Book Review: This Doesn’t Mean Anything by Sarah Whalen
This Doesn’t Mean Anything (2023) by Sarah Whalen
This isn’t a rom com. It’s a romance — with an ace protagonist — but it’s a serious one (aside from some banter) with intense relationship drama.
I love that the protagonist is asexual. Another major character is bisexual. When the Gay-Straight Alliance comes up in dialog, I hoped they’d go and hang out with that group on campus, but it never happens.
The young women in this book need to take a self-defense class and carry tasers or at least pepper spray all the time. The boys who aren’t sexual predators seem overprotective on a patronizing level. (Maybe I think that because it’s been decades since I was in my twenties. I remember in my twenties in St. Louis I didn’t leave my apartment without pepper spray and a dagger, and I took a self-defense class.)
Since the book’s city (Atlanta, GA) and campus have such a big rape culture problem, I wanted that to come up in dialog — something about how much it sucks that this society teaches boys to be rapists and misogynists & teaches girls to be scared of walking alone after dark… when we should fucking teach boys and men to… not be rapists… and to respect women and girls. If you’re going to address such blatant rape culture in a book, have a feminist message — not a “that’s just…