Category Archives: Asexual

In this lovely story we follow two Australian young ladies in their trek across parts of Europe. We see them meet and develop a lovely, close friendship throughout the time that they are travelling.

I enjoyed the descriptions and the informational passages about some of the places that they went; I feel like I took a mini-trip with them, and learned something too!

I enjoyed Christie; it was nice to go on her journey with her as she comes to terms with the skeletons in her closet and decides to return to Australia. I loved that we saw Christie explain that she was asexual to Roslyn and Roslyn knew what that meant and there wasn’t any fallout from it. It was a beautiful friendship and lovely to see Roslyn knew when Christie needed to be alone and when not to press her to explain more; that is rare to find. One of my favorite parts was toward the end with Anna; that was beautiful.

I was a bit shocked by how many fellow Australians they ran into in their travels; however, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book. There were a few places where the wording seemed awkward; however, I understood the gist of the passages enough to understand what was happening. Also, when I read the description of the book I sort of expected more to develop between the two. I felt a little misled; however, I’m still glad I read the book.

All-in-all, it was a lovely good that showcased a beautiful friendship between two complicated ladies. I would love to see how Christie takes to being in Melbourne and how Jalen reacts to all of it.

~Tori

I’m kind of neutral about this story. The writing itself was good. The book was interesting enough for me not to get bogged down in it. But it seemed a bit long for the point I got out of it. First, I’ll say that this is probably only the third asexual story I’ve read, and the first where there was a combination of asexual and aromantic. So the basic connection in this book is more friendship than anything else, and that brings up some interesting questions to consider. Are books about friendship successful? Is there a big enough market for them? What else would be important to a novel about friendship to make it successful? I’m pretty sure I don’t have any answers to these questions. I’m not even sure these are questions that need to be asked. However, most novels about friendship don’t necessarily make a point of stating that one of the main characters is aro ace (short for aromantic asexual). That seems to be important to the author, but I’m not quite sure why unless it’s about exposure for a sexuality that is most likely underrepresented and misunderstood.

The story itself is ok. Two Australians meet by chance in Berlin, and become friends. They decide to travel together for a while. Christie has been running from her life and who she is for quite some time when she meets Roslyn, who’s traveling because she’s afraid that if she didn’t go then that she would always be stuck in one place. The two find acceptance in each other and a connection that makes them the best of friends. We start out the story with Roslyn, and I thought the story was going to be about her facing her fears. But the book ends with Christie finally finding something or someone she can call home. The journey in between was sometimes humorous, sometimes comfortable, and sometimes a bit tedious. I’m not sure that as short as the story is that it should have taken so long. Although I do like the slow progression of their friendship, the trip itself seemed to drag on a bit.

In the end, I don’t think the book was for me, but I don’t regret spending the time to read it. I liked hearing about Christie’s sexuality and understanding a bit more about what kinds of issues she faced. Roslyn’s sexuality was mentioned but didn’t seem to be a focal point of the story, other than to explain her open-minded acceptance of Christie. The book made me think, which is a good thing, but in the end I kept thinking something was missing.

~AmyP