What do you think?
Rate this book
Table Topped #5
Dump Stat
Laura and I have both had our share of heartache navigating the minefield of finding true love.
Despite that, Laura seems determined to find her perfect match. I understand how hard it is to keep leaping into first dates hoping this one will stick. Heck, the hardships of finding someone new when you don’t fit the factory default settings of being cishet and allosexual are half the reason I’ve been with Noelle for years. No matter how toxic our off and on relationship has become.
What starts out as bonding with my cousin’s new friend over a string of terrible dates and broken promises becomes the closest adult friendship I’ve ever had. We share the ups and downs of dating other people. Laura is the one who gives me the confidence to walk away from Noelle’s verbal abuse. Hers is the shoulder I cry on afterward. And she’s the one person I want to share everything with. From cozy nights at home to the view from a mountaintop. If only I could trust myself to be worthy of her.
Dump Stat is the fifth book in the Table Topped contemporary romance series. It is an F/F best friends to lovers slow burn romance between Alice, a sapphic intersex pharmacy technician with an awful ex and self-esteem issues, and Laura, a panromantic asexual artist who loves love.
CW: Alice has a verbally and emotionally abusive on and off ex partner and as a child/infant she was subjected to nonconsensual surgeries and treatments related to being intersex, as well as having her medical information withheld from her.
Despite that, Laura seems determined to find her perfect match. I understand how hard it is to keep leaping into first dates hoping this one will stick. Heck, the hardships of finding someone new when you don’t fit the factory default settings of being cishet and allosexual are half the reason I’ve been with Noelle for years. No matter how toxic our off and on relationship has become.
What starts out as bonding with my cousin’s new friend over a string of terrible dates and broken promises becomes the closest adult friendship I’ve ever had. We share the ups and downs of dating other people. Laura is the one who gives me the confidence to walk away from Noelle’s verbal abuse. Hers is the shoulder I cry on afterward. And she’s the one person I want to share everything with. From cozy nights at home to the view from a mountaintop. If only I could trust myself to be worthy of her.
Dump Stat is the fifth book in the Table Topped contemporary romance series. It is an F/F best friends to lovers slow burn romance between Alice, a sapphic intersex pharmacy technician with an awful ex and self-esteem issues, and Laura, a panromantic asexual artist who loves love.
CW: Alice has a verbally and emotionally abusive on and off ex partner and as a child/infant she was subjected to nonconsensual surgeries and treatments related to being intersex, as well as having her medical information withheld from her.
217 pages, Paperback
Published June 29, 2022
9 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 12, 2021
*4.5*
Table Topped has been a brilliant series of representation for the LGBTQIA+ community. Alex Silver has written interesting plots with heartfelt relationship arcs and lovable characters.
I'm so happy that we get Laura and Alice's story after meeting them in the first book and getting a sense of chemistry between them as the series has progressed. What I enjoyed here is that we go back to when they first meet, Alice is still with her on/off girlfriend, Noelle, and Laura is looking for her person. Time lapses allow for the story to move along at a good pace but still keep up with what's going on with them. They develop a friendship that both women are in need of, providing support and understanding when it's not necessarily available from others. This is quite the slow burn romance as Alice first has to dump that sorry excuse for a girlfriend and then learn to love and trust herself before doing that to someone else.
There are some emotional moments as each woman looks at/talks about her own history and sexuality. For personal reasons it's a favourite as Laura is asexual and it's quite rare to read someone on the spectrum. They are so sweet and caring when together, even just as friends which is what they spend their time building, setting the foundation for anything that may come in the future.
A fabulous addition to the Table Topped series and a definite must read for me.
I received an ARC and am happily giving a review.
Table Topped has been a brilliant series of representation for the LGBTQIA+ community. Alex Silver has written interesting plots with heartfelt relationship arcs and lovable characters.
I'm so happy that we get Laura and Alice's story after meeting them in the first book and getting a sense of chemistry between them as the series has progressed. What I enjoyed here is that we go back to when they first meet, Alice is still with her on/off girlfriend, Noelle, and Laura is looking for her person. Time lapses allow for the story to move along at a good pace but still keep up with what's going on with them. They develop a friendship that both women are in need of, providing support and understanding when it's not necessarily available from others. This is quite the slow burn romance as Alice first has to dump that sorry excuse for a girlfriend and then learn to love and trust herself before doing that to someone else.
There are some emotional moments as each woman looks at/talks about her own history and sexuality. For personal reasons it's a favourite as Laura is asexual and it's quite rare to read someone on the spectrum. They are so sweet and caring when together, even just as friends which is what they spend their time building, setting the foundation for anything that may come in the future.
