Sounds Fake But Okay is a book that takes an aspec (ace spectrum and aro spectrum) lens and applies it to experiences where social norms can limit people of those identities... so all of them. Or at least all of them could be, though only a selected few are covered here. The authors tout a "don't should" approach, re: social pressures and expectations, meaning that any internalized thought about how a person "should" behave or feel ought to be questioned through an aspec lens because it's not likely to serve us.

There were a few interesting takeaways for me. One is the term aplatonic to describe people who don't feel a drive toward building platonic relationships. It shows how even the emphasis on friendships in the aspec community can alienate some experiences. Another thing is that while I know about alternatives to romantic/sexual partnership, this was my first time hearing about "the relationship escalator" to describe the normative route to forming and maintaining the classic monogamous relationship. I find the concept amusing.

As a non-podcast style of person (I know-- am I even a millennial??), I'm not familiar with the authors' work and don't hold a particular fan allegiance to them. And while I applaud any book on aroace experiences hitting shelves and reaching more people who need the information, this particular volume doesn't stand out to me. And there are so many that do! Since I seek these kinds of books out and the topic means a lot to me, I tend to get something positive from the experience. That's true here, too, it's just not particularly groundbreaking compared to other great options, even in a small field. On that note, someone who hasn't read widely on this topic might have a better experience since they won't be busy making comparisons. I just think I'd recommend something different to a curious reader. Thanks to Jessica Kingsley for my copy to read and review!

I have listened to a few episodes of their podcast and I enjoyed it, so I was curious about the book. Unfortunately, as a book, it didn't work for me at all. It was hard to follow a lot of times. Because this is still such underrepresented topic, I feel like they could've done more than just scratch the surface.
They did make some interesting points that I would to know more about, but that's about it.

What I really don't like is how casually JKR is mentioned in this book. Especially with how they have a whole chapter dedicated to gender.
They called it "JKR's view on gender." Call it what it is: transphobia. THAT is her view on gender. That part could have easily been left out of the book. I find it very disappointing that the TERF was mentioned in a book that is supposed to be queer friendly.

I just don't get why they had to include problematic things. Like when, a couple of pages before that mentioned a racist old-school Western movie as an example of genres with romantic-sexual storylines. The reason why they mentioned it was because there weren't any other old-school Westerns that aren't problematic. So... why not leave it out? They already made their point with the other genres they mentioned.
I just don't understand the decision to mention problematic media when it doesn't really add something, but that could just be me.

I want to thank NetGalley for giving me a digital copy of “Sounds Fake But Okay” to review.

This book starts off with a prologue that had me squealing! It was so relatable and beautifully written, I couldn’t wait to continue! I was in love with this book from the moment I read the description and I was thrilled that I got the chance to read it so far in advance of it hitting the shelves.

This book discusses what it means to be a-spec and looks at the world through that lens. It is great for those who don’t know anything about sexuality, for those questioning, and for those that have always known!

This is amazing to see! We need more books about the aro and ace identities and this one is a must read.

The increase in personal stories featuring ace individuals has been a welcome feature for these past couple years, Having the chance to hear from so many in one volume, as published here, allows so many different voices to be heard and understood. The asexual umbrella oversees so many unique labels and the collection featured here, guided by seasoned podcasters who frequently talk about living under said umbrella, allows for new opportunities to understand more about a previously unknown sexuality.

A very informative and enlightening read. Thank you NetGalley for gifting me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review and opinions.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to the free advanced digital copy of this book.

I love this podcast so I knew I’d adore the book, and it was like a best of episode but in book form, as well as going into details about things that were lightly touched on in the pod. I’m planning a post on my TikTok about the best podcast tie-ins and this is 100% getting featured because holy heck. Yay for ace visibility!

I really appreciated learning about Sarah and Kayla's experiences in discovering more about themselves. They helped me understand myself better by reading about them.

JKR... in THIS society? do better.

Cannot say that I could recommend this based on that fact alone. sorry not sorry.

Whew I have a lot of feelings about this one. I had high hopes but there were just one too many issues I wasn't able to look past. I was hoping this book would provide information in a more researched and inclusive way but felt more like a train of thought processing monologue more suitable for a podcast.

This book is written from a very limited scope (i.e. cis white women from the US) and while it's technically a book about asexuality, it really left me underwhelmed considering the potential this kind of book has in the queer/ LGBTQ+ nonfiction genre.

