★★★★☆
Before I get into the actual book: Claire Kann, author of Let’s Talk About Love, will be a guest on our podcast Fiction Forward this month! Look forward to that, and if you’d like to know as soon as it comes out, follow Fiction Forward on Twitter (@fiction_forward)!
Can we just talk about how excited I am that this book exists? It’s got BPOC and Japanese representation, asexual biromantic representation, and a really lovable narrator. Plus, look at that cover! It’s beautiful.
Alice has known she’s asexual for a while. But the thing is, she still wants (and deserves) her own love story. Just because she doesn’t care about sex doesn’t mean she can’t feel love or affection, though almost no one seems to understand this — no one except her two longtime best friends, though they’ve started planning for their wedding and subsequent life together.
Let’s Talk About Love definitely includes romance, but it’s also about Alice’s personal journey. About her learning more about her asexuality, about her learning not to hide from her other problems with her family and friends. With her major undeclared, her future uncertain, and her parents pressuring her into pre-law, many young college students will find they have much in common with Alice.
I loved Alice. She was a funny, cute, awkward narrator, and I truly enjoyed her perspective. There were only a few times when I literally rolled my eyes at my book: The overly-used ‘current’ pop culture references, and the times when Alice’s love interest was literally informing her he liked her or found her attractive and she would still be all, “Oh my god, I wonder if he likes me??” There’s a difference between not being able to tell when someone’s flirting and literally not listening when someone says they find you attractive and want to hang out.
This review is weirdly short, but this is honestly all I have to say about Let’s Talk About Love. It was a cute book, and had some really amazing representation. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys cute romance, realistic fiction, or anything with good representation.
This review seems a little matter-of-fact, but don’t let that deter you! I really did enjoy reading this book, and I hope you do, too.
