As an aro ace person myself I was drawn to this book when I found it in the bookstore. Being seen, understood and accepted by someone writing a book for others to see is a wildly wonderful and heart warming experience. This book feels like community and belonging. A warm hug and a hot mug of cocoa on a rainy day. I could quote whole paragraphs that made me tear up in a good way but maybe I'll just recommend this book as a whole. I think this is why representation matters so much.

This is not an entirely bad book and I would actually give 2,5 stars if I could. This also reflects my own personal reading experience and for someone who seeks an introduction into aromanticism, this might still be an interesting book. It's also an easy read given the casual writing style which I liked because I finished it quite quickly. Plus, it was great to be represented and to have visibility of aromanticism because as the author said, this is barely included or represented anywhere. (Alone for this, I thought about giving at least another star.) What I missed the most was depth. This book claims to be a guide and why I am not opposed to writing a guide through using personal experience, this sometimes rather felt like a personal reflection that introduces some terms and concepts around aromanticism but never going really into depth. I think the book would have worked better as an autobiographic account than as the guide it is supposed to be. At some point, I was also confused by how the author continued to highlight that she doesn't identify as aromantic anymore because even though I found this perspective interesting and it does not discredit her expertise in any way, I felt like she was trying to diminish her own credibility at some point. But maybe I only felt like this because credibility was one of my main issues. Not because she wasn't right about most of the topics or because they are not extremly important, but because I felt like she could have used better sources. I know that there are studies for several aspects she included but most of the discussion remains rather superficial, references to studies are rarely used, and most topics lack the complexity I had hoped for. Saying "aromanticism isn't linked to autism because I know several autistic people who are not aromantic" isn't really a proof and while the critism of arophobes and ableists saying that aromanticism and autism are necessarily linked is certainly true, I missed including a discussion of how autistic people might still be more likely to identify as aromantic (I am not an expert on this but I've seen some studies on that). I am aware that you cannot address all these topics in depth but this is one example where it felt way too superficial and not very reliable. There aren't a lot of studies on aromanticism, but there are some.