Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else

by Sarah Costello, Kayla Kaszyca

'Somehow, over time, we forgot that the rituals behind dating and sex were constructs made up by human beings and eventually, they became hard and fast rules that society imposed on us all.'

True Love. Third Wheels. Dick pics. 'Dying alone'. Who decided this was normal?

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.

Includes exclusive 'Sounds Fake But Okay' podcast episodes.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Asexual, Adult, Audiobook, Sexuality

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 21, 2023

Reviews

[Anna (RattleTheShelves) · Rating 2 out of 5]

TW: transphobia

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.

I honestly don't want to go on with this review after that. It is easy to read (editing is choppy but hopefully it will be fixed in the final copy) and it covers basic topics in the aspec community in an approchable manner. It's pretty shallow at times and, despite quotes from different respondents, offers largely a white, middle-class, young, cis, US perspective on the topic. It could definitely could use more research on queer theory as a lot of the ideas aren't new at all but it would be a nice introductory aspec book. I agree that it reads more like a script to a podcast rather than a book, but that once again makes it more approachable to people who aren't in the topic.

The chapter on gender was my least favourite - and I can see clear connection with my biggest problem with this book. It read very outdated, things that might have been okay in the early 2000s but now are just weird. I wrote it off as a cultural difference until the JKR rant.

I'm afraid that it's a deal breaker and I won't be recommending this one.

***Thanks NetGalley for the eARC***

[Rachel Nevada Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

ARC provided by Edelweiss+

Sounds Fake But Okay is written by two podcasters, Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca, who co-host a podcast by the same name. It is split into 8 chapters: Society, Yourself, Friendship, Romance and Partnerships, Sex, Family, Gender, and Miscellanea. Throughout each chapter, Costello and Kaszyca urge readers to don their "aspec/purple-colored glasses" and reconsider what might be normative.

Both authors are transparent regarding the shortfalls of their knowledge-- they are both cis, white women who have little background in queer theory. Unfortunately, their awareness of these shortfalls does little to curtail them. Like Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close (another book by podcasters-turned-authors), Sounds Fake But Okay relies heavily on the authors' made up theoretical concepts rather than drawing from a rich history of queer theory and anti-capitalism that would have better informed this work. As another reviewer noted, Costello and Kaszyca's "aspec lens" is very much a watered down version of queer theory. While the book does make brief asides to broader concepts, like amatonormativity and relationship anarchy, it does a terrible job integrating these into the larger narrative.

My biggest critique of this book is that it should have carved out a niche and stuck with it. Other authors have covered "Ace 101" with more depth and nuance (like Angela Chen's Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex or Sherronda J. Brown's Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture). In comparison, Sounds Fake But Okay feels surface level, shallow, and a bit all over the place.

The authors do mention in the book that their publisher approached them about creating a book about ace sex and relationships. That, especially if accompanied with practical guides and worksheets, could have been an excellent niche for Costello and Kaszyca to slot themselves into. In fact, the few parts of the book that I found useful centered around these comments. There were a lot of notes about how ace-queer awakening is often an introspective journey and how asexuality requires more communication in relationships, sex, and dating. I wish these bits had been expanded upon. Unfortunately, their decision to depart from that leaves them floundering amongst much stronger "Ace 101" contenders.

I'm not sure I would recommend this book to anyone. Because it is surface level and lacks theoretical backing, it is a fairly quick/easy read (I finished the whole book in less than three hours). Baby aces/queers who are already open to asexuality, but aren't in the mood to read the slightly heavier-hitting Ace and Refusing Compulsory Sexuality might enjoy it, but will likely miss some of asexuality's key underpinnings (I can't believe that the concept of compulsory sexuality isn't mentioned once in the book?!). Otherwise, I'd just recommend folks skip the book and check out an ep or two of the podcast instead.

[Margherita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC and I’m leaving an honest review.

tw: HP, JKR.

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 books are 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 doesn't 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 (and fatphobic, and homophobic...).

[Annie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not have a good time with this book overall, I was wondering whether I should say my review of it or not but yeah it is very westernised and very cis white women's perspectives, though they tried to show other views the way it was done was choppy and did not seem to flow properly

The HP reference though was just not needed could have used just LOTR and left it at that. But also they go on to mention JK and her views and how trans people still find comfort and do not seem to show the other side of that coin like they are cis speaking about trans issues like please no. Also, the books are antisemitic and racist soo...

I just wish I did not read this honestly, took me so long to read as I had to concentrate way too much to try and read it

[Mara · Rating 1 out of 5]

So I got this book from my local library as part of my quest to read as much as I can of this slate of asexual and aromantic nonfiction that's been coming out recently (pun intended) and I Have Thoughts. I have eight pages of notes that I took while reading this but I'm gonna try to keep this brief.

1) It's very unclear who the target audience of this book actually is. At times it seems like it's meant for people who don't know much about asexuality and aromanticism and haven't considered that maybe societal expectations about romance and sex don't have to rule our lives. Then at other times it seems like it's meant for aspec people who already know they're aspec and have at least some experience with the wider aspec community. Maybe it's supposed to be both, which is fine in theory, but these are two wildly different audiences and writing a book for both is a difficult task that these authors did not accomplish.

2) Everything in this book is touched on in the shallowest ways possible. The authors say that this is not an Ace 101 book, and well, it wasn't, because it doesn't go deep enough to be 101 level. They wander close to some deeper ideas and then promptly drop them. Throughout the book there are quotes from people who responded to a survey the author's put out and those quotes are the closest the book gets to anything even sort of complex. But said quotes are just dropped into the middle of the page with little to no lead-in and no follow up or expansion on what was said.

3) There is this pattern I noticed in the book where every time the authors criticize some aspect of amatonormative society they immediately follow it with "now we're not saying XYZ" when "XYZ" is something you would have to be reading this in extremely bad faith to think that they're saying. For example, from page 61: "One last time, we'd like to emphasize that we are not anti-romantic-sexual relationships - Kayla is literally in one!" They spend just as much (if not more) time explaining what they aren't saying than actually saying what they are saying.

4) As other reviewers have mentioned: the Harry Potter thing at the end. First of all, the whole "it's okay to like problematic media" bit just came out of absolutely nowhere. Second and more importantly, the authors (both cis women) made a deliberate choice to bolster that point by invoking someone whose "views on gender" as they put it are a cornerstone of an increasingly violent transphobic movement. Two cis women randomly going on an aside about how "so many" trans people have "gotten hope and comfort" out of Harry Potter very much came across as defensiveness.

5) The book is very ace-centric. Yes, aromanticism is discussed in every chapter, but asexuality gets much more attention with every topic and there isn't so much as an acknowledgement of the allosexual aromantic perspective on anything. Aromanticism is discussed as if it's an extension of asexuality and not its own identity.

