Let’s Talk about Love (2018)

Most of my exposure to fictional asexuals is through TV, with the exception of my beloved comic-book aro/ace Jughead Jones. With Let’s Talk about Love, I’m getting my first taste of an asexual character in a novel. That alone would make this an incredible read, but that’s only one of the many ways it feels as if this book was designed in a laboratory for the express purpose of making me fall in love with it.

Alice ends her first year in college in a bit of a tailspin. Her lawyer parents are breathing down her neck about her still-undeclared major and her girlfriend/roommate Margot just broke up with her, unable to understand why Alice is so disinterested in having sex with her. Unbeknownst to Margot and nearly everyone else in the world Alice is a biromantic asexual, and while she worships cuteness and dreams of romance, she doesn’t think that should have to involve sex. After getting burned by Margot, another relationship is the last thing on Alice’s mind, but she soon finds herself bowled over by Takumi, who just started working alongside her at the public library.

Oh man, where do I start? There’s the casual inclusion – in addition to being a biromantic asexual heroine, Alice is Black, and the overall cast of characters features all sorts of diversity. There are Alice’s delightful obsessions with good food and great pop culture, which litter the book with references aplenty after my own heart. There’s Alice’s charmingly-insular narration, full of over-analyzing, private freakouts, and playful daydreams. There’s her worries over her looming future and her deep love for her annoyingly-smothering family. As I was reading, I found myself thinking, “Can you have a crush on a book?”, because that’s how I was reacting, not just to the wonderful Alice, but to the whole text. My thoughts and feelings about it are very reminiscent of how I feel when I start to recognize a new platonic crush developing on this actor or that fictional character, just warm fuzzies and fond preoccupation all over.

I think my favorite aspect of the book is how it explores the invaluability of a variety of types of love. Now, I want to clarify that I really like the development of Alice’s friendship/prospective romance with Takumi. Even though I’m aromantic, I understand that 1) most asexuals aren’t, and yet 2) most fictional asexuals appear to be, so I’m always in favor of more representation for romantic aces. I love that Alice is biromantic, and I love her thoughts and articulations about what a romantic relationship looks like without sex. But on the flipside, as an aromantic, platonic love is totally my jam, and so I adore the fact that Alice places so much value on that as well. The book takes time to establish the separate relationship she has with each member of her family, and I love the exploration of Alice’s relationship with her engaged best friends Feenie and Ryan, especially her worries about what her place will be in their lives once they get married.

Other than Jane Austen stuff, which, given their time period, is generally chaste, I don’t have much experience with reading romances. This was good one for me to dip my toes into, since it features the love, which I enjoy, but not the sex, which I don’t care about. It has a lot of fluff and fun, some angst and self-doubt, engaging characters who really pop, and all kinds of wonderfully-specific details that fill out the world in which it takes place. Reading this book, I get why so many sexual women are into romance as a genre.

Warnings

Sexual references (including sexual harassment,) language, drinking, brief references to violence, and thematic elements.