Being Ace

I was really looking forward to this one — I’m an ace adult and I know it’s aimed at younger readers, but as someone who hasn’t had a lot of representation I was excited to explore a whole book of it. Which is why it was a little disappointing to discover that this not only not what I was hoping it would be, I can’t say it does a great job of fulfilling its own brief.

The good: you will find a lot of narratives about ace people in here, from a diverse collection of authors and covering many different genres. There is magical realism and both urban and secondary world fantasy, science fiction, contemporary, and even a mini thriller plot. All of the stories are own voices and I really enjoyed some of the stories found here. There is both romantic and explicitly aromantic love here. I am very glad this collection exists.

The bad: For an anthology with the brief of centering ace love . . . it does a fantastic job of centering ace isolation. It is a theme I relate to, and there were a few it really worked for (such as “Give Up the Ghost,” in which the main character capitalizes her dehumanization by other people even though it’s wearing on her, or “No Such Thing as Just,” in which the tension between a boyfriend who wants to fix the MC and a more accepting friend drives the story), it felt relentless in a way I didn’t enjoy in an ace positive collection. I had to out the book down a few times. There are more community building focused stories in here, but they’re mostly back loaded. There are a number where the character’s ace identity is incidental, which I didn’t mind, but also two where asexuality is neither mentioned explicitly nor alluded to, which felt very out of place in a collection about representation (even if I really enjoyed one of the stories, “Sealights,” in its own right).

The highlights for me were:

“How to Love a Sidewinder,” in which the main character, who has been cursed by a friend who misunderstood her view of the relationship, visits her mother for advice,

“Well Suited,” a courtly fantasy featuring a lie to get out of having to choose an escort to the MC’s debut, and her dearest friend enchanting a suit of armor to cover for her to unexpected results,

“Smells like Teen Virgin,” probably the strongest story in the collection, in which a monster slayer’s virgin blood keeps attracting monsters and the idea of purity in the first place is kind of deconstructed, and

“The Third Star,” which explicitly uses the word queerplatonic and features a poly trio trying to come to terms with each other and an unknown entity in a survival situation.

There is a lot to enjoy in this collection, and I’m very glad it exists, but it does not hit the way I hoped it would.

Highly variable ratings among the stories. Favorites were How to Live a Sidewinder and Across the Stars

FUCK YEAH ACE REP IN SCI-FI/FANTASY LET'S GO