6) There are a lot of areas where it's clear that the authors are incredibly under-informed or just plain uninformed. Example: "There is, in fact, very little dialogue on what [legal standing for platonic partnerships] might look like, much less the impact it would have." (p56). There is actually quite a bit of dialogue about that exact thing in the aspec community and it was really bizarre to see a book written by two aspec people who have had a successful podcast for years now claim otherwise. They also do the whole "same sex marriage is assimilation" nonsense and claim that Obergefell v Hodges "may have actually harmed the broader queer cause" (p56) with zero acknowledgement of the actual reasons why it mattered.

All in all, the bad stuff in this book outweighed the good by a long shot. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone trying to learn more about asexuality or aromanticism or the aspec community.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.

[Insomniac Library (Drew) · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 Stars - 14 / 100 for 2024 - Listened via Spotify
TW/CW: Discussions of homophobia, transphobia, aphobia, heteronormativity, allonormativity, amatonormativity, hate crimes, anxiety, vomiting, coming out, sex, purity culture, racism and albeism
-
Thanks, I hate it.
I hadn't really heard much about this from people, so when I found it on Spotify, I decided to save it for the crushculturereadathon I hosted on Instagram, aspec voices are so often overlooked even now when LGBT+ books are really coming into their own in online spaces.
First off this isn't really a book as much as it a chaptered podcast which was immediately something I wasn't a fan off, I knew the authors were podcasters so I suppose I should have seen this style choice coming but it really threw me off. Listening to this was really hard, I had no idea who was talking most of the time and whilst I usually enjoy books told in a conversational style, this just did not work for me.
-
This was pretty standard, a very simple look into asexuality / aromantisism, nothing in this hasn't be said before better by other aro / ace people. I appreciate they are speaking from their own experiences a lot, but there are other books that do this so much better (currently reading Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen and the difference is night and day, please read that instead of this)
I wasn't really enjoying it and then we just HAD to bring up HP / JKR didn't we?
LGBT+ books published after 2018 that have HP references irritate me to no end. J K Rowling is a TERF, amoung other things, who is actively harming trans people. I find it rediculous that two cis women would think their comments are important enough to mention this is and with little to no need for it at all? Please tell me what this has to do with the aro / ace community:

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.

With the greatest respect in the world, shut the f*ck up.
Yes trans people were comforted by her world and then she showed her true colours and has since been a supporter of the Tory governments plan to OUT TRANS KIDS TO THEIR PARENTS, shown support and donated to the LGB alliance whose slogan is 'LGB without the T' and who cut up progress pride flags (who are mostly made up of cis / het people BTW) and despite claiming to be a feminist remain completely silent on a huge amount of issues facing young women in the UK.
Cisgender people within the LGBT+ community who are J K Rowling apologists should speak to some actual trans people about how they feel instead of saying 'hey we know she's harming you as a minority but HP is so good and maybe we should just live and let live' - Hard to have this view as a trans person in the UK who J K Rowling would more than happily see disappear all together.
You cannot 'live and let live' when you are being actively told not to exist.
-
I really wouldn't recommend this, you want some asexual books that ACTUALLY help? Try these:
- Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
- Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown
- I Am Ace: Advice on Living Your Best Asexual Life by Cody Daigle-Orians

[Janet (iamltr) · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, this was really hard to read. Not from the subject matter, but the formatting of this book was way off. For example, this was shown in the middle of a paragraph.

chApteR 2

And its written as if it was a script for a podcast, not for an actual book. I understand that the writers are podcasters, but that was a major drawback on this one. I mean page notes were showing up in the middle of the page, not anywhere near the bottom.

Second off, there really is no reason to add an offensive old film as being good rep if its racist. I don't care that every movie from back then was this way, it did not need to be in there.

Third off, the actual information about being ace was scant. There was mostly quotes from random people from reddit and such and those were fine, but I felt like there was so much missing. There were some heavy duty paragraphs that I guess was supposed to show details about what it all means, but it just didn't hit right.

I think this one ended up being like a buzzfeed's top 10 list article instead of any sort of real detailed much needed info.

I got this one from NetGalley

[J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

To quote the first chapter: “Though this is a book about asexuality, it will not be an ace 101 textbook or a historical outline, not will it focus exclusively on sexual identity in the traditional sense […] We will be applying the aspec worldview to topics such as friendship, family, housing and more.” While they accomplished the goal of writing a book about asexuality, I don’t think they fully followed through on a deeper analysis of aspec topics.

It begins with a quick glossary to get you oriented, which covers the most basic terms related to the asexual and aromantic spectrums, and in general the book is a light overview of and entryway into aspec identities and ways of being. On that note, it really is pretty surface level, and there was potential for deeper analysis that just wasn’t fulfilled (if that’s what you’re looking for, I suggest Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sheronda J. Brown, whose analysis is sharp and intersectional).

It is written in a conversational tone, which is not surprising since the authors have a podcast together (I haven’t listened to or heard of it before, so I went in cold). This resulted in a sort of stream-of-consciousness format, which I don’t think did them any favours in terms of structuring their arguments. While the inclusion of comments by many other people - respondents to a survey - was useful for expanding the scope beyond the perspectives of white cis middle-class women that Sarah and Kayla could provide, I found that the quotes were incorporated in a clunky way that disrupted the flow of reading for me (and I wasn’t always sure who was writing - in the eARC they weren’t in quotation marks or delineated in any way beyond the attribution at the end of a paragraph, so I couldn’t tell if some of the quotes were multi-paragraph or if Sarah/Kayla were inserting commentary between them).

One thing I found a little odd is the way each woman would write about the other’s experiences - a section is headed with either Kayla or Sarah’s name, and would be written in first person as they shared anecdotes or introspection. However it would often be Kayla writing about Sarah’s (often incredibly personal) experiences, and vice versa. Now I know that they co-wrote this book - and obviously talk about this stuff together on their podcast - but it felt a bit weird that they repeatedly talk about the other person’s experiences when the format clearly allows for each of them to write about their own.

So I would probably have given this book about 3 stars for a decent if surface-level introduction to asexuality with a few misses in terms of execution, but I gave it two stars because of something that came out of left field in the final chapter:

“Revisiting the media we used to love in our youth, for example, and finding aspects of it problematic, does not negate any other positives we may have gleaned from it. It does not necessitate casting it aside entirely (although it certainly can).

“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, not does it mean that the themes of her books which trans folks have felt paralleled their own experiences are no longer valid.”

