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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4/5
Started: 3 September
Finished: 3 September
Summary:
Georgia has always loved rom-coms, fanfics, romances. She's never dated or kissed anyone, or had a crush on anyone for that matter, but she wants to. Wants to experience falling in love. Then she tries to kiss a boy at a prom afterparty, and it disgusts her. But then she is leaving for college with her best friends, and moving into a dorm with a girl who has no problem flirting and finding someone to have sex with, and between classes and hanging out with her friends and trying to start a Shakespeare theater club, Georgia decides that she is going to try again, and succeed this time. She wants a relationship. And yet she can't imagine it working. She can't imagine herself with anyone in that way.
She wants a relationship. But what if a romantic, sexual relationship isn't her only option?
Thoughts:
This book made me feel even more empty and scattered than Heartstopper. I did read it after the first day of school, so I am exhausted and stressed, and these thoughts are going to be more personal than analytical, but oh well.
The friendships were so good. Especially at the end, Georgia loving her friends so so much without needing any romantic or sexual relationships was amazing. So sweet. I maybe cried a little.
Admittedly, this book was way more rom-com-y than the other Alice Oseman books I've read so far, because it is the least romantic, and so there were a lot of rom-com style screw ups. I hate reading those. It also took basically the whole book for Georgia to realize she was under the ace umbrella, which I personally found frustrating just because I don't like knowing things for hundreds of pages while the characters are still oblivious, but it actually kind of worked because Georgia's path to understanding her identity was .. I don't know how to put this. It made me happy for her to find what was true to her, and I also related a little bit. I don't know if I'm ace — I don't think so, because the idea of sex doesn't disgust me, and I find some actors and book characters hot — but I can't remember ever really having a crush on a person in real life, and since that was true for Georgia and she still ended the book so happy and in love and fulfilled, it was discomfiting and comforting at the same time.
I really think I needed to read it. I still have zero clue what my sexuality even looks like, let alone labels or coming out or anything, but something about getting to witness someone else's journey without hurting their privacy, all for free, was hollowing and healing and I feel way calmer and better for having read it. I think I might want to re-read this book again at some point in the future, if I ever need to think about ace stuff again.
Anyways, tomorrow I am probably going to read the next Alice Oseman book that I can get my hands on, which may be a horrible idea for my emotional stability, but whatever. Are you really living if you never hurt?