Let's see. Now that I'm looking on GR, I see reviews pointing out that this is more New Adult than Young Adult, and I think that's fair--heads up to YA librarians like me, who had seen heard this been described as a fluffy romance and then been a little surprised that the first few pages are actually pretty explicit about sex?? (Which is fine, obv books can/should exist at all levels of sexual content-having, but given how I'd seen this book marketed I was surprised by it!)

Anyway, ups to this book for its great intersectional content, and having an awesome black cover model! It's a book that will mean a lot to readers who might feel themselves represented for the first time, or for readers who might learn from it.

My issue with it as an adult librarian reading it with some distance is it did end up feeling pretty Lessony, with Alice and Takumi dispensing a lot of information about asexuality and microaggressions. Obviously these are great issues to be informed about, and for some readers this information will seem much fresher and/or more validating than it did for me.

Unfortch I felt like a lot of the informational dialogue got in the way of character development?

And I also don't understand whaat was supposed to be the relationship between Alice and her 2 best friends, like to me as a reader it seemed like a really toxic situation but nobody in text ever called it that?? Nor did Alice's supervisor seem appropriately concerned about the frankly kind of creepy flirtation that was happening at work between her and Takumi?? (Which, not that books shouldn't be about creepy things happening to people or whatever! But since the text itself is very interested in calling out some problematic things that happen it makes it more noticeable when other things are left un-commented upon.)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