alice Oseman
Page: 433
Language: English
(I) bought from: Amazon
Genre: contemporary fiction, LGBTQIA+, young adult, romance, coming of age
Mood: adventurous, emotional, funny, hopeful, informative, inspiring, reflective
Pace: medium
Character driven> plot driven
Trigger warning: acephobia/arophobia, alcohol, toxic relationship, sexual content, homophobia
Why I read it: it talks about aromanticism and asexuality
Mood while I read: 🤔🥰😮🤣😞🤣🥰
It made me want to read: other Alice Oseman’s novels
Who I will recommend to: aromantic/asexual people and those who want to know more about LGBTQIA+, especially about aromantic asexual
Rating
Plot: 4.5/5 ⭐️
Character: 4.75/5 ⭐️
Ease of reading: mostly easy (but there’re some quotes from William Shakespeare’s plays because the characters practiced them for their performance, and I can’t understand William Shakespeare’s language)
Overall (not just from the above three): 4.75/5 ⭐️
When I first saw the title of this book, I thought “Ugh! Another love story where the heartbroken woman sweared not to love anyone again. Not gonna touch it.”
But later, I realized that it was about aromantic asexual, a topic that I’ve always wanted to understand more. I became interested in it and it didn’t disappoint me at all.
Synopsis
Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush - but, as a fanfic-obsessed romantic, she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.
As she starts university, Georgia makes a plan to find love. But when her actions wreak havoc among her friends, she questions why romance seems so easy for other people yet not for her. With new terms thrown at her - asexual , aromantic - Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.
Is he destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?
“But I wasn’t attracted to any them.
I didn’t feel any sort of desire.
When I tried to picture standing close to them, kissing them, touching them…
I grimaced. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.”
Georgia: the aromantic asexual (aroace)
The story follows Georgia who tried to understand about who she was. As the name suggests, she had little to no romantic attraction and sexual desire for anyone. At first, however, she thought that she just hadn’t found the right person. Later, she realized the truth, but the story didn’t end there. She needed to accept who she was and what would bring her after she accepted it. This is a good direction for the story because recognizing that we’re different from the people around us, especially when that uniqueness is being aromantic asexual, isn’t easy. Accepting that we’re the aroace means that we accept the consequence such as not being in love with anyone, possibly having no partner for the rest of our lives, and making our parents disappoint.
Another good direction of the story is that the author Alice Oseman didn’t hide the fact that Georgia was aroace from the readers. The important thing in the story isn’t to find out why she was the way she was, but to understand how aroace think about love and sex, as well as the internal and external conflicts they have. So, when I was reading the book, I noticed a lot of aromantic and asexual’s characteristics from Georgia.
Also, I can relate to Georgia to some degree. The more I read, the more I found out that I and Georgia had many similar thing. At first, I thought it was strange because I wasn’t an aromantic, but later I realized that it’s because I was a quoiromantic, which is also in the spectrum of aromantic. (Check what inspired me to find out who I am, and how alterous attraction feels like.)
“[…] some asexuals don’t like sex at all, and some are just neutral about it. Some asexuals still feel romantic attraction to people - wanting to be in relationships, or even kiss people, for example.[…]”
It’s so educational!
What unique about this book is that there a lot of information regarding not only aroace, but also other gender identities. But because the story is spoken from Georgia’s perspective, we get knowledge about aroace the most.
I can’t say that what Georgia experienced is what all aroace or aromantic/asexual have been through. I’m also in aromantic spectrum, but I don’t get nausea when thinking about being in a romantic relationship as Georgia did. I just… cringe (well, sometimes). However, I think most of the information in the book are accurate because Alice Oseman is aroace herself, and she knows what she has experienced (check here to understand aromantic and asexual more by debunk the myths).
Furthermore, there were many characters in LGBTQIA+ community in the books. There were gay, lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual (oh, there were straight people, too). When combining them with romantic/sexual orientation, we get asexual gay, aromantic bisexual and so on.
One more thing, before and while reading the book, I had a question the same as Pip, Georgia’s lesbian best friend, had. Pip asked Georgia “How do you know you won’t find someone one day?”
And Georgia said “… I mean, how do you know you won’t fall for a guy one day?”
This answer slapped both of ours faces at the same time.
Yeah, why didn’t I consider that before? If you’re straight, you never ask if one day you will love a person with the same gender as you. Same goes for gay, lesbian, and other. So it shouldn’t be any difference for aromantic or asexual.
So, I think I finally understood a lot of more about aromantic and asexual.
Lovable characters
I love all of the main characters in the story! They had such a interesting personality that I want to be friend with them. Pip is a lesbian who always brought fun to her friends. Jason is a straight guy who gave warm and calm atmosphere, and Rooney is a super extrovert whose personality was shown clearly from the first time I saw her (in the book). Of course, she also had secret that she never wanted to tell anyone, and it explained why she acted like that.
As for Georgia, she’s the character I can relate to the most, but also want to be like the most. She was an introvert, so sometimes she forced herself to socialize to make new friends and to find a partner in college (and failed). But at the same time, she was such a great friend, a good listener, a hero who always stood up for her friend and for what was right. Well, she she did some messed up things to escape from being aromantic asexual, but she also realized her mistakes and tried her best to clear things up. So, good for her.
Also, I love the dynamic between Georgia and Rooney. It was like the opposite attract. Georgia was totally an introvert, while Rooney was an extrovert. Georgia was repulsed by just think of herself in a sexual activity, but Rooney was like “I’m cool with that.” However, they really cared for each other. Even though Rooney was really excited about having sex with anyone she met, she didn’t force Georgia to be like her when realizing that she was different from her. Their personalities were opposite, but they truly respected each other.
“Like the way friendship can be just as intense, beautiful, and endless as romance. Like the way there’s love everywhere around me - there’s love for my friends, there’s love in my painting, there’s love for myself. There’s even love for my parents in there somewhere. Deep down.”
A story about love
The title is “Loveless”, but this book is far from that. But it’s not the conventional love that everyone think of. It’s about the love for friends. Because the society teaches us that romantic relationship is the best thing we can have in our lives, we forget that friendship is as important as, if not more important than the romantic one. But as we can see, even after Georgia accepted that she was aroace, she could live happily with her best friends and did what she loved.
Final thought
I’m so happy that there’s a book exploring aromantic and asexual. People should know and accept our existence. One more thing, as Alice Oseman’s graphic novel “Heartstopper” was adapted into a live action, I hope that “Loveless” will also get the chance so that even more people understand about this romantic/sexual orientation.
