#like sophie is very organized and jo is a bit more of a mess

[libraryleopard]

Young adult contemporary coming-of-age story (releases 4/16, I read an early copy from Netgalley)

Follows two first-year students at Wellesley College who run dueling anonymous advice columns and befriend each other in real life as they bonded over both being aroace, unaware of the other's internet identity

Platonic love story

Explores themes like aroace identity, finding community, being the queer child of immigrants, and trying to find your place in the world as a young adult looking towards the future

Love letter to platonic/familial love and finding community

Aromantic asexual Chinese American protagonist; aromantic asexual gender-questioning/nonbinary (she/they) protagonist; lots of QPOC side characters

#i got an arc of this and read in basically one day while on a road trip! #i found it very engaging/easy to read #the feud between the main characters is very petty but they're both still quite likable #sophie is very relatable to me as someone who until recently was also a type-a student at a liberal arts college #i think the characters balance each other out very well also #like sophie is very organized and jo is a bit more of a mess #but jo is also less confident in her identity #this talks a lot about aroace identity and i hope that will make a lot of people feel seen #personally i really loved seeing a college coming-of-age story about friendship #because the friendships i formed in college were personally wayyy more important to me than dating #so even though i don't identify as aroace part of me still felt very seen #(that and i knew a lot of aspec people in college) #their feud is kind of petty and terminally online but that's kind of the point in the end #okay i do have to say though #jo's music taste as a dj is SO basic #also this comped to loveless and the half of it so it did amuse me that those are name-dropped in the story #actually there are some aro/ace books that are mentioned though not by name #i think i caught a reference to elatsoe and another one to fire becomes her? #that was cute ngl #dear wendy #ann zhao #2023 reads #lulu speaks #lulu reads #lulu reads dear wendy #books