Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, happy November, and happy Día de los Muertos, if that’s your thing!
Whew, October’s definitely been a rough month for me, and this week wasn’t much of an exception. Junior year is weighing heavy on me, but through it all, at least I’ve had lots of good music and books to keep me going. Having a snow day on Monday was lovely, and now the weather’s nice and moderate. (Oh, and this fourth season of Fargo might just be my favorite, but I’m just hoping Rabbi Milligan survives for a few more episodes…) And Halloween season is always fun–we celebrated on Friday with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and we carved our pumpkins and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice on Saturday night. Here’s how my pumpkin turned out, I carved the logo from Fargo on it!
Just carved on left, on the front porch at night on the right!
It was promptly eaten by a deer this morning, but hey, I was really proud of it while it lasted.
All things considered, I’ve had a good reading week. I had a couple of disappointments, but I finally got around to reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and really enjoyed it! (Expect a review next week!)
And…NaNoWriMo starts today, so there shall be writing aplenty tonight…
I’m so glad that we have a snow day…I was trying to find a good day to fit this post in, and now we have the perfect opportunity!
As some of you know, this week, October 25-31, is Asexual Awareness Week, or Ace Week for short! The whole week is meant to celebrate everyone on the asexual spectrum (asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and more) and spread awareness about the community. All too often, this community is unjustly discriminated against, even in LGBTQ+ spaces, which never fails to break my heart. Well, if I haven’t made myself clear enough, I’ll just go out here and say that everybody on the asexual spectrum is so loved, so valid, and so beautiful!
So for the occasion, I decided to compile a list of YA books with characters all over the asexual spectrum–among them on this list are characters who are asexual, demisexual, aromantic, and more. Thing is, SHAME ON ME FOR NOT READING ENOUGH ASPEC LITERATURE. I try my best to, and I found some examples, but not enough ones that I’ve actually read to make a substantial list. So, the first half of this post is ace books that I’ve read, and the other half is ace books that are on my TBR.
Let’s begin, shall we?
THE BOOKISH MUTANT’S YA READS FOR ASEXUAL AWARENESS WEEK
REPRESENTATION: Ellie (protagonist) is demisexual and biromantic, in a straight-passing relationship
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Sound of Stars is one of my favorite reads of this year–POC/LGBTQ+ representation, lots of references to YA literature and music, and fighting against the patriarchy!
I’m so lucky to have gotten an eARC of this one over the summer. Besides having great asexual representation, the author is Lipan Apache, and so is Elatsoe! A wonderful paranormal murder mystery with lots of lovely ghost critters.
REPRESENTATION: Zoey (one of three protagonists with alternating POVs) is asexual
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Another five-star read of mine this year. There’s no shortage of great LGBTQ+ representation from this one; beyond Zoey’s asexuality, and the other two protagonists (Val and Marion) end up being in a wlw relationship.
REPRESENTATION: Nathaniel (one of two protagonists with alternating POVs) is aromantic/asexual
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Another lovely sci-fi with a bluish purple color scheme on the cover! There’s a beautiful scene where Nathaniel discovers his identity, and it’s so tenderly beautiful. Plus, there’s a wlw relationship between the other protagonist (Anna) and another secondary character as well!
REPRESENTATION: Georgia, the protagonist, is aromantic/asexual
(Sidenote: why does “aromantic” keep autocorrecting to either “romantic” or “aromatic?” The audacity…)
I’ve had most of Oseman’s novels on my TBR for quite a while (Radio Silence was my first exposure), and this sounds like a lovely aro-ace coming of age story!
REPRESENTATION: Luca (secondary character who is supposed to play a major role) is demiromantic/asexual
I put this on my TBR over the summer and completely forgot about it, so hopefully I can read it soon…
TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! Have you read any of these novels? What are your thoughts? Any other books with ace rep that you recommend?
Oh, and one more thing: I just found out a few hours ago that today is also Intersex Awareness Day! I hardly see any intersex rep in literature, so if any of you have good intersex book recs, don’t hesitate to tell me about them in the comments!
