A Love Letter to Loveless (ARC Review)

Title: Loveless

Author: Alice Oseman 

Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Books

Release Date: July 9th, 2020

Rating: ★★★★★

Pages: 448 

Goodreads Review

Goodreads // Book Depository  

SYNOPSIS The fourth novel from the phenomenally talented Alice Oseman – one of the most authentic and talked-about voices in contemporary YA.

Georgia feels loveless – in the romantic sense, anyway. She’s eighteen, never been in a relationship, or even had a crush on a single person in her whole life. She thinks she’s an anomaly, people call her weird, and she feels a little broken. But she still adores romance – weddings, fan fiction, and happily ever afters. She knows she’ll find her person one day … right?

After a disastrous summer, Georgia is now at university, hundreds of miles from home. She is more determined than ever to find love – and her annoying roommate, Rooney, is a bit of a love expert, so perhaps she can help.

But maybe Georgia just doesn’t feel that way about guys. Or girls. Or anyone at all. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe she can find happiness without falling in love. And maybe Rooney is a little more loveless than she first appears.

LOVELESS is a journey of identity, self-acceptance, and finding out how many different types of love there really are. And that no one is really loveless after all. 

Dear readers,

If you haven’t read my Mid-Year Book Freak Out post you totally should, because it’s short and I try to be funny sometimes I talked about Loveless as one of two of my most anticipated books for the rest of 2020 and that I’d be reviewing it soon.

Well, guess what? That day has arrived! I am finally reviewing Loveless after over a year of no reviews on my blog, and spending the past two days reading a 448 page book because I loved every moment of it.

I received an ARC of Loveless from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review. This review will be brief and spoiler-free to make sure that I can convince as many of you as possible to read Loveless by Alice Oseman!

I’m going to start out by summarizing a few things that I loved about Loveless:

• The emphasis on friendship and platonic love 
  • Georgia, Pip, Rooney, Jason, and Sunil all now gladly live in my head rent-free—friend group GOALS right there!

• Readers can learn about aromanticism and asexuality with Georgia
  • Loveless is about self-discovery for Georgia, so there’s plenty of information for readers who are unfamiliar with aromanticism and asexuality (Alice also includes aro/ace resources at the end, too!)

• The college/university setting
  • As a current college student myself, I was happy to see a YA novel set in college since there’s not as many out there as I’d like (especially ones that don’t center around romance.)

• Authentic teenage dialogue
  • In my opinion, Alice Oseman writes Gen Z characters and their dialogue so accurately that I’m not convinced she’s not just two small teenagers in a giant trench coat. 

Aro ace representation in Loveless

I want to preface this by saying that while every aromantic/asexual person has their unique experiences, Loveless is no doubt the most authentic portrayal I’ve ever read about my identity. Not to mention, Loveless is the first novel I’ve ever read with on-page aromantic representation from a major publisher, so bonus points to that. Prior to Loveless, only saw asexuality represented and in just a handful of books.

I’ve read a few novels featuring asexual main characters before—Every Heart a Doorway, Tash Hearts Tolstoy, Let’s Talk About Love—the same books I always recommend when asked about asexual representation since the options are so limited. And sure, I enjoyed the representation in these books, but I don’t think I’ve ever truly seen my identity so perfectly captured in a character until I read Loveless. There were countless moments where Georgia would explain how she feels (or doesn’t feel) and I would internally scream, YES!! A HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES YESSSSSS!! THAT IS TOTALLY ME! It’s almost as if Alice Oseman managed to sneak into my head and write down my own thoughts about love and romance that never seemed to make sense to me.

Which is why I’m so grateful that Loveless is a book that now exists in the world. So thank you, HarperCollins, for the opportunity to read a book which resonates so deeply in my heart.

And of course, thank you Alice for writing this novel and bringing Georgia to life for aros and aces everywhere.

On that note, reading Loveless has only reinforced in me that publishers need to distribute diverse #ownvoices novels to marginalized readers. The fact that I can share this review with you all—as an aro ace reader who is in love with a book called Loveless—is a beautiful thing and I want more marginalized readers to experience great representation for themselves.

Love,

(in a platonic way, of course)

Jill

P.S. Alice posted some art from Loveless on her Instagram so I wanted to share my favorite ones here. Look how adorable they are!! Read this book for me, please!!

View this post on Instagram

Happy Pride everyone!! With love from me and all my characters, including my Loveless girls 🌈💜

A post shared by Alice Oseman 🎨✨ (@aliceosemanart) on Jun 27, 2020 at 12:10pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

I finished another round of edits for my next YA novel ‘Loveless’ (out in July) so here are some doodles of the three girls at the heart of the book (she/her for all!). First image is Georgia, second is Pip and Rooney 💜 they all need some sleep, probably

A post shared by Alice Oseman 🎨✨ (@aliceosemanart) on Mar 15, 2020 at 1:44am PDT

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Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed my review and hopefully plan to pick up Loveless once it’s released!

xoxo,

Jill