3.5 stars.

This was an engaging read, and I've always been an advocate for tropes being included in more diverse works; Kann does an amazing job reshaping them through a non-white / heterosexual / allosexual lens, which I would love to see more of in mainstream fiction. (And especially in the New Adult genre, to which this belongs!)

I'm not Black or ace myself so I can't speak to the specific representation here, but as a QPOC I did relate to a lot of Alice's struggles. I absolutely love that, at nineteen, she felt like she had pretty much figured out her sexuality — there's nothing wrong with novels about queer teens / young adults working through the specifics of their sexuality, but that's not everyone's story — and I even liked that she had to reexamine her self-identification. I also really loved that she talks to a counselor (therapist) and it isn't stigmatized or demonized. It doesn't bother me that

Spoiler

she never decides whether she's grayace / demisexual or still identifies as asexual

, though I did feel like that question was abandoned somewhere along the way, rather than Alice deliberately choosing to let it go. (More about that in a bit.)

And this book is definitely intersectional, slipping in details of how different aspects of Alice's identity (Black, female, biromantic, asexual) affect her life. I really, really wanted to like the book for the representation alone. Though it's far from perfect, considering there are some scenes where Alice implies or straight-up whines that her life is harder than that of other marginalized individuals (saying "not to downplay others' struggles, but ..." comes across about as sincerely as "no offense, but ..."), or she dismisses others' choices (such as other asexual individuals who are okay with their allosexual partners having sex with other people to fulfill that desire). And despite her proclaimed certainty in her identity, Alice goes from "I don't need sex but I don't mind if it makes my partner happy" to "I don't ever want to have sex" seemingly arbitrarily; asexuality is a spectrum, yes, and individual attraction / arousal can change over a lifetime, but I do think this could have been better handled.

BUT. So many issues come up in this novel that I don't think are properly resolved, which bothers me since it almost implies that the romance storyline is the only one that really matters — especially with the epilogue being what it is. It's hard to say more without going into spoilers, but essentially it felt like Alice's non-romantic relationships were fixed with apologies rather than really addressing the underlying issues, her personal introspective journey ended abruptly as well, and the hooks of Takumi's backstory weren't explored (undermining

Spoiler

Alice's coming-of-age-esque realization that she "makes everything about herself" but other people matter too

).

Finally, this might just be a me thing, but although both Alice and Takumi are consenting adults and there's no objective ethical issue with their relatively small age gap, they're at very different stages of life (she's a college student, undeclared major; he's about to start teaching kindergarten

Spoiler

and even almost got married to his college girlfriend

) and this isn't addressed at all. Again, there's nothing technically wrong going on here, but [as a junior in college, who has typically been labeled "mature" for my age] I know I wouldn't be comfortable dating someone who already graduated and was getting settled into their career.

content warnings:

Spoiler

acephobia, racism, sexual harassment

rep:

Spoiler

Black biromantic asexual/questioning MC & family, Japanese-American love interest, Tagalog-speaking secondary character, diverse minor characters