Loveless

Author: Alice Oseman

Rating: 2/5

Georgia has never been in love but she’s convinced she’ll find her soulmate someday. As she starts university, Georgia is intent on finding love but things go sideways very quickly.

Spoilers ahead.

Detailed Summary

At a party, Georgia can’t bring herself to kiss Tommy, a boy she’s been crushing on for seven years. Georgia and her two best friends, Pip and Jason, go to Durham to study English, chemistry and history respectively. Georgia has to share a room with a girl named Rooney who’s very extroverted and goes out almost every night and has casual sex. Pip falls for Rooney but the two constantly bicker. They start a Shakespeare Society (with Sunil). Georgia is confused about her sexuality. Her college parent is Sunil, an Indian asexual non-binary gay person. When he/they (uses both pronouns) explains asexuality, Georgia feels it might describe her. Rooney tells her how Jason likes her romantically. Georgia dates Jason but she doesn’t feel anything for him and feels repulsed when she kisses him. They have a messy breakup because Georgia essentially used Jason to make sense of her identity. Rooney kisses Georgia at a party to see if Georgia is attracted to girls. She isn’t but Pip sees them and stops talking to them. Pip and Jason quit the society and you need five people for a society so they’re screwed. When Georgia goes home, one of her cousins also identifies as aro-ace and they chat. Georgia, Sunil and Rooney buy Scooby-Doo outfits to convince Jason to come with them to a party. Then the four of them help Georgia organise a huge proposal to Pip and she agrees to be Georgia’s college wife. Pip and Rooney get together. Georgia realises that platonic love is as good as romantic love. They put on their Shakespeare play and it’s quite successful. The book ends with the five of them finding a place to rent and Georgia being satisfied with her identity.

Plot and Pacing

I debated a lot between giving this book a 2 or 3/5. Loveless is definitely one of the more relatable Oseman novels I’ve read but several things about it didn’t quite sit right with me. Let’s start with the good stuff.

I consider myself to be, like, pretty educated and aware of LGBTQ+ and gender identity and how a lot of it operates on a spectrum. Still, I think there’s definitely a huge vacuum when it comes to books about asexuality and aromanticism particularly in young adult fiction. Loveless is great because it makes that vacuum a little bit smaller and Oseman has such a large audience that I know this book will definitely feel like the most validating thing ever for many. The message of platonic love being as important as romantic was a little Frozen-esque for me which I didn’t mind (still not ready to let it go, my friends) but it did feel shoehorned into the story–more on that in a bit. Oseman is also great at being inclusive and writing diverse characters. It was quite nice to see an Indian character (though they didn’t have as central a role as I hoped). This book also made me question a lot of things about myself which is always a good sign for a book–that it’s having an impact!

However.

I wanted, I guess, a fresher perspective of asexuality. I think a lot of people have a general idea of what asexuality and aromanticism are and I was disappointed that Oseman only stuck to the most basic “definition” of not feeling sexual attraction or romantic attraction. I wanted something that explored the boundaries of both those definitions, to really get into the nitty-gritty of the matter. The annoying thing is there were, not one, but THREE characters who identified as asexual and of those, only Georgia and the cousin were really talked about. Both had the exact same experiences and I think it was such a wasted opportunity to show readers how asexuality and aromanticism go so much more beyond not feeling attraction for someone. I’m also still confused about whether not thinking about sex 24/7 makes me an asexual person. I had a lot of questions when I read A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality and I was really hoping for a more nuanced perspective.

I wasn’t sold on the weird love triangle thing that was happening between Rooney, Pip and Georgia. I felt it was absolutely unnecessary and predictable (I knew Rooney was going to kiss Georgia waaaaay before she actually did and that Pip would witness it). It felt like cheap drama and I wasn’t keen on it. And for a book that’s meant to be about how important friendship is, it’s weird how none of the characters was exactly good to each other. (Except for Sunil. Sunil was the best.) Georgia repeatedly has her own agenda (her relationship with Jason, agreeing to kiss Rooney) and I get that things are messy when you’re young. I get that everyone’s trying to sort everything out. But it just…DJLFKDF? Why would you intentionally screw your friends over? And then Rooney and Pip having their rom-com “enemies to friends” thing play out was frustrating because I knew how their relationship was going to be by the end of the book and I didn’t find their arguments particularly quirky.

Characters

I did find Georgia to be very relatable in that she craved romance and felt almost guilty about it because people are meant to be independent and happy alone. I can’t comment more than that on her personality because the writing was quite bland and I couldn’t quite place Georgia. She didn’t strike me as a caring person nor did she seem exceedingly passionate about anything. To be honest, the only consistent personality trait she had was this perpetual confusion which, okay, very relatable but perhaps having more substance would have made her a stronger character.

It was the same with the other characters. Pip, Jason and Rooney all were quite one dimensional. Pip was lesbian and Latina (and quite comfortable with that identity), and determined not to “crush on a straight girl.” Jason was the Scooby-Doo aficionado with a crush on Georgia. Rooney was the girl with the “dark” past who had sex with loads of people. Oh, and then there was Sunil who I mentioned earlier. I really liked Sunil and he was so kind that it melted my heart. But I hated how he didn’t play any significant role in the story! His only “big” role was to explain what asexuality was to Georgia and then just be there in the background.

Writing Style

There was something about the writing style that sounded very juvenile to me. Not just juvenile but it felt like Oseman was writing a diary entry rather than a story. There was a lot of telling and while I’m not usually super picky about that, in Loveless, I didn’t feel immersed in the story.