Book Review :: Loveless by Alice Oseman

Loveless by Alice Oseman
ISBN: 000824412X
Published by HarperCollins
on 2020-07-09
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 435
Source: HarperCollins NZ
Find at Harper Collins NZ
Goodreads

Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.

As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.

But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.

Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?

Last updated on 10 November 2021

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The story of Loveless

We don’t deserve Alice Oseman. Loveless, the fourth novel from this wonderful Young Adult novelist, is witty, funny, heartfelt, and important.

Georgia has never been in love. She wants to be – she loves the idea of love – but she’s never had a crush, never kissed anyone, and never had a boyfriend or girlfriend. But she wants to be in love, and she knows one day she will be. She just has to find the right person.

“In the end, that was the problem with romance. It was so easy to romanticise romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was in falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laughter, shoes lined up together by the door. Eyes across a dance floor. I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found nothing was there.”

As her squad starts University, we follow Georgia’s journey as she and her friends try to ‘figure out’ Georgia’s sexuality. But in doing so, almost destroys multiple relationships she always has. With terms she’s only just learning, such as aromantic and asexual, Georgia is less and less confident she knows what she wants.

With Shakespeare and Pride clubs galore, new friends at University, old friendships on the brink of destruction, fanfiction and slow-burn romances (between whom I will not say) Loveless may be a story about a girl finding out perhaps love isn’t for her (or is it?) but at the heart of Oseman’s tale is a key theme of friendship. Friendship might just be the most important relationship out there. 

“Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important. Actually, for us, they’re way more important.”

“I’ve learnt some things. Like the way friendship can be just as intense, beautiful and endless as romance. Like the way there’s love everywhere around me – there’s love for my friends, there’s love for my paintings, there’s love for myself.”

If you’ve read any of Alice Oseman’s stories before, then you know you’re in for a treat before you even pick Loveless up. 

Have you read Loveless? What did you think? Leave a comment and let me know!