This was a surprisingly enjoyable book. I normally have a hard time with books that have been overly hyped up and recommended to me but I really wanted to give this book a chance since I had heard so much positive feedback on it. But it was all for good reason as I have so many positive things I can say about it!
This book follows the story of Olive and her plight through the harrowing world of academia and fake dating. The main thing that I loved about this is kind of spoilery, but this book really broke a lot of tropes that normally can be kind of problematic/aren’t always pulled off well. All of the characters are well rounded and I was very happy with the dynamics that were presented in the relationships. I liked that things that were brought up were never just brought up and tossed away – everything had a purpose. And the ending felt realistic, which is not always the case in romance books.
The main thing I loved though was the fact that Olive openly admitted to wondering if she was asexual. Ali does an amazing job of describing Olive as demisexual, even if she never puts that explicitly in words. I love seeing myself in books, and the entirety of the way Olive’s sexual relationships were presented resonated with me in a way that I haven’t seen in many recent books. The conversations Olive had with her best friend Malcom about her sexuality were realistic and non-judgmental, and the fact that this book still had romance, including a pretty descriptive sex scene, shows that just because someone is on the Ace spectrum doesn’t mean they can’t have love/sex. Truly, this was an amazing thing to read.
I give this book a solid 5/5 and I look forward to reading the next book.