Not only is it wholly inappropriate for two cis women to be commenting on this, especially considering how unnecessary it is in context, it’s also incredibly disappointing from a book which otherwise attempts a semblance of queer solidarity - given the active harm that Rowling is currently causing to trans and non-binary people as well as the wider queer community (in the UK and abroad), something that is only possible because of her cultural capital built through sustained interaction with HP media, the ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water’ message is just distasteful. (If they ~must~ bring it up, it seems disingenuous to comment on the comfort trans people used to take in Rowling’s works without acknowledging the betrayal of her vitriolic campaigns against their rights and dignity.)

[Zoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

With ace voices so absent from mainstream queer discourse, I'm always excited to see more ace literature being published, and am appreciative that the editor at Jessica Kingsley is going out of their way to source and commission ace literature (as is so clearly the case with this book).

Sounds Fake But Okay is written by two women who host an aspec podcast together. In this book, they touch on several topics in relation to asexuality (and its spectrum), including relationships, parenting, gender, sex, romance, housing, media and more.

Where I felt the book was at its strongest was in its discussion of the ways in which aspec relationships require more communication and introspection of what an aspec person wants from [any] relationship, as well as how people who are not ace could learn more about themselves by applying the same level of introspection to their needs and the breakdown of different kinds of attraction. There was an interesting discussion of queer parenting and queer-platonic relationships.

However, for me, the book felt too broad and shallow in scope to offer a meaningful contribution to the emerging canon of ace literature. While chatty in writing style - no doubt an effect from the authors' experience talking about these topics on their podcast and intended to appeal to their podcast audience - the authors seem to lack any knowledge of general queer history or theory. Claiming that seeing the world through an aspec lens can challenge the gender binary is may be helpful to them, but totally undermines (and does not acknowledge) all the work and literature that the wider queer community (particularly trans activists) have been putting in for decades. Additionally, there was a very strange 'miscellaneous' chapter at the end where the authors mentioned short segments they'd not had time to include in the previous chapters. This would have either functioned better as integrated longer footnotes, or as integrated digressions within the chapters.

It couldn't decide whether it wanted to offer structured definitions as an introduction to asexuality, a [un-]nuanced discussion of relationships, desire and the logistics of living in the world outside of the cis-monog-hetero nuclear family, or put forth an argument for a new type of queer [ace] theory.

There was also a wild and totally irrelevant claim at the very end of the book that trans people have found joy in a certain TERF's book series and this is okay - one sentence, with no nuance offered in the slightest. Some people believe there is a critical discussion to be had around this author - but this was not even attempted and thus blanket statement produced. It had much better been left out.

Overall, I wouldn't be able to recommend this book to anyone because of the above-mentioned statement, the lack of in-depth critical discussion throughout book (relying instead on survey members' responses to fill the necessary pages) and confusion as to what kind of book it is presenting itself as. Thanks to Netgalley and Jessica Kingsley publishers for providing me with a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

[kory. · Rating 5 out of 5]

this isn’t without flaws, but it nails the big things i look for in aspec books 💯🙌

content/trigger warnings; discussions of homophobia, transphobia, aphobia, heteronormativity, allonormativity, amatonormativity, hate crimes, pulse shooting, anxiety, vomiting, coming out, sex, purity culture, legal discrimination, gender roles, racism, ableism, infidelity, kink,

one aspec book i read waffles on what asexuality is and focuses on ace experience, conflates attraction and desire, and links ace men and incels. another ace book i read also waffles on the definition and conflates attraction and desire, generalizes ace people’s experiences, and panders to aphobic rhetoric about how aces aren’t inherently queer or as oppressed as others. i gave up on another ace book very early on because i just didn’t vibe with the author’s conceptualization of asexuality and i’m the type to fixate on things like that to the point of disliking the book.

whereas with this book, the balance between commentary and personal stories is perfect (more commentary than personal stories), the definitions/understandings used throughout the book are accurate and inclusive, rather than being dry/dense/academic it’s very conversational and feels like the discussions i see queer people having online amongst themselves (which i’m sure some people will hate or sneer at, but i love it), and different perspectives and experiences are acknowledged and taken into consideration as much as the authors’ limited viewpoint allows.

positives;

the authors discuss “romantic friendships” which were “passionate, same-sex relationships that were not hindered by or even placed on the backburner because of marriage” and how modern speculation insists they were actually “queer romantic-sexual partnerships shielded by the guise of intimate friendship” but the authors agree that maybe some were, but add that it’s also likely that “many of these romantic friendships really were just intimate platonic relationships that existed in a time where people were freer to have strong, lasting platonic partnerships alongside traditional romantic–sexual ones” and i fucking love it!!! i’ve said before, queer people’s romances get misread as friendships because of heteronormativity AND platonic relationships get misread as romances because of amatonormativity. both are true and the solution to one is not the other; amatonormativity will not solve heteronormativity.

a major feat of this book, to me, is the ability to critique same gender marriage without rubbing me the wrong way. usually criticizing marriage equality (in the case of same gender marriage, mind you) amounts to “good queers don’t want the icky lifestyle hets want” and a very nuance-lacking conversation about assimilationism. i don’t personally agree with slamming queer folks for wanting their relationships to the legal and social standing, protection, and benefits that marriage provides. i’d rather challenge marriage and advocate for expanding what marriage means and the types of relationships that are afforded privileges (like is done in minimizing marriage by elizabeth brake) without making villains out of queer folks who are simply trying to fucking survive. and these authors instead of shaming queer folks for wanting same gender marriage, they look at marriage equality through a lens of amatonormativity; “our society’s traditional allonormative and amatonormative take on partnership was only further reinforced. two steps forward, one step back. we got something incredible out of obergefell, yet the structural integrity of the status quo remains firmly intact.” fucking incredible.

i love the discussions about how many aspec people only began to question their gender after and because they grew to understand and accept their aspec identity. not only because it’s not something that’s acknowledged much by queer community generally; people tend to talk about aspec folks like being aspec is their only “claim to queerness” and even that isn’t good enough. but also because it’s also a common experience among pan folks. i’ve heard from a lot of pan folks that learning about/accepting their pansexuality led to them either questioning/discovering their gender or becoming more aware of queerness in general, and statistics show that we are more likely to trans and/or nonbinary.

like kink and polyamorous communities being very focused on self-reflection and understanding boundaries and consent and healthy communication, aspec communities experience something similar in that the nature of aspec identities involve a lot more introspection, which lends itself to being much more aware of their own desires and boundaries and often translates into open conversations about these things with people they might want to form relationships with. and in both examples, that isn’t to say other communities don’t engage in these same things, just that it’s more front and center in these specific communities, as their identities heavily involve challenging these specific societal norms and expectations.

