I have been meaning to read this book for ages now, and I
finally got around to it. It was worth every page, I really connected to the
characters and the text on a pretty deep level. This book is about a biromantic
asexual Black woman, Alice, who just got out of a relationship with Margot, her
old roommate and good friend. As she’s reeling from this, she meets Takumi, an
Asian man she works with at the local library and pretty much falls for him
head over heels. The book describes her coming to terms with her asexuality,
and what that means for her relationship with Takumi.
Representation is just so incredibly important. I’m a
biromantic ace as well, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve read a book that
centers on another bi ace before. Because there really aren’t that many out
there! But I literally saw myself in almost every single one of Alice’s
thoughts and experiences. I often forget just how impactful it can be to
identify with a character through a part of you that isn’t normally portrayed in
media. For me, it was incredible. And having the added layer of seeing what
it’s like for a Black woman was awesome as well, because there’s a number of
struggles we share. And a whole bunch we don’t, like her relationship with her
hair and microaggressions from the people around her. Just seeing her react to
these situations made me more aware of the Black experience and things that I
have seen with my peers and completely missed before.
My one issue with this book involved Alice’s relationship
with her two best friends: Feenie and Ryan. The two of them are dating and
getting married soon, and Alice gets into a fight with the two of them because
they left to go have sex at a party, Alice then got harassed by some guy, and
Alice ended up leaving the party to hang out with Takumi. Feenie took it
personally because she felt entitled to alone time with her boyfriend and
thought Alice was replacing her, and Alice didn’t want to back down because she
continually feels like a third wheel around them. But the argument ended with
Alice admitting to making things all about her and apologizing, while Feenie
got off with a “guess I do that too.” And they resolved to work on their
communication issues. Which bothered me a lot at the time, I don’t think Feenie
actually earned that reconciliation. Alice was put into danger and had every
right to leave that party because she was abandoned, and Feenie being unable to
see that and insisting that she could have alone time with her partner because
their relationship is “more important” is ridiculous. I’m not totally sure what
the author was going for there, but at least it ended with the two of them
wanting to work on communicating, which is something everyone should work on to
be honest.
That’s a very small complaint though, given how much I
adored the experience of reading this book. It’s so rare to see asexuals being
the main character of a story, and to see them going through accepting their
identity and navigating relationships. I hope that there’s more of these in the
works, because having had this reminder of how much I love reading about
asexuals, I’m going to try and find more.
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