A Very Personal Review of Loveless by Alice Oseman

Hello friends! This week I bring you a very personal review. As some of you may know, I am demisexual (an identity on the asexual spectrum). I didn’t receive a review copy of Loveless (book review) at the time of writing this review, but I have since received a review copy from Jonathan Ball Publishers. I felt like I had to write down my thoughts on one of the very few books with an asexual main character. And I have a lot of thoughts. Enjoy!

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Title: Loveless

Author: Alice Oseman

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Genre: Contemporary, YA, LGTBQ

Content Warnings: Internalised aphobia, verbal aphobia, frank discussions of sex and masturbation, exclusionary attitudes, past emotional abuse, past bullying.

Format: Audiobook

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date Published: July 9th 2020

Goodreads Description: It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean?

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 with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.

But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.

Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?

Loveless – Book Review

I have some thoughts on Loveless. Please don’t get me wrong, this book made me feel incredibly seen.  However, that does not mean that this book didn’t hurt people along the way. I’m going to try my best to give my honest opinion on Loveless while keeping other #ownvoices reviewers in mind.

Also, there will be spoilers, as I need to get into spoilers to properly articulate my feelings.

The Beginning – Dealing with new uncertainties

We start off with Georgia getting into a situation she doesn’t want to be. Georgia is essentially being forced (by society and herself) to kiss a guy because she wants to be normal. She’s 18 and she hasn’t kissed anyone before, and she feels like she’s “behind” because all of her friends have had their first kisses and first times.

There’s a lot to unpack here so bear with me. Firstly, you are not “behind” if you haven’t had your first kiss at 18. Our cultures are generally very sex-orientated. Which is strange considering how women are still slut-shamed and men are still virgin-shamed (women are virgin-shamed too btw, you just cannot win). Now, Afrikaans culture is generally very conservative. We don’t really talk about sex. So it took me some time to discover my own asexuality.

My high school friends all had long term boyfriends, and occasionally I would hear the words “when are you getting a boyfriend?” As if it was something I could just pick up at a store on the way home from school. Why do people feel the need to ask that question? Anyway, my high school friends and I NEVER discussed sex or anything even close to the sort. Well, they didn’t discuss it with me at least. I had a few crushes and a semi-boyfriend during high school, but nothing serious.

So it’s entirely understandable how Georgia would not, at that moment, think anything other than “there’s something wrong with me”. And that sums up my entire life experience.

“There is something wrong with me.”

And even now, my 24-year-old self still thinks that occasionally, even if I know better.

University is a scary place

We follow Georgia to university, and that’s where the main story takes place. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where I’ve related so much to a character. And I know I should be going more out of my way to read books with identities that match mine but let’s be honest here. There are not many popular books with a-spec main characters. (Don’t worry, I’m building a list for them, and there are many lists out there). Google is your friend.

I remember my first day of my first year at university very vividly. It was awful, to be honest. But not as awful as my entire first year. I was a little shell shocked when I joined the student newspaper, and at our very first meeting had to take part in a very personal game of “never had I ever” involving JUST sex-related questions. Like? I am all for enjoying sex (especially for women) without judgement. But damn. I was super uncomfy and LIED for every question. Why? Because I felt behind. I felt like there must be something wrong with me.

The “sex-pressure” increases tenfold at university. Because we’re all adults and adults have sex. And this is where Georgia comes off as judgemental to a lot of people. I want to speak in defence of her here because it’s just not how my brain works and not how hers works. It surprises me still that people think of sex that often. Every single drinking game I played in my first year (and many in the following years) wanted us to reveal our wildest sex stories or divulge which sex acts we’d done. And I’m not judging anyone for thinking about sex. In fact, we should be having more healthy (healthy being the keyword here) discussions about sex.

Sounds fake but okay?

You’re probably thinking, “oh she’s a prude” or “she just has high standards” or “she’s so conservative” or “sounds fake but okay”. A lot of a-spec people hear these things every day. And it hurts, it feels judgemental, and we should all just really mind our own business and let people be.