compromise and polyamory is another thing that i tend to cringe at when it comes up in regard to aspec and all people dating. because often people are being encouraged to engage in sex or polyamory for the sake of “maintaining” their relationship or making their partner happy, not because they personally actually want those things. and that’s awful advice, i’m sorry. and these authors don’t do that! thank fuck they stress that you shouldn’t compromise on things just to keep a relationship if those things are making you uncomfortable or aren’t what you truly desire. it isn’t worth it and it isn’t going to save the relationship. sometimes relationships just aren’t compatible and it might be hard to reconcile that, but making major choices like this out of “necessity” rather than desire isn’t only going to cause more problems down the road.

there’s just so many things i love. the entire fucking chapter on friendship just fucking nailed it. the idea that if you don’t love yourself then you can’t love others is unhealthy, untrue, and puts forth the idea that people who don’t have self-confidence, are mentally ill, or struggle to accept themselves are incapable of loving and caring for others. the self-fulfilling prophecy of platonic relationships being less valued because they have no legal standing, and having little push for legal standing because they carry less social value. phrases like “bro before hoes” and “chicks before dicks” seemingly only apply prior to marriage or long-term commitment, and once “me” becomes “us” it’s acceptable and normal to take precedence in every context, no questions asked.

the world as we know it has always been built on a foundation of platonic love, support, and care. aroace women redefine womanhood in a queer way, even when they’re cis women, because so much of femininity is based in attraction, romance, and sex. when ace men are written off as incels, what’s being said is that it’s more acceptable for a man to be a member of a community with a reputation of violence against women than it is for them to be asexual. the norms of romantic couples being centered and prioritized remain entrenched in society not because there’s any fact or truth in those relationships being more important or valuable, but rather because rewards will continue to be built for them, such as things like tax benefits or spotify discounts.

one quote from someone the authors’ interviewed spoke about gender, saying, “i personally care little about my gender identity … i still present as a woman and use she/her pronouns but that’s only because it’s what i’m used to and what people see me as. i don’t feel particularly attached to the woman gender or the pronouns. it would not bother me at all if people did not use she/her pronouns.” and that’s super relatable wow. i have no attachment to being a woman or she/her pronouns, but still go with it because it’s the default i was given and i don’t have any particular desire to or interest in going by anything different. though i do mark my pronouns as she/they, as a way to indicate an “i don’t give a fuck” attitude about it all.

one of the authors says, despite talking about aspec issues weekly on their podcast and writing a book about it, “i don’t think about my orientation all that often. it’s not a part of me that has a huge impact on my life or how i live it” and i feel called out. i talk about pansexuality regularly on several different social media accounts dedicated to it, but it’s not something outside of creating that content that i think about often or plays a large role in my life. i’ve been told my anonymous people to “stop making pansexuality my personality” and it’s almost funny because if you knew me outside the dedicated blog and twitter accounts, the idea that i make my pansexuality my personality would never even cross your mind.

observations;

there are some things the authors describe as “nearly universal” or outright universal that i don’t relate to, and it’s always interesting to me how different my experiences as both a woman (just going with the default i was given) and queer person are to most people’s. the author’s say coming out and queer realization are “nearly universal” experiences, and i’ve had neither. i didn’t have one of those queer awakenings/realizations that people always talk about. i didn’t have an “omg i’m not straight” moment because i never considered myself straight, but i never considered myself anything else either. it wasn’t something i thought about one way or the other. and because of this, coming out wasn’t a thing for me, either. i always felt like who i liked just was, without fuss, and because of that, coming out to myself or others never felt necessary. the authors also say that “anyone socialized as a woman will know as soon as you put on a bit more makeup or show any cleavage someone will ask who you’re trying to impress” which i know is a very common experience, but it’s not mine personally. i was also never told to wear dresses/skirts or to never cut my hair to be “ladylike.” just more supposedly universal woman (or socialized-as-woman) things that i never experienced.

also i think it’s kind of sad that the authors felt the need to make many statements throughout the book stressing that they aren’t slamming romantic relationships, relationship escalator type relationships, people who feel their romantic relationship is the primary/most important in their life, wanting a “traditional” nuclear family, romance/sex in media, etc. a lot of reviewers criticize the authors for doing this, but we should be focusing on the fact that we exist in an environment where challenging societal norms/expectations is seen as somehow demonizing anyone who has or wants those, and that perception would outweigh the entire conversation being had if it were not disclaimed. we need to do better as a community to not say things like “you’re challenging societal norms and discussing how they negatively affect people but you didn’t take the time to make sure i feel good about adhering to those societal norms so you’re in the wrong” tbh.

i don’t understand why people are so hard on this book. not every ace book has to be or do the same thing. some are academic, some are research based, some are very broad, some are narrow, some are conversational, some are personal, some are 101 texts, and some are mix. all of these types of books have value and a place. personally, i’ve read the academic queer books and the ones based solely on existing research, and the ones i connect to the most are the ones where queer people are just talking about queer shit. that’s enough for me, even if i’m already familiar with what’s being discussed, especially because all queer voices should be heard and we all have different things to add to a conversation, no matter how big or small that difference is.

negatives;

for an example of a queer realization, the authors give “a high school friendship that, come to think of it, was a bit more codependent and physical than a typical friendship” and it’s super disappointing because this is amatonormativity. amatonormativity is prioritizing, expecting, and rewarding romantic relationships, as well as assigning sets of behaviors and actions that are inherent and exclusive to romance. there is no universal line between what actions/behaviors are romantic and what ones are platonic, so there is no “typical friendship” base to compare a “codependent” and “physical” friendship to. personally, i had a very codependent and physically affectionate friendship in high school. i was always very deeply attached to my best friends. and i know that people today would think there was something romantic going on, because even people at the time assumed that. but there wasn’t. not then or in hindsight. the “every queer person has that one friendship looking back on they’re like ‘ohhhhhh’” narrative relies solely on the basis of “friends don’t act like that” and that is amatonormativity.

when discussing coming out to family as aspec, the authors mention how they would “still have to completely reconceptualize what they expected my life to look like. reconceptualize what they expected their lives to look like with me as their daughter—maybe they wouldn’t someday be walking me down the aisle like they expected. maybe i would never make them the grandparents they hoped to eventually be.” and i’m super bummed they didn’t then discuss how we should stop normalizing parents projecting their hetero/allo/amatonormative expectations onto their children from literally before their birth to the point where their children are afraid to or don’t even know they can desire things outside of what their parents want for and anticipate getting from their children. every single child, queer or not, in some way would benefit if we as a society stop normalizing parents expecting their kids to live their lives to fulfill a fantasy their parents concocted long before their kids were even able to decide for themselves what they want out of life.

