Loveless

Georgia Warr is aged eighteen. She has always been into the concept of romance. She is about to attend Durham University, reading English Literature. Her two best friends, Pip Quintana, a Lesbian, and Jason Farley-Shaw will also attend Durham, though they will read different subjects. One of Georgia’s main aims connected with her university career is to fall in love. However throughout the course of the novel Georgia will discover that she is aromantic and asexual. The novel charts her acceptance of this identity, a journey often painful.

For readers who love theatre there are dramatic interludes. The friends decide to mount a performance of scenes from Shakespeare. The stress of such an undertaking is perfectly captures in Oseman’s narrative. One of the main strengths of this novel is its focus on two little known sexual identities, namely asexuality and aromanticism. These are issues that deserve an airing and have been neglected. Occasionally however those two difficult emotional themes overwhelm the rest of the story, in places delivering a somewhat didactic tone.