Loveless

Locations
Call Number: Teen Fiction / Oseman, Alice, Teen Book / Fiction / General / Oseman, Alice
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Fiction / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Fiction / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Fiction / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / General / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / General / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	Due 04-22-2024
Westgate Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / General / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / General / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / General / Oseman, Alice	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024

"Originally published in the UK by HarperCollins Children's Books."
Short story Hands against our Hearts follows the novel.
Loveless -- Hands against our hearts : a short story -- Acknowledgments -- Further [web] resources on asexuality and aromanticism.
Georgia has parents who are still in love, two sets of grandparents that are still together, and a brother who married his girlfriend, but at eighteen she has never even kissed someone (not even her lesbian best friend, Felipa) or particularly even wanted to; at the prom afterparty she is surrounded by couples making out, and she really does not know what is wrong-- but in college she comes to understand herself as asexual/aromantic, and to capture the part of her identity that has always eluded her.
Contents: Hands against our hearts.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

This book is excellent submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 23, 2022, 11:13pm This wasn’t *exactly* my kind of book, because it is deeply focused on the stresses of being young (end of high school/ first year of college) and trying to figure out who you are in the midst of peer pressure (that sometimes is cultural pressure, and sometimes is present but not obvious at all). I’m personally very pleased to have aged out of that space in life, and don’t know that I want to spend a lot of time there, even in books.

That said, this book is excellent. My life aside, these characters ARE in that space in life where they are trying to figure out who they are and who they’ll be. They are trying on different personalities, styles, and identities… and discovering that some of those things you choose, and some of those things choose you. The occasional appearance of someone further on the path (could be by a little or by a lot, could be by age or by experience/ evolution) provides balance to the inexperience, questioning, and stumbling (or avoidance) that comes with figuring things out.

Oseman is an excellent writer, creating intricate characters with rich lives who interact and change as their first college year develops. I loved the inclusion of holiday visits back to family, because that push-and-pull of independent growth and “who family thinks I am” is such a part of growing up. Georgia’s journey to self-knowledge and discovery is wonderful. This is the only book I know of on this particular topic, and I hope more follow. But while there’s only one, this is a great one.

This book is deserving of ALL the stars submitted by bookasaurusray on July 27, 2022, 12:30am One of my besties is asexual, and reading this helped me to better understand her, which is the magic of reading.
I always love reading Alice Osman, and this book is characteristically sweet and well-written like her other works.

Loved it submitted by IsaGab2 on August 13, 2022, 5:33pm While my journey to realize I’m aro/ace is not like this book (I didn’t have to date or kiss anyone to figure it out), it was nice seeing a lot of my feelings validated by seeing it in another aro/ace person. I liked reading it and being like “so another aro/ace person feels that way as well?”, even though it’s a fictional character.

An Ace-Aro Coming Out Story submitted by bll1010 on August 14, 2022, 10:00pm I loved the representation of a character figuring out that she is asexual and aromantic during her first year at university. Beautiful friendship story as well.

Honest take on growing up asexual submitted by svenetianer on August 28, 2022, 11:28pm This book was comforting, witty, endearing, and charming. I devoured it in just a few days. Alice Oseman is a fantastic up-and-coming YA author who provides a wide range of character representation in all of her books and Loveless is another perfect example of this.

4/5 submitted by JessicaIJ on August 2, 2023, 9:49pm i loved this book and it’s aroace representation because there’s so little of it and it feels nice to be represented. i will say i don’t like how the book exclusively uses he/him to refer to sunil, whose pronouns are he/they.