as others pointed out, there’s a bit towards the end about not having to throw media away just because it or the creator is problematic and while i agree with this general standpoint, the authors could’ve used anyone other than j.k. rowling as their example. they argue the comfort and relatability trans people found in harry potter doesn’t just go away because of the author’s “view on gender.” they do stress that they aren’t telling anyone they have to continue to feel anything positive about harry potter or shaming anyone for no longer supporting the series or author, but they also don’t mention trans people’s sense of betrayal or devastation over this situation. this really feels like a “read the room” type situation. j.k. rowling is a leading voice in terf rhetoric in a time when trans people and rights are under serious attack, we don’t need the “but it’s okay to still love her books” placation right now. and there’s an exception to the “it’s okay to consume problematic media” rule, in my opinion. and that exception is financially and socially supporting someone who uses their platform/fame/influence/wealth to funnel that support into direct harm to a marginalized group of people.

the authors say the difference between realizing you’re aspec and realizing you’re alloqueer is the presence of another person, real or fictional, but i don’t agree with that. i’m not aspec and there wasn’t a specific person or character who clicked things into place for me. it was entirely conceptual, specifically in the “being asked who i saw myself marrying and not seeing a person of a specific gender, but a list of traits/attributes/etc.” kind of way. and i know this is true for other alloqueer folks.

the authors note that “love is love” does indeed apply to aspec people because love isn’t inherently romantic, and while that’s true, we need to address the context in which that phrase is overwhelmingly used: men loving men and women loving women in a romantic way. and honestly it shouldn’t be a slogan for the community anyways, because it doesn’t include everyone, as queerness is about more than “who you love” regardless of the way in which you love.

the use of “queer or straight” which supposes queer is the opposite of straight, but it isn’t. queer encompasses a whole hell of a lot more than just “not straight.” a pet peeve of mine is using outing and coming out interchangeably, because generally speaking, people don’t out themselves, they choose to come out and people don’t come out by force, they’re outed by others. the authors describe p-in-v sex as “hetero” but many people who have that kind of sex are not hetero and/or are not a man-woman pair. when discussing media, i wish there had been some shoutouts to aspec rep or discussions that are positive, or even an analysis of negative portrayals of asexuality.

if you’ve made it to the end of this review, i’m giving you a virtual high five.

[Andrew Eder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it A LOT!! I thought I was just going to breeze right through it but I ended up having to stop and underline / highlight / note quite a few spaces!!

It’s a short little overview with a bunch of personal anecdotes (which I loved) but it really laid out a lot of information in a very palatable way. There were a lot of “sum it up into one sentence” type parts that I liked because I oftentimes really struggle discussing my identity without going into the Ted Talk of aroace history.

I think this would be a great first step for questioning aspec people or allies that want to learn more!

I’ll probably tune into the podcast since both authors seem like good people!!

Very much so recommend!!

[Elin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven’t listened a lot to their podcast with the same title but I know it has got mixed reviews and so has the book but I wanted to read with an open mind.

What I appreciated most was their telling about their personal experiences and the short testimonies from people they’ve interviewed is what I ended up loving the most.

The book was pretty messy, though, it was often not easy to understand when Sarah & Kayla wrote on their own or together. When they talk on their podcast I believe they just speak their mind and I got the same impression from the book. It’s fine to do so when you make clear what perspective you have - and they do it explain in the beginning of the book that they’re for example cis, white and come from privileged families in the US. But throughout the book I get the impression that they forget to be aware of that because they make generalizations about things in a way that I don’t appreciate. I think the book would have been better if they got more help to edit that.

For example I can see what they’re trying to say when they write about cis men who are asexual and what an important perspective they have since we’re living in a world with a lot of toxic norms around masculinity. But their text about that becomes problematic because they make all cis men who aren’t asexual seem as unsafe for women and non-binary people.

I’ve seen a lot of people in reviews upset about their comments on JK Rowling. I don’t understand why that author and her books are mentioned everywhere (I’ve never really cared for her books tbh) and especially not in an aspec book. This author is very transphobic and they could’ve easily respected that and take another book series as an example instead. I didn’t like the part in the end about media at all because it didn’t discuss problematic queer rep it just seemed like they were defending it.

If they had focused more on their own personal thoughts & experiences and didn’t generalize like in the example I gave I would’ve liked the book better.

[Mae Crowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

“[The aspec lens] teaches us that humanity is vast and complex, and although our social order and the resulting legal frameworks may do everything in their power to force us to do otherwise, we are welcome to build our lives and our own personal worlds however we goddamn please.”

Sounds Fake But Okay is a decent primer on how aspec individuals interact with a world that continuously champions sex and romance (and the idea that the two are intrinsically connected). It's lot more plainly worded and straightforward than my favorite nonfiction books about asexuality (reviews here and here), which is usually good, but there's some necessary depth that's lost in the process. Certain statements need to be followed up with explanations in these kinds of books.

I got a lot out of the survey excerpts from this book, though. It was great to read community perceptions and I enjoy works that aggregate those perceptions, even if they weren't always well-synthesized and incorporated into the text. Sounds Fake But Okay also had a tendency to not discuss aromanticism independently as often as it did asexuality, which is really unfortunate.

Not my favorite, not really anything unique, but a simple alternative with some really interesting community quotes if that's what you need.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this book on asexual and aromantic relationships and love. However, the way this book is formatted makes it choppy and hard for me to read. It reads like a podcast manuscript. Which would make sense because the co-authors host a podcast together. Unfortunately, this book left me confused and with more questions than it answers due to its lack of depth. I did like some of the points that were made about societal constructs and platonic relationships, but really wish the book was more fleshed out.

While I completely understand that this book is nonfiction , and I am a cis woman, the authors’ comments on gay marriage and lumping an entire group of people together (generalizing) did not sit well with me.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[René Rio · Rating 1 out of 5]

congratulations to this book for being my first (and hopefully last) one-star review of 2025!

Sounds Fake But Okay is a bland, rambling, underinformed mess equaled only by tumblr's most bottom-of-the-barrel terminally online aspec discourse, the participants of which i assume to be SFBO's target audience. at no point did the authors Have a point, except to intermittently drop bizarre, infantile censorship ('Does penetrative sex only count if it's your classic, hetero "P-in-V" sex?') and flirt with regressive ideas like "aspecs being ~More Intellectual~ than allos about sex." sorry, i mean secks. i mean seggs. i mean s*x.

the only pieces of this book that resonated with me were quoted directly from survey participants - which is to say, the only pieces of this book that resonated with me were not written by the authors. a tone-deaf and dick-withering read if ever there was one

[linz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've listened to the titular Sounds Fake But Okay podcast hosted by Kayla Kaszyca and Sarah Costello on and off since high school—more off than on the past few years, mainly because podcasts aren't my preferred form of media. But I found out they would be publishing a book during my year abroad, knee-deep (it was only senior year that I would wade beyond…) in queer and ace theory in preparation for my thesis, and I marked it as a TBR. Half of this is because I was in the headspace of consuming any literature even remotely related to asexuality; the other half is because I hold a small, tenderly nostalgic place in my heart for the first piece of media that I'd encountered that externalized what I'd been wrestling with for so long. And to a certain extent, I also had trust: trust in a publishing house that seemed to be actively looking to platform ace voices, and trust in podcasters who have produced hundreds upon hundreds of episodes on ace-/aro-adjacent topics. As Kaszyca and Costello put it in the prologue, "We started taking our role as aspec podcasters more seriously…We became activists of sorts, purely on accident. Somewhere along the way, we became experts" (15).

