You know when you’re trying a new food and you’re not really sure if you like it or not, but at the same time you can’t stop eating it? That’s basically how I felt about this book. Or at least a big part of it.

The beginning of this book had a big shift, cause while you jump right into the story and it feels like you’re just late for the party, it also has a slow start and it takes a while for the story to roll and plot lines are revealed and introduced to us at a very slow pace. While I struggled a bit with the first half of the book, the story was also interesting enough that it kept me reading, always wanting to know more about Alex, her past, and what was happening in the present. Around the middle of the book forward, when we start to get a lot more information about what’s happening and even explanations to past scenes, the book became so much more interesting and I started enjoying it a lot more.

Characters wise, I loved basically all of them. Alex? She could kill me and burn down my house and I would thank her for it and worship her. She was such a badass, so strong considering how much she went through and how mentally strong she had to be and even what she had to go through in her daily life with the Grays but also her work in the present. Dawes was a surprising character to me, she was very quiet and always in her corner, but once you got to know her she was so sweet, so caring and wanting to do right, she really grew on me. With Darlington, it was interesting to see what he thought he knew about Alex, versus what he would learn about her and how his opinion of her would change, both positively and negatively.

The dual timeline was a little annoying at first (this is honestly a personal issue, I’m not the biggest fan of dual timelines) but it got really interesting when we realize how connected they are, how some things from the past are revealed at a point that makes sense with what’s happening in the present. The only thing I have to say is that sometimes in the same chapter, the narrator would go back to a memory and start describing the past and then go back to the present without a clear indication where one stopped and another started, which made me a bit confused where we were time wise.

This book to me felt like a murder mystery wrapped in a horror fantasy blanket and I really enjoyed this duality. I do think this is one of those books that I will just have to sit with and the more I think about it, the more it will grow on me.

(also, not really related to the main plot or important to the story, but in true queer wishful thinking, I would love to see something happen between Alex and Dawes, even though it feels very unlikely but, you know, a girl can dream).

Please do yourselves a favour and watch the anime; music-centric mangas are made to be listened to. The soundtrack haunts me to this day. And if you're not really the anime type but are continuing this series: HERE is the song that happens at the end of Vol 2 in Ch 10-11.

Anyway, back to this, the way this series balances pure comedy and some of the most gut-wrenching emotions is phenomenal. One moment I'm giggling and kicking my feet, the next I'm lamenting over my existence and the relationships I've formed. The first two volumes cover Mafuyu and Ritsuka's arc slash their beginning, so it's a little easier to address it together.

THE TRIGGER WARNING IS A SLIGHT SPOILER SO PROCEED WITH CAUTION ... ... ... The aftermath of a partner's suicide is a tough story to approach, especially finding love and joy after it. Please note that there are scenes alluding to the suicide, though never shown graphically. The first two volumes handles the matter with grace, and the song that's born from it is unimaginably heartbreaking. Wanting to run away from the past, the hurts, and the ghosts, while simultaneously not wanting to let go. It's a burden I don't wish on anyone in my life, and I've always turned to Given to remind me of that.

Ace is a book that answers a lot of questions about asexuality, from the basics of what does it mean for someone to identify as ace, to more general issues of how a society so focused on sexual attraction and sex as a goal can influence the way an asexual person might live or feel the need to live in order to appear “normal”. While not something new to me, I still got to learn so much and understand asexual people better and I find this to be an incredibly important read if you have even a slight interest in this topic.

With asexuality being a spectrum, this book gives multiple examples and talks about people in different points of this spectrum, with some asexual people being completely repulsed by sex, with others enjoying it only with people they have an emotional connection with, and even asexual people enjoy bdsm on their own terms. I found this detail to be extremely important, as asexuality can sometimes be seen as something uniform with only one explanation, when it’s much more of a complex topic.

While this book’s main topic is asexuality as a sexuality, it also extends its conversation to sex in society and how it affects both asexual and allosexual people, but specially how it affects queer, disabled, people of color and what different expectations are put onto these group of people due to harmful stereotypes. Angela dedicates multiple sections and even whole chapters to what it means to be ace and to live in a sexual world as a person of color and/or a disabled person and/or a trans person, showing how their experiences differ from the typical white person we’re used to being seen associated with asexuality.

I really enjoyed the writing style of part memoir part testimonies from other people. Angela does talk a lot about her own experiences as an asexual person, but always matching the topic of current discussion and connecting that with examples from other people. By talking about real life examples, not only it makes it easier to understand each topic, but it becomes a much more intense and sometimes emotional read.

Throughout the book, Angela Chen insists on an a very important message: you are valid, no matter how you choose to identity or even at what point in your life. Representation is important.