In all honesty, the biggest turn off to this book was the reference to JK Rowling, attempting to breeze past her transphobic behavior in favor of "hope and comfort so many trans people have gotten" from HP. Keeping this in a book written in our current climate is careless and disappointing at best.

Honestly very surprised to find a book that tried so hard to be inclusive included a whole section on JKR and HP. I really thought we had moved past the need to try and accept Rowling in 2023, but apparently not. Very frustrating.

Overall decent, but sometimes it was pretty clear that they were trying too hard to be inclusive rather than just being inclusive by asking for takes from more people.

This was a decent read. As someone who aroace, having any books like this feels like a win to me because so many people need to know more about us. However, this is very narrowly focused because of the authors just relying on their own perspectives, so just be warned, this is not comprehensive.

I really wanted to like this but unfortunately was not a fan. I found it to be quite narrow minded at times and the HP references?? why?

tw: HP, JRK.

No thanks.

They did make a couple of interesting points in the beginning but it’s very clear they are just two american white cis women and their perspective is very limited. In my opinion the content here is exactly right for a podcast, where you just have conversations and let your thoughts flow (because it reads exactly like this sometimes, in a brainstorming-confusing kind of way), but in a book… it adds nothing new to the conversation— nothing that other aroace books have not covered already.

Also, in 2023 can please fucking stop with Harry Potter references? The book is all kinds of problematic, you should all know about it already.
At some point they also started discussing JKR, saying (quoted directly from the book): "JK Rowling’s views on gender do not take away from the hope and comfort so many trans people have gotten out of the Harry Potter books, films, and resulting communities, nor does it mean that the themes of her books which trans folks have felt paralleled their own experiences are no longer valid. [...] We are by no means trying to tell anyone that they must stick with something upon revisiting it and finding holes in it. If leaving it behind seems like the right course of action for you, do it. But utilizing your aspec glasses to their fullest extent sometimes means putting things in a larger context. The bad is still bad even if the good outweighs it, but if we tossed aside every piece of media that didn’t pass some aspec version of the Bechdel test, we’d be left with almost nothing." To me this reads as: yes JKR *might* have done some transphobic things but that does mean you have to stay away from the books and that if you still want to consume her media then you do you and that's fine.
Honestly? This is a big no for me. (and it coming from queer people, too?? hell no). Dismissing all the bad and problematic things because it brings some nostalgic comfort is not a good enough excuse to continue to support her and her books. Acknowledging *some* of the bad things is not enough, if you then continue to consume the media like nothing happened.
JKR (and the Harry Potter books) are transphobic, antisemitic AND racist.

I wanted to love this book so much. I liked it, absolutely, but it was very much a specific viewpoint of sexuality and aspec experiences. It works well as an introduction to asexuality but only if readers are willing to continue their education to understand other cultural and historical contexts besides the cis white experience.

Despite loving podcasts, I have never listened to Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca’s podcast of the same name. Nevertheless, I was drawn to Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else because, hey, asexual and aromantic over here! It feels very fitting that I’m writing this review at the end of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. Thanks to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley for the eARC.

This book explores asexuality and aromanticism (which Costello and Kaszyca often refer to under the united umbrella of aspec, not to be confused with the asexual- or aromantic-specific terms ace-spec and aro-spec) by discussing how these identities relate to specific topics in our society. This is a slightly different and perhaps refreshing approach, finding a middle ground between books that take an “Asexuality 101” stance and more academic work like the fantastic Refusing Compulsory Sexuality. It’s definitely accessible, humorous, and empathetic.

The chapters are divided very logically: “Society,” “Yourself,” “Friendship,” etc. Costello and Kaszyca share a lot of their own personal journey with their sexual and romantic identities. Costello is aroace, while Kaszyca is demisexual, so they each bring slightly different perspectives to being aspec, which I think is valuable. As the book progresses, they start to bring in quotations from a survey of other aspec people. This adds other voices as we hear from genderqueer aspec people, alloromantic asexuals, aromantic allosexuals, etc. The goal is very obviously to showcase the incredible diversity of the asexual and aromantic umbrellas within the wider tent that is being queer, and I love that.