But that's exactly the fulcrum upon which the premise of this book breaks—being an ace podcaster and activist doesn't automatically make you an expert, and to present half-baked and poorly researched (if at all) musings as radical critical theory that can inform lived reality is frustrating at best and harmful at worst.

Caveat: it is perhaps a little unfair for me to be approaching this piece of commercial non-fiction as a critical text, which is the primary mode in which I tend to approach all ace non-fiction—Kaszyca and Costello are quick to anticipate critique, so much so that they read almost defensive. In the prologue, they state that they "don't have degrees in queer theory" and "aren't trained by some benevolent god of asexuality"—which is so fair (15)! I definitely wouldn't call myself an "expert" in anything, much less queer and ace theory. I wouldn't be critiquing this book's theory as theory if its authors weren't, despite whatever they claim, still engaging with queer theory—but just because you preface with a disclaimer of your lack of experience with queer theory doesn't excuse you of the obligation to engage with it responsibly. And if you won't or can't do the research to ensure that you are, then don't engage. Period.

Kaszyca and Costello never make exactly clear what this book is meant to be—they do make it clear that "[t]hough this is a book about asexuality, it will not be an ace 101 textbook or a historical outline, nor will it focus exclusively on sexual identity in the traditional sense" (16). The theoretical framework within which they inscribe their text is that of the "purple-colored glasses," an ace play on the idiomatic "rose-colored glasses" (as to why they chose this one in particular, also unclear—rose-colored glasses aren't inherently sexual or even romantic in nature. But it does lend itself to a cute cover design). Each of the 8 chapters puts an "aspec lens" to a different structure (or structures, as in the creatively titled Chapter 8: Miscellanea) of amatonormative living.

Despite all I've said so far, I will say: the strongest chapters by far are the ones that deal with ace relationality (specifically Chapter 2: Yourself, Chapter 4: Romance and Partnerships, and Chapter 5: Sex)—and within those chapters, the strongest parts are the ones that are rooted in the personal, whether that be Kaszyca and Costello's own experiences or the experiences of people they have "interviewed."* These are the parts of the book that shine the most, and the parts of the book that make it distinct from other commercial ace nonfiction currently out in the market. At one point, they explain that "when we were initially approached to write this book, our editor pitched it to us as a book solely about asexual relationships" (70). What an incredibly astute editor—what happened??? Kaszyca and Costello never explain why this book is not a tighter exploration of what they clearly have a stronger grasp of: ace-/aro-relationships and their various manifestation; even though they claim this book is not an "ace 101 textbook," they include a dictionary of terms and structure it as if it were meant to be an introduction to asexuality, as if to talk about asexuality, they have to hit a certain quota of topics (which is why Chapter 8: Miscellanea is just a meandering collection of fragments): breadth at the expense of depth.

*You might notice that I have put the word "interviewed" in quotes. I take umbrage with the methodology of this book, which seems to be attempting a mix of theory, memoir, cultural criticism, and journalism—and doing an inadequate job at all. I wasn't following the podcast too closely at the time Kaszyca and Costello were soliciting asexual voices to be included in their book (which is awesome! What a great way to diversify a book which, as they constantly, preemptively, and defensively point out, is written by two cis white American women and to include their fanbase in a big project), but in the prologue, they explain that they “developed a survey through which our listeners and the broader aspec community could share their personal experiences” (16). I’m not sure if they conducted interviews with any of the respondents (in Chapter 7: Gender, they mention reaching out to a respondent for permission to use their quotes, which then results in some new quotes after she explains that she no longer identifies as ace-spec—but this may have been an exception rather than the rule), but throughout the book, quotes are simply dropped as block quotes in the middle of a page, sometimes 4 or 5 or more at a time. There is no analysis, no further explication, sometimes barely any reference—which is such a shame, because so many of these people are so interesting, have so many interesting things to say about their relationships to queerness and the possibilities that they embody—and instead of drawing on these people as a very rich fount of primary research, Kaszyca and Costello simply use them as page filler. More egregiously, and more cynically, it almost feels like they are using these quotes as shields against critique of their failure to engage with asexuality intersectionally. At one point, when discussing their own positions of relative privilege when "coming out" to their families, they introduce a slate of 8 back-to-back quotes with the most bland, generic opener, something that reads like the hook of a 6th grade essay introduction: “When you start adding different cultures, religions, races, ethnicities, ages, genders, and disabilities, that journey becomes more and more complicated” (98). What a great way of saying nothing at all—it feels like a cop out, a way of “including” diverse voices without having to meaningfully engage with them, to reflect on the ways other ace experiences are similar to and different from your own. It is at this point that the constant walk-backs, the "we understand that we are white cis women" and the "now we're not trying to say that…," become less self-aware and more self-conscious. There's only so many times you can explain that you are white, cis, and American before I ask, "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

When it comes to my concerns about the research behind this book, I think the following footnote to a discussion with a "focus group" of allo friends about their relationships to sex spells them out clearly:

"It should be noted that we did not hold actual, scientific focus groups. Rather, we called a few friends via Snapchat from a small RV in Austin, Texas. We asked the chickens who lived outside of the RV to participate in the group but unfortunately, they declined" (85)

So much of this book is personal and anecdotal—which is fine, and in many ways, wonderful and beautiful because I think there's definitely space in the ace nonfiction market to write about real people and real lives, real ways in which asexuality manifests in the world. And I wish that it had leaned so much more into that aspect of its heritage, that it is the product of two podcasters who have made an online community out of talking to people, instead of adopting an air of pseudo-intellectualism that simply regurgitates Tumblr, AVEN, and bird app discourse without ever trying to dive any deeper. At one point, Kaszyca and Costello write, "In fact, many wonderful aspec writers and researchers have delved into the subject [of media representation] far more than we could even dream of doing here, which is why we'll keep our exploration of this particular point rather simple" (144). But they don't reference a single paper, a single book—it's as if they're aware of this mass of ace knowledge that researchers and activists and ace people have slowly but powerfully been building over the past couple decades, but they have no interest or desire to engage with it, so they simply brush it aside under that same defensive maneuver that powers so much of this book: "I don't understand this because I haven't lived this, so I won't talk about it." It's not like I'm expecting a comprehensive academic bibliography, but at least cite the footnotes of the Wikipedia article, not the Wikipedia article itself!

