“ ‘You want someone to know you,’ I said.”
I think everyone wants to feel known and I definitely felt known and given affirmation to by this magical delight of a book. Especially in Georgia its aromantic-asexual protagonist who brings visibility to a sexuality that isn’t as widely talked about or understood (as I myself struggle with the concept of intimacy and being close to someone/comfortable to show certain parts of myself so I loved seeing that represented in a way that deeply resonated and spoke to me). I also find that kissing someone or having sex for the first time can be deeply scrutinized as they are both rites of passage that people feel pressure to succumb to before they are ready, and it is stigmatized if you aren’t there at a certain age, and I thought this book was able to have real, deeply affecting explorations into that with a continually life-affirming sense of tender, thoughtful profoundness.
Feelings of self-identity and the process of finding love, whether it be romantically, platonically, or within one’s self, aren’t easy and are invariably vulnerable, taking plucks of courage and incrementally realized steps of bravery. The process can also find you in a discomfited, messy, painful, or awkward place that invites the most intimately sensitive parts of the self and heart that have to take a try at being exposed. Through all of this, you want someone to care about you, hold your hand through the embarrassing moments or admissions, brighten your bad days with your choice comfort food, work with you patiently through your negative self-talk or just be there for you quietly with a smile or slight squeeze of the hand, and regard your feelings with the utmost sincerity that can give way to and form an authentically beautiful openness that can be fostered. And ultimately operates as genuinely and honestly as an intricately rich form of poetry, flowing from the inward crevices of one’s self.
“I was a dreamer, maybe, who liked to yearn and believed in the magic of love. Like the main guy from Moulin Rouge, who runs away to Paris to write stories about truth, freedom, beauty and love, even though he should probably be thinking about getting a job so he can actually afford to buy food. Yeah. Definitely me.”
Georgia, quiet before you get to know her and a fan-fiction loving nerd at heart, has to go on her own journey of self-discovery and awakening at her first year of university. Along with her two best friends she knows from high school, Jason and Pip, who decide to attend the same university. University being a non-linear experience, confusingly intense mass of intensity and time of bottled, knotted emotions coming to the forefront, and acts of experimentation that she has to find ways to contend with.
Also accompanying her on this journey is her roommate she meets who is her striking polar opposite from the surface and definitely upon first glance. Boldly outgoing, outrightly flirtatiously sensual, people magnet Rooney. Who as time progresses, though, ends up having some past traumas to confront and deeper secrets of her own, that linger like darker unspoken ghosts, which, in turn, reveal that no one’s identity is static or consequentially always what it seems in that people can act a certain way to cover up a larger, more damaging truth.
“Like the way friendship can be just as intense, beautiful and endless as romance. Like there’s love everywhere around me – there’s love for my friends, there’s love in my paintings, there’s love for myself … ‘I have a lot more love than some people in the world. Even if I’ll never have a wedding.’ ”
Georgia, on the other hand, continually dreams of how it would feel to be in a relationship, but the actual reality of it seems to be very different: as she feels repulsed by touch, being in too close proximity to someone, kissing, and idea of the sex. She has to find ways to be honest with herself and come to accept herself on her own terms before her own experimentation hurts someone, but unfortunately it does before she can completely and I thought that part of her character was well-developed. As she faces conflictions with how to act so she will feel and appear normal and where she can be more true to her inner nuances and more subtle callings. Willfully trying to force yourself to feel and fabricate desire will never end well and I think Georgia comes to realize that and that the best way to remedy that is to find smaller, though no less impactful, ways of being comfortable and proudly unapologetic about the person she is and holding as steadfast to that as she can.
I thought the pondering, meaningful focus on identities, coming into one’s self, and finding out that friendship can be the most powerful, enduring form of love were moving through and through. As this book will hold a special place in my heart for the ways that it brought me clarity and remarkable reassurance that there is no one right way of being a person, loving, or living.
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Popular Highlights in this book
‘Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important. Actually, for us, they’re way more important.’Highlighted by 636 Kindle readers- I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found that nothing was there. A mirage.Highlighted by 541 Kindle readers
- I used to dream of a spellbinding, endless, forever romance. A beautiful story of meeting a person who could change your whole world. But now, I realised, friendship could be that too.Highlighted by 504 Kindle readers
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Reviews with images
Llegó antes de la fecha y en perfecto estado
Me encantó, llego una semana antes de la fecha, todo el envío bien protegido, el libro estaba en perfectas condiciones, sin defectos.
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Llegó antes de la fecha y en perfecto estado
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024
Me encantó, llego una semana antes de la fecha, todo el envío bien protegido, el libro estaba en perfectas condiciones, sin defectos.
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024
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Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2023
The book came like this which was a little dissapointing... Can't wait to read it though
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Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2023
Top reviews from other countries
Juan Esteban Perez Negro Ficachi
Excelente documento
Reviewed in Mexico on October 3, 2023Bianca M.
Comparando capa comum e capa dura
Reviewed in Brazil on January 14, 2023
Bianca M.
Reviewed in Brazil on January 14, 2023
Capa comum:
Bem simples, principalmente se considerar a qualidade que temos na versão brasileira. Não tem orelha, a folha é estilo jornal e já escureceu, dá pra ver a escrita no verso da página. Mas o estilo da capa é lindo.
Capa dura:
A folha se aproxima do que estamos acostumados no Brasil, não vaza escrita no verso. O protetor da capa tem alto relevo na escrita e a capa em si, baixo. A ilustração do protetor é linda. O tamanho da fonte é pequeno, o que pra mim não atrapalhou, mas pode ser desconfortável de ler por muito tempo. Tem um conto extra no final que não tem na capa comum.
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Caitlin
Nothing but love for Alice Oseman
Reviewed in the Netherlands on March 26, 2024ALEXANDRE BEN
Attention le livre n'es pas en français
Reviewed in France on October 26, 2023