Let's Talk About Love
Ratings24
Average rating3.9
DNF at 16%. I am very much interested in reading a romance novel in which one of the MCs is asexual, but I'm like 8 chapters in and this feels like it is skewing way younger than the college-aged these characters are supposed to be, and I'm not feeling it.
Let's Talk About Love just misses the mark for me. The story has me until the end.
Check out the rest of my review at Mx. Phoebe's Viewpoint. Link in bio.
This book was so fun! I thought that Alice and Takumi were very cute together. But I had a few problems with the book.
For example, I HATED Feenie. I thought that she treated Alice horribly, and was a terrible friend in general.
Also I didn't really like the pacing. Sometimes it felt rushed, and sometimes it dragged too much.
As a straight white female, I can't speak to much of this book. I cannot begin to completely comprehend the challenges non-heterosexual people go through, so I won't focus much of my review on Alice being bi-romantic asexual (is this right?). Although, I think the representation here is really awesome, I've seen some negative opinions about the representation, so again, please take my review with a grain of salt and try reading reviews written by other people.
This book is fluffy and cute. Yes, it does deal with some important, more heavier issues, but I feel like everything comes to easy conclusions. Of course, there is the terror the main character has about explaining her orientation and I am not dismissing that aspect of the book– this is the biggest and most important conflict, which I think is handled well. All other conflict those is handled with little problems.
I do want to say that I think the romance is a bit too insta-love for my taste, yet at the same time they grow to know each other, which I feel makes up for it. As for other relationships in the book, I didn't really like them. Alice tries to ignore conflict, pretend it didn't happen, and while I think in the situation she is in the right, the book almost makes it seem like she wasn't, which I don't approve of. If you are alone and feeling uncomfortable in a situation, leaving is a completely valid decision.
Also, the library aspect was weird to me– but I volunteer in a library and am in my last semester of library school, so I'm probably one of the few people who will notice it. It wasn't bad librarian representation, but there is so much more to library work than books, let me tell you.
Yet, the writing is so fluffy and sweet! I loved the moments of Alice and Takumi. I enjoyed the times the friends were all friendly. I even enjoyed Alice's spunky attitude (even if slightly unbelievable, especially in a psychiatrist's office). Honestly, the writing and the good feeling I received throughout the whole book are what brought this book up from a 4 star.
Also Shinee is mentioned in the author's acknowledgements. Amazing.
Does this book have its problems? Totally. But I had such fun reading it and Alice's chipper personality infected me with happiness. So, I do recommend this to fans of fluffy contemporaries and I will be recommending it in the future :)