“I used to dream of a spellbinding, endless, forever romance. A beautiful story of meeting a person who could change your whole world. [ ] But now, I realised, friendship could be that too.”
Okay. I’m gonna level with y’all on this one.
I am. Upset.
I don’t like when I dislike a book this much. It makes me feel… awful? Awful. I don’t like writing scathing reviews, I really don’t. But I also think that if I don’t talk about the books I dislike and validate my reasons why, it cheapens the praise I give the books I do enjoy. As an aspiring writer myself, dissecting books I enjoy/hate helps me to critique my own work in a new light.
I was excited to read Loveless.
I really, really did not enjoy Loveless.
Let’s get into another one.
Highlight: kinda neat that the author does all the cover art! Love that.
Loveless is a story about platonic relationships. (Or so it says — we’ll get to that.) It follows the story of Georgia, our protagonist, coming to terms with the realization that she is aroace — meaning she doesn’t experience romantic or sexual attraction toward anyone. Following this quarter-life crisis, she dives deeper into the friendships in her lives, treasuring a kind of love that doesn’t come with romance or sex. A kind of love just as important and just as precious as love with a romantic partner.
Sounds great, right? I thought it did. A book about the importance of platonic relationships. Growing up, I was exhausted by the idolization of love and marriage in my Christian-homeschool circles. Seeing this book at my local library, I thought maybe it could have helped the younger-me that felt isolated in a world where falling in love was the most critical thing you could do.
So I read it.
It is not a book about the importance of platonic relationships.
Quick disclaimer: my disdain for this book has nothing to do with it involving LGBTQA+ themes and characters. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
I’ve seen this book get a free pass from reviewers because it “Isn’t written for me, and that’s a-ok!” while openly critiquing similar books that were of the same demographical genre but lacked the LGBTQA+ rep. It’s the same double standard I see in Christian media: there isn’t much of it, the standard is on the floor, so we’re going to praise whatever we have.
And I understand. I really, really understand. But as an artist and a writer myself I just… We can do better, guys, is all I’m saying. If the standard is low, we should push to raise the standard. Not kneel to it. It’s a cop-out for cheap and lazy storytelling that I’m not content to let slide anymore.
For supposedly being a book about platonic relationships, there sure is a lot of romance. The book and protagonist, Georgia, is more obsessed with the concept of romance than anyone I’ve ever met in my personal life. It is repetitive in its beating-over-the-head criticism of romance — and I get it! I get it, it’s annoying when falling in love is shoved down your throat. But I didn’t need 50,000 words of plotless internal monologue to tell me this. I get it. I really do.
Georgia is a terrible friend. If she had been, say, a high schooler, her behavior… still would have been bad, but it would have been understandable. A coming of age story about what it means to be a good friend! Perfect. We’ve got it, boys.
Except we don’t got it, boys. Nobody’s got it. Georgia is a selfish, self-absorbed adult going through university with her friends, all of which are too damn good for her and could do better. For being the book about the importance of platonic relationships, Georgia sure treats all her friends like gum on the sidewalk. I don’t wanna think about how she’d treat a hypothetical romantic partner if this is how she treats the people she deems just as important if not more.
The book was just. It was so long. By Grabthar’s hammer, why was this book so long? More importantly, how can a book that’s nearly — one second — 400 pages say absolutely nothing at all? Was this book edited? I couldn’t tell you. Our protagonist — who I more and more believe to just be the author’s self-insert — takes random breaks from what little story Loveless has to tell us how much she loves fanfiction and hates romance for chapters at a time. The pop-culture references made me want to hide under a bed apart from society until I could escape the negligent excuse for humor that is Trump wall jokes.
The dialogue in this book was grossly self-aware, unproductive and more pain-inducing than stubbing your toe. If I have to read “[character] and [character] just kept bantering” one more time from this author I may actually blow a gasket. I may also blow a gasket if I have to hear the author pat herself on the back one more time for ✨Pip and Rooney’s sexual tension.✨ Except I may spontaneously combust on that one. If I was thrown down an elevator shaft and my only salvation was a landing pad made up entirely of Pip and Rooney’s ✨sexual tension,✨ I would hit the ground at Mach 3 and be blasted to smithereens.
Oh, yeah: this book was shockingly unfunny. I don’t know what the opposite of laughter is, but this book made me do that.
That is all to say: Loveless! Didn’t love this one. If this is really what platonic love is all about, miss me with that, please. I’d rather stay under the bed.
Explosive Lollipops 