The fourth novel from the phenomenally talented Alice Oseman – one of the most authentic and talked-about voices in contemporary YA.
Synopsis
It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean?
Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.
As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.
But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.
Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?
My Rating ****
Review
In recent years author and illustrator Alice Oseman has become one of the most recognised names in British Young Adult fiction. She has published three YA novels and a heart-warming graphic novel Heartstopper and now, in 2020 she’s done it again with her newly released and highly relatable contemporary novel. Above everything, Loveless is a story of identity and self-acceptance as the main protagonist comes to terms with being aro/ace in a world where love and romance seem to be the ultimate goal in life.
Loveless follows the emotional story of Georgia and her best friends Pip and Jason as they embark on a new chapter of their life: university. This book is faced paced, and split into five sections. The first half of the book explores Georgia’s fascination with romance and her relentless desire to be kissed, just like the character's from her fake fanfic’s. Unlike Pip and Jason, Georgia has never been in a real relationship and she fears that she may never be, so with the help of her new scandalous roommate Rooney, she decides that university will be where her love story begins. However, as Georgia discovers romance in the real world does not work like that; it’s messy, confusing, and much more problematic.
Throughout Oseman’s novel, Georgia constantly struggles with her identity. She is utterly obsessed with romantic movies and fan fiction, and she supposedly desires a heteronormative Hollywood romance. However, when she has her first kiss with Jason, she instantly regrets it and is filled with a confusing fear and disgust. She doesn’t understand how anyone can enjoy it. Georgia evidently battles with her lack of romantic and sexual feelings towards people, believing that she just needs to try harder to love someone until she eventually finds ‘the one’. She even experiments by kissing her roommate Rooney is a drunken attempt at finding love. However, when she overhears a non-binary student talking about being ‘aromantic asexual’, she starts to consider whether this descriptions fits her true feelings and identity.
When I read this book, I had never heard of the words ‘aromantic’ or ‘asexual’ and to be honest I was as confused as Georgia and her friends appeared to be. This lack of knowledge and understanding of the LGBTQ+ community is mainly due to the lack of portrayal and positive representations within media, film, and books. This is the first book I have ever read that had mentioned these words and upon further research I found out that the author also identifies as aro/ace. I feel like Oseman summed up the spectrums pretty well in this quote:
“The aromantic and asexual spectrums weren’t just straight lines. They were radar charts with at least a dozen different axes.”
Despite my lack of understanding I believe that this book provides a stepping-stone towards a better understanding of the full spectrum of identities that come under the umbrella term of queer identities. As Oseman says in a recent interview “we’re shown and told from an extremely young age that our main goal in life is to find a partner, to get married, and to settle down with them.” This story demonstrates that queer individuals are far from ‘loveless’ and that they too deserve happy romantic narratives much like the overly portrayed heteronormative relationships we see within Hollywood.
Loveless not only explores the struggle of coming to terms with your sexuality, and discovering that a lack of attraction is indeed a sexuality, but so much more. Oseman also deals with some important topics relating to going to university. This story specifically focuses on why certain behaviours are mind-numbingly accepted by society, such as drinking/clubbing culture or the peer pressure put on young people to get into relationships or slut-shaming someone for having sex and deeming others weird for never having kissed anyone before.
Despite its title, Loveless is a novel bursting with love: self-love, platonic love, friendship, and romantic love. All of them are part of the story, demonstrating how much love surrounds aro/ace people, even if society’s ideal of love might say otherwise. As Oseman proves with Georgia’s narrative, you don’t need to be in a romantic relationship to experience love. In fact, what I’ve learnt from Oseman is that love is everywhere, and all forms are extremely important and equal to one another. This bittersweet novel shows the outstanding power of friendship, of kindness and of love between friends. The quotes below perfectly explore this theme:
“Friends are automatically classed as ‘less important’ than romantic partners. [ . . .] [But] I loved Jason and Pip. [. . . ] I loved that they knew all my favourite foods and they could instantly tell when I was in a bad mood. I loved Pip’s stupid sense of humour and how she immediately made every room she entered a happier place. I loved how Jason knew exactly what to say when you were upset and could always calm you down. I loved Jason and Pip.”
And:
“Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important.”
Overall, Loveless is a beautiful tale of self-discovery and self-acceptance, as well as a celebration of friendships. Alice Oseman offers a wonderful insight into the wide spectrum of LGBTQ+ identities and is simply unafraid to do so. Her work is empowering, she willing explores the intricacies of the human spirit and the importance of valuing the relationships of everyone around us, no matter how small or big. She has created a wonderful community of love and support in a world that seems to strive for unrealistic ideals and norms.
I would totally recommend this book to anyone looking for a great YA romance novel about university life and especially to those who want to learn more about LGBTQ+ identities.
Favourite Quotes
“I’ve learnt some things, […] like the way friendship can be just as intense, beautiful and endless as romance. Like the ways there’s love everywhere around me – there’s love for my friends, there’s love in my paintings, there’s love for myself.”
Reviews and Further Praise
“The Catcher in the Rye for the digital age” The Times
“The most honest and authentic account of modern teenage life that you’ll read this year… outstanding contemporary fiction with appeal to fans of John Green.” The Bookseller
‘A very authentic, teenage voice’ – Sunday Times
‘Oseman proves herself a clever, witty writer’ Publishers Weekly
Loveless is Alice Oseman's best novel yet. Hugely enjoyable, wise, and packed with great characters and dialogue" - David Owen, author of All The Lonely People
About the author
Alice Oseman is an author/illustrator and was born in 1994 in Kent, England. She has written four YA contemporary novels about teenage disasters: Solitaire, Radio Silence, I Was Born For This, and Loveless. She is also the creator of LGBTQ+ YA romance web-comic Heartstopper. Alice’s first novel Solitaire was published when she was nineteen. Her YA novels have been nominated for the YA Book Prize, the Inky Awards, and the Goodreads Choice Award, and Heartstopper has been optioned for TV. She can usually be found staring aimlessly at computer screens, questioning the meaninglessness of existence, or doing anything and everything to avoid getting an office job.
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