On that note: this is a masterclass in how to write in an inclusive, expansive way. Many writers, both queer writers themselves and those who write about us, often lament how “difficult” it is not to “offend” or inadvertently exclude people with their language. They point to artificially constructed examples of tortuous, often circuitous sentences supposedly designed to avoid such offence and exclusion. Kaszyca and Costello bypass such malarkey. They acknowledge that labels can be challenging, that terms change, that the split-attraction model isn’t for everyone, etc. Then they thread the needle to get to the point, which is that aro and ace identities are united by the fact that all of us on those spectra, to one extent or another, experience romantic or sexual attraction in a qualitatively different way from other people. That is the basic truth to which they speak in this book. The additional voices included throughout allow them to refine the message to speak to more specific experiences as needed.

What I loved most about Sounds Fake But Okay is how it simultaneously resonated with so many of my own experiences while also showing me many different ones. I’m an aromantic, asexual woman—but I am also trans, and having transitioned in my thirties, I spent most of my formative youth under the impression I was a man. So while I heavily identify with Costello and the other female aroaces quoted herein, I didn’t quite share some of their experiences of compulsory sexuality and how that is linked to the madonna/whore paradox of our society. Likewise, in their chapter on gender, they discuss how the proportion of aspec people who are trans is higher than aspec people who are cis. Then we hear from a trans person who identified as ace when they responded to the survey but has since settled on the label of bisexual—because her experience of transition has changed how she experiences and understands attraction. Many people have asked me, as I have transitioned, whether I might not identify as ace anymore—so much so that I actually wrote a whole blog post about this for Ace Awareness Week—and while my answer was in the negative, I totally understand how it’s different for some people.

Consequently, Kaszyca and Costello have managed to collate commentary that does a very good job of helping us understand the remarkable diversity of aspec experiences. I love it. I love how sensitively they unpack and critique the amatonormative nature of our society; while a lot of what they discussed in these parts of the book was not new to me, it is an essential part of this wider conversation. Similarly, I was pleasantly surprised to see other topics included, like a section near the end about kink and asexuality. In short, Sounds Fake But Okay is a careful, thoughtful work that seeks to go beyond its authors’ own experiences and ideas of being aspec.

Though this book will be, I think, most fulfilling for aspec readers, I would recommend this to people who are not aspec as well. This book is probably the most concise exploration of the greatest number of topics related to being asexual or aromantic in our society. For any allosexual and alloromantic folx out there, reading this book would be a great way to educate yourself about some of the challenges that we aspec people have navigating a society that privileges romance above other relationships and pressures us to talk about and even engage in sex that we might not want. As its tongue-in-cheek title implies, Sounds Fake But Okay is about challenging our biases so that we can build a society that is more tolerant, affirming, and compassionate, regardless of the extent or ways in which one feels attracted to others.

Oof. So. Lately we've seen an increase in aspec non-fiction and I've been making my way through them and I almost thought I finally had a favourite.

And then a HP reference happened. In an aspec nonfiction. In 2023. But okay, I went on, more careful. And then, towards the end, the low rating of this book finally made sense - there's an entire paragraph about JKR "despite her views on gender" write books that are still a source of comfort to many people. What a way to describe a person who's almost single-handedly funding anti-trans laws in the UK and who inspired the skyrocketing transphobia.

Description:
Sarah and Kayla invite you to put on your purple aspec glasses - and rethink everything you thought you knew about society, friendship, sex, romance and more.

Drawing on their personal stories, and those of aspec friends all over the world, prepare to explore your microlabels, investigate different models of partnership, delve into the intersection of gender norms and compulsory sexuality and reconsider the meaning of sex - when allosexual attraction is out of the equation.

Spanning the whole range of relationships we have in our lives - to family, friends, lovers, society, our gender, and ourselves, this book asks you to let your imagination roam, and think again what human connection really is.

This book provides a great glossary and vignettes to humanize those individuals on the asexual spectrum. It is conversational and easily digestible. Would recommend having as a reference,

Thank you to the publishers for providing me with an eArc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was genuinely enjoying this book. As an Ace person myself I was quite curious with what Sarah and Kayla would speak about considering I hadn't heard of their podcast before.

But then I got to the part about HP and JKR and had to DNF immediately. Due to the addition of talking about HP and JKR in a semi positive light, I will not be sharing my review with my audience.

Many people that follow me are trans and we all do not stand for JKR or people trying to still keep HP alive.

This is really unfortunate because the book itself would be really good for people trying to learn more about the ace community.