A fabulous addition to the Table Topped series and a definite must read for me.
I received an ARC and am happily giving a review.
October 27, 2024
This was really enjoyable and, more importantly, a believable and organic romance between someone who is ace and an intersex person, with a dash of emotional abuse from a past partner thrown in. I appreciate the realistic representation of how emotional abuse can wear down your confidence and ability to trust in a partner and what a realistic relationship with a sex-negative asexual person can look like with a partner who respects their boundaries.
I dropped into this one in the middle of the series but that was fine after a bit. The friend group is lovely, the relationship cozy and sweet, and overall this is just lovely.
I dropped into this one in the middle of the series but that was fine after a bit. The friend group is lovely, the relationship cozy and sweet, and overall this is just lovely.
April 9, 2022
I read this book for the ace representation, I haven't read others in the series. It was clearly part of a series with a lot of characters and call backs! But even stand alone, I enjoyed it. I liked the romantic ace rep, it felt accurate to me.
March 27, 2026
DNF at 52%.
The book doesn't seem... edited. I found typos like "stear" for steer and "Thee" for Theo. It's bizarre and confusing which details are present vs. absent. Even though this is marketed as a romance book, the meetcute of the two love interests happens offscreen. Their first "date" has no dialogue, and amounts to "we went for nachos and it was nice". Their whole relationship suffers from a lot of telling rather showing. Characters are underdeveloped and it's hard to tell them apart - the two POV characters providing first-person narration don't even have distinct narrative voices and I often lost track of who was supposed to be narrating a given chapter.
Another systemic problem with the book is a lack of research.
The intersex rep is well-intentioned, and I appreciate anything that is anti-IGM. It isn't terrible! But the author seems to hold a misconception that intersex is gender - for example, the intersex character describes coming terms with her intersex identity as a "gender label", and she is described as not "cishet" on the basis of being intersex (i.e. intersex people are not cis). Intersex folks like myself tend to dislike using "cishet" to mean non-queer since there are plenty of intersex folks who are cis and hetero! (FYI the opposite of intersex is "perisex".)
Alice's description of her intersex variation doesn't seem to match the coercive medical interventions she was put through. Alice self-describes as "I'm intersex. I've only got one functional X chromosome." which I read as monosomy X (Turner Syndrome). But typical monosomy X isn't generally associated with natal clitoromegaly or malformations of the urinary tract. Some flavours of monosomy X (e.g. XO/XY mosaicism, monosomy X with a partial/sSMC Y chromosome) are associated with these traits, but it would be weird to hear somebody with these forms of monosomy X to describe their variation this way since those are often grouped under gonadal dysgenesis rather than Turner Syndrome. The kinds of intersex variations that match the surgeries that Alice describes sound more like bladder/cloacal exstrophy to me and that's not a chromosome thing. Overall I got a sense the author didn't actually pick a specific intersex variation, or changed it midway through writing but didn't edit things to make it coherent.
An American author setting the book in Vancouver was also kind of weird as somebody actually from Vancouver. Vancouver is a city with a large Asian population (both East and South Asian), and there were no Asian characters, not even as minor/background characters. Vancouver is a place where Chinese restaurants specialize in different regional cuisines --- the part where a character is picks up both Sichuan and Mongolian entrees from the same Chinese restaurant is when I knew for certain the author has never lived in Vancouver.
Similarly, I've never heard of there being designated drivers in Vancouver nightlife, because there are viable alternatives to driving. Folks just walk, bike, take public transit, or taxi/uber home after drinking. (Also, even in Vancouver's mild climate, nobody wears boots indoors.)
The book doesn't seem... edited. I found typos like "stear" for steer and "Thee" for Theo. It's bizarre and confusing which details are present vs. absent. Even though this is marketed as a romance book, the meetcute of the two love interests happens offscreen. Their first "date" has no dialogue, and amounts to "we went for nachos and it was nice". Their whole relationship suffers from a lot of telling rather showing. Characters are underdeveloped and it's hard to tell them apart - the two POV characters providing first-person narration don't even have distinct narrative voices and I often lost track of who was supposed to be narrating a given chapter.
Another systemic problem with the book is a lack of research.
The intersex rep is well-intentioned, and I appreciate anything that is anti-IGM. It isn't terrible! But the author seems to hold a misconception that intersex is gender - for example, the intersex character describes coming terms with her intersex identity as a "gender label", and she is described as not "cishet" on the basis of being intersex (i.e. intersex people are not cis). Intersex folks like myself tend to dislike using "cishet" to mean non-queer since there are plenty of intersex folks who are cis and hetero! (FYI the opposite of intersex is "perisex".)
