But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).
When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn, and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.
Review: Man, it took me a hot minute to pick this book up. I've been avoiding contemporary books because of reasons, but I had very high expectations for this particular book. I finally got around to reading this gem, and my expectations were met and more. First off, Alice is a very easy character to relate to. Having been a full time student all my life, when I had to start taking one class a semester for my mental health, it was difficult telling my parents. You can see Alice dealing with the same disappointment when she has to talk to her parents about not wanting to go to law school. No matter what stage of schooling a person is in, I'm sure they can relate to this scenario. Takumi is precious. Honestly, part of why I connected with this book so much is because Takumi reminded me very much of someone I fell in love with and that was honestly a little terrifying. Putting personal feelings aside, I loved seeing how he and Alice interacted. They danced around this "Is he attracted to me? Is she attracted to me?" situation very well. Claire did a great job of framing their interactions so they could be just friends at the end of the book, or end up together, and either option would make sense.
The story was cute. I do wish the book was longer and expanded on some things though. For instance, Alice and Takumi work together, but no one seems to mind the way they act around each other. They weren't being overly flirty, in my opinion, but their boss and coworker made comments about them ending up together which I thought was odd. I loved the conversations Alice had about asexuality with her friends, the counselor she was seeing, and Takumi. I think they were all handled very well and I appreciated Alice's experiences with sex and how she came to terms with being asexual. If you're looking for a book about a girl who knows she's asexual, but how this can affect her life, this is definitely a great one to pick up
Beautiful book with a great main character and love interest.
5 howls
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