I don't think it's bad to only be able to speak from your own lived experiences. There's value in that, too, and that's why so many people love their podcast, the premise of which is: two people on the ace-/aro-spectra talk about their lives. I also don't think it's bad to try and speak outside your own lived experiences—as long as you do the appropriate research, and you ensure that you are not speaking for or over other people, especially those whose positionalities don't afford them the same privilege of speaking for themselves. And it's so disappointing that despite acknowledging this, despite preemptively trying to mitigate this sort of "talking for" that has so often erased marginalized and intersectional identities, despite whatever best intentions they had, Kaszyca and Costello and Jessica Kingsley Publishers allowed this passage to be thought, written, and published in the final pages of a flimsy but otherwise adequate book on asexuality and queerness:

"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 very piece of media that didn't pass some aspec version of the Bechdel test, we'd be left with almost nothing" (146)

To be fair, I do think reviews that have been calling this book transphobic are a bit uncharitable in their reading of this passage. But what I do think this passage does demonstrate is a continued failure to engage critically with aceness and queerness—not only academically or methodologically, but culturally and presently. The lack of nuance with which they treat this topic (which didn't have to come up at all! It's located in Chapter 8: Miscellanea—it quite literally was not considered relevant enough to be included in the main text) is just indicative of the lack of nuance (beyond the shallowest of nuances) with which they treat asexuality and queerness as whole, throughout the entire book. And that's just disappointing.
___
10.17.24

I have Thoughts, but will write full review later. but 2 stars—unwarranted J.K. Rowling defense is the least of this book's problems

[Bluebelle-the-Inquisitive (Catherine) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as don't should remains the mantra of our lives, it will also be the throughline of this book. Everything we say, when broken down to the smallest possible pieces, comes back to don't should. Everything about the aspec lens, really, comes back to don't should — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca

Warnings: nothing out of the normal for an aspec non-fic

Automatic 5🌟 for own voice ace non-fiction. 🖤🩶🤍💜

I need to disclose that I have never heard any of the Sounds Fake But Okay podcast. I came to this not knowing anything about Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca or their story. I just enjoy reading ace non-fiction books, this was highly anticipated and I can see why. This is definitely worth ready and worth a library owning, it's not just for aspecs but for allos. It gives a good look at some of the realities faced by even the most privileged of aspecs. The authors, Sarah and Kayla are aroace and biromantic demisexual, respectively and acknowledge their privilege as cis, young women raised in white, middle-class America quite early on in the book. They don't overstep their bounds, repeatedly reiterate their privilege and have used survey respondents to give information on topics outside their experiences.

I appreciate the introduction of purple-tinted glasses, a play on rose-tinted glasses. Sarah and Kayla encourage even ace readers to look through those purple-coloured glasses to not have a superiority complex about our experiences. Everyone has a different experience with sexuality. Each section does look at something a bit different, something that will not impact everyone the same way, something that is not everyone's cup of tea. You should see all the flags on my copy of this. It's a little bit nuts. But hey ho I love my book flags and find-ability interesting lines, and this has so many interesting lines and ideas. The inclusion of the QR codes with links to exclusive episodes was smart, the episodes look at how the episode was written. It feels like a nice touch for authors who have made their names through their podcast.

I think the rest of this review is going to be dot points, it is hard for me discuss non-fiction books in a cohesive manner.
• Sounds Fake But Okay provides a basic dictionary of ace and aro terms before the prologue but also defines the terms used by respondents in their identity.
• The aspec story is a love story. They all are, in the end.
There is this idea, this theory that many people have, that those who identify anywhere on the aspectrum—aromantic, asexual, and any of the related labels—are lacing seeing in their lives. Lacking some strong, incontestable love that is innate to the human experience and therefore makes aspec people not just wrong or unnatural, but something less than human. — We know this whole idea of people on the aspectrum missing something is complete bulls**t, this is not news. These are the opening lines and pair perfectly with the quote at the bottom of this review.
• I had no idea what SAM (Split Attraction Model) was called until it was referred to here. That idea of romantic attraction and sexual attraction not being the same thing, which feels like a given these days. Or is that because I'm a tumblr user?
• In the end, a heteronormative society benefits from staying heteronormative. It's easier for those who fit the heteronormative bill when those couple-centric pillars of society remain entrenched, because it means the world of tax benefits and Spotify discounts continues to be built for people like them. That's why these norms endure, not because they have any inalienable basis in fact or truth. — The only reason I can see for a marriage for a partner, especially a marriage, is the financial one. This led me to the thought of staying strong for the next generation. It does come out that some American states consider these kinds of marriages sham.
• So instead of going to that gay bar, aspecs are often left to bravely waltz into the recesses of their minds to think deeply about feelings that they or have not felt for their entire lives. Hopefully, in doing so they'll pick up those purple-coloured glasses and try them on for size. — Sarah and Kayla admit that the gay bar is still an option, physical experimentation is something that some aces want to do and will do. But for most of us well we discover ourselves quite cerebrally. Especially since for a lot of millennials and early gen-z, we got little to know education of broader sexual identities.
• Impressive-Jaguar's reddit post makes an appearance. While they refer to themselves as chronically single but a lot of aces love this lifestyle. I want it, it is the dream.
• I feel so bad for Kayla. She got outted to her current boyfriend, Dean. It is one thing to have that podcast and another to not have to opportunity to have that conversation with a partner.
• Because aspecs have non-normative identities and non-normative preferences and needs, we are forced to spend more time thinking about how to make our relationships work than anyone else. — This concept of intellectualizing is quite common in the book and it was a new idea to me. No non-fic I've read on aspec as sent as much time as this talking about why aspecs are so aware.
• The romance and relationships section gave me so many thoughts. QPRs (Queer Platonic Relationships) and Polyamorous relationships are something I really want to look into more. Both feel appealing to me in their own ways.
• Anita (she/her—asexual, panromantic) and Frances (xe/xem—asexual, romantic) both make some very good points and both have multiple quotes used.
• None of this is to say that sex shouldn't be special, or that it hold no meaning or importance to anyone, or that it should only be intellectualize. The point we are making is the same point we made about friendships and partnerships. These things, these acts, should be given meaning by you. — I could have made this a bit longer. It comes in a chapter where we are being reminded again that some aspecs have sex.
• Am I the only one who didn't know the complete quote for 'blood runs thicker than water'. It stems from 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water off the womb'. essentially found families can be stronger than birth/blood families.
• All the valuable tid bits from David Jay. I didn't know he co-parents a daughter, Tavi, with Avary Kent and Zeke Hausfather.
• So, when asexual men are written off as incels, the implication is clear: it's more okay for a man to be a member of a community with a reputation for perpetrating violence against women than it is for them to identify as asexual. Perhaps in the eyes of some, at least if a man is an incel, they maintain some semblance of their masculinity (based of course, on their attraction to and desire for women) that is not maintained if they feel the strong sexual pull supposedly characteristic of all men. — This is in reaction to a quote from respondent Andrew Albert (he/him—asexual, biromantic), where he is labelled as an incel by people.
• In complete contrast to Andrew we have Soup (he/him—asexual, heteroromantic) who has found himself in the no guys allowed spaces. The gay best friend trope is dead long live the ace bestie.
• I love the inclusion of Phoebe's (she/they—bisexual) quotes. When Phoebe initially completed the survey she identified as aspec but after reflection her identity changed. She is used as much as an example of fluid identity as her useful insights earlier in the book.
• I appreciated the discussion of kink in the miscellanea section. It can be part of an ace's life without a sexual element and that deserves to be acknowledged. There are a substantial number of respondent quotes about kink experience too.