Alice's description of her intersex variation doesn't seem to match the coercive medical interventions she was put through. Alice self-describes as "I'm intersex. I've only got one functional X chromosome." which I read as monosomy X (Turner Syndrome). But typical monosomy X isn't generally associated with natal clitoromegaly or malformations of the urinary tract. Some flavours of monosomy X (e.g. XO/XY mosaicism, monosomy X with a partial/sSMC Y chromosome) are associated with these traits, but it would be weird to hear somebody with these forms of monosomy X to describe their variation this way since those are often grouped under gonadal dysgenesis rather than Turner Syndrome. The kinds of intersex variations that match the surgeries that Alice describes sound more like bladder/cloacal exstrophy to me and that's not a chromosome thing. Overall I got a sense the author didn't actually pick a specific intersex variation, or changed it midway through writing but didn't edit things to make it coherent.
An American author setting the book in Vancouver was also kind of weird as somebody actually from Vancouver. Vancouver is a city with a large Asian population (both East and South Asian), and there were no Asian characters, not even as minor/background characters. Vancouver is a place where Chinese restaurants specialize in different regional cuisines --- the part where a character is picks up both Sichuan and Mongolian entrees from the same Chinese restaurant is when I knew for certain the author has never lived in Vancouver.
Similarly, I've never heard of there being designated drivers in Vancouver nightlife, because there are viable alternatives to driving. Folks just walk, bike, take public transit, or taxi/uber home after drinking. (Also, even in Vancouver's mild climate, nobody wears boots indoors.)
July 30, 2024
Laura seems determined to find her perfect match even though she is a panromantic asexual artist who loves love. Alice is a cousin of a friend who is a sapphic intersex pharmacy technician with an awful girlfriend called Noelle who verbally abuses her and is probably unfaithful too. Together Laura and Alice become friends and spend cosy nights together. If only Alice can convince herself she is worthy of love and Laura.
This was a good read although I did get a bit frustrated with Alice's acceptance of Noelle's abuse. I thought it was a miracle that they were able to be together given their challenges. Easy to read, feel and understand. This was an FF story with mature content.
This was a good read although I did get a bit frustrated with Alice's acceptance of Noelle's abuse. I thought it was a miracle that they were able to be together given their challenges. Easy to read, feel and understand. This was an FF story with mature content.
March 27, 2026
This one was a book club read that we selected for the intersex rep, and it fell a bit short. On a craft level, there isn't really an arc to the plot, the characters didn't really feel like they developed, the descriptions were threadbare, and the dialogue was bland. Considering the author knows about asexuality being a spectrum, the way it talked about sexualities felt oddly rigid and sharply delineated. I kind of wonder if the author's heart wasn't in this one as much as the others in the series?
It's not really bad, it just felt kind of cursory.
It's not really bad, it just felt kind of cursory.
September 25, 2021
I wanted to like this more than I did. I love that we have ace and intersex representation - ace is pretty rare and I've never read a romance with a character who was intersexed (I'm not actually sure I am saying that right). So that was amazing! But I was a little bored while reading it and I really didn't like that both characters were in relationships with other people for so much of the book.
September 3, 2021
Thought provoking
A lovely well written story that tell you about the differences people experience understanding love. Our own understanding of how we feel about ourselves creates all sorts of barriers to love but this book shows that with love those barriers can be removed. It's a heart warming book, thank you for writing it.
A lovely well written story that tell you about the differences people experience understanding love. Our own understanding of how we feel about ourselves creates all sorts of barriers to love but this book shows that with love those barriers can be removed. It's a heart warming book, thank you for writing it.
October 3, 2021
The books in this series just make you feel good. They give you the sense that, whatever's going on, it's going to work out. They remind you that somewhere out there, there will be friends who care about you just the way you are. When you need comfort and a cuddle, curl up with this book.
September 23, 2023
Illuminating
Kudos, this book opened my eyes to relationship difficulties and prejudices facing some of those in the LGBTQ+ community. The storyline was well developed and the characters engaging. I highly recommend this to book.
Kudos, this book opened my eyes to relationship difficulties and prejudices facing some of those in the LGBTQ+ community. The storyline was well developed and the characters engaging. I highly recommend this to book.
October 28, 2024
I did not expect to like a book so much. The terminology used had me researching each one. Thank you for teaching me things. The journey of both mc had me wanting to grab the popcorn and gather the warm and fuzzy feels they both gave me. Loved the book.
July 1, 2023
This was soooo good! I need to read the rest of the series immediately!
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews