THE BASICS

blurb:

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? This wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance sees Alice Oseman on towering form as Georgia and her friends discover that true love isn’t limited to romance.

target audience: YA

genre: contemporary fiction

STYLE OF THE BOOK

The book is 433 pages long, however due to the very short chapters (usually between 5 and 10 pages, sometimes even fewer) there are plenty of pages with only some sentences on them which means the book is actually quite a bit shorter.

The book is written in first person, past tense. We experience the entire story from the POV of Georgia Warr, the book’s protagonist (an 18-year-old girl starting her first year at university).

Overall, the book is a quick read with a pretty straight-forward story (by which I mean that it was easy to follow). The book does deal with serious topics (more on that in the “content” section) however while not a light-hearted story, it remains an uplifting read overall.

CONTENT

Loveless is essentially a book about self-discovery and friendship. We follow Georgia Warr on her journey of starting university and along the way getting to know herself better and discovering the person she is. The book doesn’t focus much on the academic aspect of university but rather on university as a setting in which young adults make new experiences, meet new people and overall enter a new stage of life. In case you are interested in a book focusing more on academic pressure, I recommend reading Radio Silence (also by Alice Oseman). For those of you who are interested, I have also written a review for it on my blog: Review | Radio Silence

Prominent topics in the book include sexuality/different sexual orientations, student life & “university experience”, romantic relationships (although the focus is more on friendships) and theatre/acting.

There are various characters of different sexual orientations/identies represented in Loveless, with a particular focus on asexuality and aromanticism. The book does also discuss prejudices against certain sexual orientations and some characters deliberately or accidentally speak/behave in a way that discredits those sexual orientations/identities. However, I think it is important to note that the book does treat this matter with care and those types of attitudes are clearly presented as wrong and harmful.

The main characters are pursuing acting as a hobby and besides the classical university life of partying and studying, rehearsals and the organisation of a play were a main part of the story. Also, if you like Shakespeare: so do the main characters! (Let’s just say, you will encounter a lot of Shakespeare in the story)

Content Warnings:

Disclaimer – I provide content warnings for anyone who feels uncomfortable reading about certain topics or is triggered by them. However, this should serve solely as a guide when deciding whether or not to read a certain book. I cannot guarantee that this list is complete so I recommend you to double-check.

• sex, discussions about different kinds of sexual acts
• alcohol consumption
• prejudice against certain sexual orientations (deliberately/due to lack of knowledge)
• mention of emotionally abusive relationshops

Alice Oseman has a great list of content warnings for all her books on her website (www.aliceoseman.com) so I definitely recommend you to check out her page if you are unsure whether you are comfortable reading Loveless or any of her other books.

READ IF YOU LIKE

• books focusing on friendships (and not neglecting platonic relationships in favour of romantic ones)
• aro-ace representation and diverse characters
• stories set at university but focus more on the social than the academic aspect
• characters that are passionate about acting