Review: Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann

This book has been on my TBR for ages, but I’d never got to it. However, as the lovely Hannah @acupofwonderland reminded me, this is a book with ace rep - and so when I wanted something to read that wasn’t a super dense fantasy the other day, this was the book I picked up!

I’ve talked plenty of times before about how important ace rep in fiction is to me. My review of Loveless by Alice Oseman is here, where I talk a bit more about ace rep and how well I thought Loveless did that.

Let’s Talk About Love is a bit different. It’s not a ‘coming-out’ story, in the way Loveless is; Alice, the main character, identifies as ace, knows what the ace spectrum is, and is now navigating the somewhat thorny territory of dating, given all the terrible views that can be spouted about individuals who identify on the asexual spectrum. Here’s the blurb!

*

Alice is secretly asexual, and that's the least important thing about her. She's a college student, has a great job, amazing friends, and is fine being single - nope, that's a lie. Alice wants rom com-grade romance: feels, cuddling, kissing, and swoons galore - as long as it doesn't lead to having sex.

When her last relationship ends, Alice swears off relationships for good. Stick a fork in her, she's done. Everyone Alice tries to date is so sure love and sex have to go together, and there doesn't seem to be any way to convince them otherwise. But when Alice meets Takumi, who she can't stop thinking about, she doesn't know what to do. If Alice tells him the truth, it can only end in heartache.

But there's something about Takumi that makes him worth the risk. . . .

*

The relationships are the most interesting part of this story. The epic crush Alice has on Takumi gave me so. many. feels. Equally, I didn’t enormously agree with some of the ways the friendship between Alice and her best friend Feenie was portrayed. However, Alice’s crush on Takumi is so adorable and practically RADIATES from the page, so for me I spent more time thinking about that than I did her questionable friendship.

This story does start with a character spouting a lot of harmful misconceptions about ace-spec individuals, so that is worth bearing in mind in case that is something that you wouldn’t want to read, but it is immediately challenged and called out within the book.

The thing I really liked about Let’s Talk About Love was the way Alice was navigating her identity once she was dating. I think it’s good to have the distinction between ‘I am happy in myself’ and ‘I am terrified of other people’s reactions’, because I think that’s where coming-out stories can sometimes leave it as a ‘and then everything was great!’. (I know not all coming out stories do this, but it can feel like this sometimes). So to see Alice struggling to marry up how she feels herself compared to how she feels around others was really interesting, and something I thought was a real strength of the book.

Also, TAKUMI. He is the sweetest human and I love him. He’s caring, he’s thoughtful, he doesn’t always make the right decisions, but he is, in essence, an Adorable Human Bean. He was an absolute joy of a character and I loved him. Absolutely peak character for the MC to have a crush on. So good.

There were a few moments I was less keen on, and they involved Feenie. There seemed to be a real inability to accept the way the third-wheel situation had been created, and Feenie’s part in it. I also got frustrated when, in one of the very early chapters, a few joking comments were made that arguably play in to the harmful misconceptions about asexuality. There was also a mention of graysexual on the page which I would have liked to have seen explored in a bit more detail - much like demisexuality is on the page in Radio Silence by Alice Oseman.

Overall, this was a cute and heartwarming exploration of romantic attraction, and a book I wish I’d read sooner! There were some parts that I was less okay with, but overall I’d still give this book 3.5 stars and would recommend it if you want to read a cute contemporary with queer rep!