I love Alice so much. I love her trying to figure out how to grow up, choose what she wants to do, maintain the friendships and family relationships she cares about, navigate various kinds of attraction and potential romantic relationships and what she wants in that regard. I love how she feels about her job, how she relates to TV shows and movies (and that she writes about them!), that she named her cat Glorificus, that she loves cuteness and food. She's a really well-written character, she feels like she has history(that you mostly don't feel like you're missing because it's integrated well), and I want to give her all the hugs.
Feenie feels like few other characters I've read, and I'm so glad Alice has her. I don't know that I was fully satisfied with their relationship arc in the book, but Feenie is a delight and important in so many ways. Ryan is a sweetheart, and I appreciated that Alice has a relationship with him that's not just through Feenie. Moschoula is a very minor character, but every time she appeared was great. We got a lot of Essie at the library early, and I was disappointed when there was a long stretch of the book without her and the library.
Alice's family relationships are complicated. I liked where her relationship with her parents goes. Her relationships with Aisha and Adam, her siblings, are more static and not addressed as much. (There's a lot of avoidance, and it doesn't have the ending that the parental relationship does.)
I really appreciated that people weren't default white; Kann consistently described skin color. I liked the ways that race came up because it matters in both Alice and Takumi's lives.
Despite what I said about history earlier, there are a lot of events within the timeline of the book that happen off-screen. Alice and Takumi do lots of things together, and there's an exercise Alice talks about doing for her counselor that we don't see. This could be fine, but it ends up feeling like a lot, and some of it is important. It also makes it really hard to keep track of time; the book manages to feel both like too much and too little within a single summer.
Before I talk about the ace representation, a major warning for ace readers: The first chapter is the breakup scene mentioned in the blurb. It is very real in many ways, and even without having experienced most of those anti-ace reactions myself, it was an incredibly rough read. Please be prepared and take care of yourself. Alice remembers some other anti-ace stuff she dealt with in detail in the next couple of chapters, but after that it's not very present. All of it is called out.
(I also want to note that one of the anti-ace statements is calling Alice "the Corpse." Again, it's called out, but that ace/death connection is used pejoratively.)
Alice is biromantic asexual. (She thinks about the spectrum through the book but doesn't change IDs. She feels arousal at one point, but she mostly ends up thinking it wasn't sexual attraction.) She specifically refers to herself as queer at one point. She feels aesthetic attraction and romantic attraction, both of which are named. She also loves cuddling, so she feels contact attraction, but that's not named. She likes cuddling, hugging, and kissing. She doesn't want to have sex (and she says repeatedly that she doesn't think about sex), but she's probably closer to indifferent or averse than repulsed. "I don't see the point. I don't need it. I don't think about it."
Alice knows she's ace, and she's known since high school, but she's not out to many people. (A note: her health teacher introduced her to the word "asexual." Points to that teacher.) She has something of a community on Tumblr, but it seems pretty casual. She talks about faking a crush in middle school, trying to be in a relationship in high school while trying to figure out romantic vs sexual attraction, and having sex to see if it changed anything/see how she felt about it. A lot of this felt so very real, and I appreciated it a lot. (I identify very much with faking a crush in middle school, with getting bored while kissing, and with not knowing whether someone is flirting or not.)
Alice feels something that is somewhere between sexual attraction and stronger aesthetic attraction than she's ever experienced before. It's really confusing for her, and I appreciated that confusion a lot. I know I've said this a couple of times already, but it's so real. My first experience of just that type of ?? attraction was less dramatic than Alice's, but it was really disorienting and confusing for me. Even though Alice continues to identify as "straight up ace" (in Feenie's words) and not gray-ace or another spectrum ID, I think this scene will resonate with a lot of spec folks. This section of the book includes this fantastic line:
"Alice had always wondered what physical attraction would feel like, and while she didn't necessarily dislike it, she wished there were a button she could press to turn it back off."
(I particularly like this because "physical attraction" is what I called that confusing in-between place and was also what I called what I didn't feel before I had the words about asexuality.)
Alice has a really affirming conversation with Feenie around attraction and sex and identity/the spectrum. (Not all of Feenie's ideas in this conversation are good ones, but it was so lovely to read.)
When Alice is first dealing with this attraction, there was a statement that felt like it conflated arousal and attraction to me a bit. I couldn't figure out exactly what about it was bothering me, but I was uncomfortable. But later in the book, this exact issue comes up in a conversation between Alice and her counselor,and her counselor explicitly says that the two are distinct. So, I thought the book did a good job calling out the differences among sexual attraction, romantic attraction, aesthetic attraction, arousal, and sex favorability.
Alice's jogging and sex comparison is useful in her conversation with Takumi, but when it comes back at the end with the line "Either you enjoy doing it or you don't," I was not... pleased? There are a lot of aces that's not true for.
The word "squish" is used on-page! I was really happy to see it. The book does a good job of valuing friendship overall. I would have been happier if aromanticism were acknowledged (especially because "squish" is really influenced by the aromantic community). More about aromanticism later.
We got this line from Ryan, which I appreciated for many reasons: "I say this cautiously because it's not the only answer, but maybe try dating someone who's ace, too." It's not the only answer; he's right. But it's a possible answer that so rarely see even acknowledged in ace books. The world is not so full of allos that we don't have any choice but to date them if we want to date.
That said, there were several moments in the book that weren't aro-friendly. (It's far from the worst alloro ace book I've read in that regard, but still.)
*There's a scene that conflates feeling romantic attraction/being romantically in love, "being very loving," and liking romantic stories. These are very much not equivalent.
*The line "Love was intangible. Universal" comes up in a context where it could be general but Alice has been talking about romance, so it still stings a little.
*"Love is love" is referenced in a positive way.
*There's this, and it's very specific to Alice. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I think it needs some unpacking and would bother some of my other aro friends in a "I'm not more broken than you" way: "The bottom line was her body had never shown so much as a flicker of sexual interest in anyone. But that didn't mean she liked being alone. That didn't mean she wasn't lonely. That didn't mean she didn't want romance and didn't want to fall in love. It didn't mean she couldn't love someone just as fiercely as they loved her."
*Takumi is skeptical of the idea of non-romantic soulmates. (Alice is very insistent on the idea, though, which I appreciated.)
There's one spot that's inclusive of nonbinary folks, but then at another point "opposite sex" is used.
Warning for sexual harassment.
Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Let's Talk About Love has been added to your Cart
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Flip to back Flip to front
Follow the Author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.
| Price | New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial | |
|
Audio CD, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
"Please retry" | $27.29 | — |
- Read with Our Free App
-
Audiobook
$0.00 - 56 Used from $1.57 7 New from $10.94
- 44 Used from $2.25 29 New from $8.29
- 2 New from $27.29
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now
Frequently bought together
$9.19
Get it as soon as Monday, May 22
In Stock.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
What do customers buy after viewing this item?
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
About the author
Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
The saying “representation matters” is so true, friends and this book is the epitome of that for me. I have NEVER connected with a book as much as this one. I saw SO much of myself in Alice. Semi-awkward, smart, people pleasing, queer, black girl? It’s me, I’m Alice.I cried, laughed, and highlighted my way through this book! Thank you, Claire, for putting this book into the world. My heart is so full with the sweet reminder that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with all of the things that make me different.It’s difficult for me to fully articulate what this book meant to me but just know it inspired a tattoo and I will carry this book in my heart for the rest of my life.
Images in this review
Top reviews from other countries
Micheala McClelland
great read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 9, 2018Rebecca Wilkinson
Asexual representation!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 3, 2018Louise Bradshaw
Leta Talk About This Book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 11, 2018Fenty Navy
Endearing and real
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 8, 2021
Adele0x
This book really is Ace! :P
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 2, 2018