Anyhow, Georgia really wants to get the “university experience” and I guess that experience involves falling in love. At least, the experience at my university includes love. Our campus is dubbed as very romantic, and I’ve seen like 10 000 proposals on campus in my six years here. So I get why Georgia wants to have the full experience. University is a place for you to find yourself. I wouldn’t be who I am without the friends I made here and the experiences I had here. I’m all for university life.

However, Georgia sort of bullies herself into many things, like going to clubs and such when she clearly does not enjoy it. It’s okay. Clubs are gross. Stay out of them, especially during the pandemic (I’m looking at you, Potch).

I did find it strange that Georgia, who is on Twitter, hasn’t at least heard of the word “asexual” before. I get that Loveless is about “figuring it out”, but she must have at least heard of the term somewhere. Once again, Google is a good place for information. She does some Google searches but stops when she gets overwhelmed. Which is perfectly understandable. However, when I tried to figure myself out I did a lot of Googling. It just feels somewhat unrealistic that she doesn’t at least know about asexuality and that the words asexual and aromantic are used like, maybe three times in this book. Georgia is clearly sex-repulsed and it just makes no sense that she hasn’t at least attempted to look into it more, especially considering at a later stage she admits to seeing the term used on Twitter.

How to have an actual conversation 101

Georgia also does not know how to articulate her feelings. Like even just a simple conversation could have made things so much easier between her and her friends. But I can’t be the one to complain because I haven’t told many of my friends that I am demisexual. I am tired of the “you’ll find someone eventually” or “you just have high standards” and I don’t want to explain why I’m enough.

I have cycled through every possible flaw in my appearance, personality and behaviour to justify why I’m “loveless” and that is just not something I want to do anymore. And I am enough, just as I am. And I am tired.

Let’s get back to Georgia. She starts to experiment, as she calls it, with trying to fall in love. Georgia attempts to date her best friend, Jason, and here is where she makes some mistakes. She knew going into it that she didn’t have feelings for him, but she still went ahead with it. She showed no consideration for his feelings. Georgia does this quite a lot. She barrels forward with trying to figure herself out without any thought to anyone else. That’s not great. You shouldn’t use other people like that.

I cannot speak to the other identities in this book, but I recommend reading some of these next reviews:

Beyond A Bookshelf 

Mel To The Any 

Drums Of Autumn

Georgia says some really problematic things to her lesbian best friend, who is also Latinx. She doesn’t give much thought or value to Rooney and her identity (pansexual, and possibly aromantic). It also feels like she uses Sunil, an Indian, a-spec character with he/they pronouns, to figure herself out. No one uses they/them pronouns for Sunil and they do a lot of emotional labour for Georgia.

This is not it

This book also comes across as THE asexual experience, when it’s not. Asexuality and Aromanticism is a spectrum. It’s not one or the other. You can be asexual and still enjoy/want sex. You can be asexual but still want a romantic relationship with someone. Rooney would have been the perfect character to show someone who is aromantic but not asexual. I think demisexuality is mentioned once and Georgia just brushes it off because it sounds too complicated. This is not it, friends. You cannot brush off other identities because they do not mirror yours or it sounds too complicated. I may relate to Georgia a lot, but I am not sex-repulsed and not aromantic. I’m just as valid as demisexual.

Georgia’s cousin (I forget her name, I listened to the audiobook) could also have been the perfect character to show more of the spectrum. It also seems like she brushes off the term “asexual” as if we’re not allowed a word to describe ourselves. I just felt weird about their entire encounter. I also know that a lot of people, people in the LGBTQ community as well, do not think that asexual is a valid sexual orientation. To that, I just say, go to Google Scholar and read some journals or articles on it. The internet is there.

Important friendships

Lastly, the end of the book focused a lot on the power of platonic love. And honestly, I also feel some of Georgia’s fears. I have some amazing, close friendships that are very fulfilling. However, there’s this idea that friendship can never be as fulfilling or important as a romantic/sexual relationship. There’s this idea that there’s only space for “one” special person in your life. Like, why? You can have multiple special people in your life. And your friendships should matter to you, a lot. Friendships can be equally, and even more important than romantic and/or sexual relationships.

And I’m never this personal on my blog, but shoutout to my friends. Those that know and those that don’t. You’re important to me, you are valid, and I love you.

This review is already way too long, so I’m going to stop now.

Let me know your thoughts on Loveless (book review)! 

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