Falling for Loveless
I found myself reading Alice Oseman’s “Loveless”, one of the intertwined books that she’s made. I had read “Solitaire”, another book by her, and absolutely loved it. Loveless was so much different and unique than Solitaire, and it deviated from Alice’s typical style of storyline and characters. With my past experience of reading her books, she almost always had consistent characters that showed up in multiple books, and the timeline of each book was never together, revealing something new about a character that the book isn’t about. Loveless, however, was nothing like this.
Loveless stars a girl named Georgia, who had just started college. She is accompanied by her two friends, Pip and Jason, who end up being put in different dorms than her. Because of this separation, Georgia is given a roommate named Rooney. Georgia’s main concern in college is that she will never experience any sort of love life. All her life she had never had any crushes or dated anyone, and she decided that this would change. Throughout the book her priorities start to shift and she realizes that dating isn’t the most crucial thing in her life. Part of this reason being the fact that Georgia starts to discover her dislike for anything romantic with someone else. This piece of her is something she couldn’t explain, and after reaching out to friends and people involved in an LGBTQ+ club at her college, she learns to accept that she is aromantic. In the end, Georgia deduced that friendships are just as sweet as romance, and that she isn’t missing out on anything by just being her.
One of the most striking and intriguing parts of Loveless is Georgia’s journey to finding what she identifies as. The book depicts the feeling of being confused about things internally and feeling stuck so well, and I wanted to talk more about it. Georgia starts off with making excuses about why she feels the way she does internally. She was battling with herself about why she wasn't like her friends. In one of the first few chapters of the book shows Georgia being peer pressured into kissing a guy she supposedly had liked for a while. The whole experience, however, was terrible for her. Its the process after that really emotionally sinks when as someone who is reading the book. Alice Oseman portrays this feeling of not having a solution to yourself incredibly, as if the one who is reading it is struggling and losing themself with her.
Georgia finally finds closure towards the end of the book. She consults members of her college’s LGBTQ+ club and finds support from it’s leader, Sunil. One of the many parts of this book that I loved was how drawn out Georgia finding support was. This choice in writing added a level of complexity and realism to Loveless. Realistically, figuring things out for yourself can and sometimes is a long, mentally exhausting process. As a reader I found this part to be a bit boring at some parts and exhausting to read, but I don’t think thats exactly bad. Once Georgia’s journey comes to a closure, the reward of her becoming comfortable with herself becomes almost sweeter after persevering through the slower parts in the book.
To conclude, I honestly did not expect myself to enjoy this book very much. It was so different from anything I’ve read and so differently paced. But, somehow I have found myself unexpectedly loving Loveless. While it isn’t my favorite book of all time, I don’t think it’ll hurt to read it.
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