I was originally going to use this for a PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt, 'a book with a title that is a complete sentence'. Unfortunately, the phrase "sounds fake but okay" isn't a complete sentence, even I would use it as such. It needs a verb, an object and a complete thought, this doesn't. I'm reading Sounds Fake But Okay to celebrate my first Pride event 🏳️‍🌈, a parade (which I'm in) and carnival this weekend. I'm super excited. I've had to change my outfit because Melbourne's weather looking like being awfully hot but it's going to be so much fun. 🤩 😁

The way aspecs love may be a bit different from what is expected of human beings, but that does not make it any lesser. Every aspec the stars have ever touched is so profoundly real and complete and human, and to be human is to love. To be human is to love is to care, and our aspec lens teaches us nothing but. — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca

A representative gif:

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Sounds Fake But Okay" touched on a lot of topics but didn't really deal with them in any real depth. The discussion remained, at least in my opinion, rather surface level and the authors made some points that seemed rather tone-deaf to me: sometimes the authors seemed to claim that the asexuals had a harder time than any other group in the queer community and that donning "purple glasses" (their term) was some kind of revolutionary act that opened the world up in a whole new, never before seen way.

I am asexual and of course, there is discrimination against asexuals and of course, the way I perceive relationships and people differs from the way that allosexuals might perceive them, but I don't think that my perspective is in any way superior to that of others just because I'm asexual or that my experience with discrimination as an asexual is somehow worse than that of a homosexual person (and I don't think that comparing levels of discriminations helps anyone). In my opinion, the way the authors discussed these subject matters (perspective and discrimination) were rather insensitive in the sense of them contrasting the asexual experience with other queer experiences and seemingly claiming that the asexual one was unique and somehow more difficult to stomach for allosexuals.
This is probably not due to the authors' actual opinions but the conversational style they used throughout the book which led to a loss of nuance throughout the discussion.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book as an ARC through Netgalley and after glancing at a few reviews, I read most of this book using a screen reader so as to avoid being unfair to it because of formatting. I'm not a listener of the podcast hosted by the authors and had no awareness of them until reading this book.

The authors utterly failed to convince me that the lense they purported to bring forth was anything more than a diluted version of a queer lense and it seemed like a lot of the interviewees they quoted had more interesting ideas than them. The don't should thing they kept bringing back seemed clunky and unnecessary, maybe it's a thing that work for the audience of the podcast but for me it was just another "why?".

It's 101 to a level where it was frustrating to read, I genuinely feel that most everything that was informative could have been gleaned from a 20 minute stay on ace TikTok. Where the book almost made points it tended to carefully tiptoed around things (most of the time capitalism) seemingly in a bid to not alienate anyone which made the whole book feel like it wasn't really saying anything and almost being sorry for existing.

The structure was underwhelming and a little messy.

Ending the book with a talk about Harry Potter left a bitter taste in my mouth.

[Zoe Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book I wish I had when I first started questioning my identity, and came across the term asexual. Not only that, but I wish everyone gets a chance to read this book.
As Sarah and Kayla make point of at the start and throughout the book, some discussions are focused around a western white cis-female aspec perspective, and this may be why I felt so seen and understood throughout the book. But that being said, the book certainly has first hand experiences from a variety of identities of which I felt important to be included and highlighted. It gave this book a level of discussion. It's not only Sarah and Kayla's view on various aspects of life through an aspec lens, but that of many many people in the community.

It's an easy read, accessible, and I am glad to have read it at the end of the year I really took to accepting myself, and ahead of a year I hope to show so more proudly to others.

Thank you Sarah and Kayla for making space for an often overlooked part of society, and for breaking down the societal walls that everyone, no matter their identity, should try to take a look past on occasion. I'm keen to recommend this to all of my allo friends, to help them understand me a little more.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best part about this book for me was that it introduced me to the podcast, which I somehow had never come across before. The book reads like a podcast conversation, and the authors certainly include their host personalities in their writing. Since I listened to a bunch of episodes and got the gist of their vibes, this wasn't a shock to my system. However, if you go in expecting a regular book, that is not what you'll get. This is a podcast book. I'm wondering if that will be helpful in making the content more accessible to non-academic, non-queer theory types, but it wasn't for me. I do like the podcast though!

While I enjoyed the comments from podcast listeners and understand why Costello and Kaszyca wanted to include more voices, it did leave me feeling like the book was an incredibly informal, amateurish, and improperly written/researched qualitative study or something. The comments were the most interesting aspect of the book by far for me, and the analysis tying the common themes together was good, but the informality left a lot to be desired. Additionally, the authors felt the need to constantly add the qualifier that their perspectives were limited (yes, I get it, I picked up on that after you said it the first time and shared your personal stories), which was frustrating and took away from the ideas being discussed. I also have a strong dislike for when authors of informational nonfiction insert their snarky opinions on the subject matter throughout the text, so that was a negative aspect for me. I shouldn't be surprised since this is a podcast book, but I feel how I feel.

The chapter on gender covers ground explored in other asexual and gender texts, but I found the brief section on how asexual and aromantic folks have a tendency to feel detatched from gender to be relatable and intriguing. The comments from listeners were very similar to my feelings about my own gender (or lack thereof), and this is only the second time I've come across this kind of discussion.

In the end, this wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't a good book. More ace books out in the world is great, I'll take it, but there's nothing groundbreaking here. That said, it doesn't have to be. I think the possible increased accessibility of Sounds Fake But Okay is the book's strength.

Edit: I figured out why the book felt so weird to me and have lowered from 3 to 2 stars. Everything is filtered through the authors' personal lenses (white, middle class, college-educated, American, cis-women), which they acknowledge and seek to expand upon by including comments from their podcast listeners. However, their role as podcast hosts centers them and their experiences, and they write as though this is a podcast episode. The result is that the book comes off as them touting their experiences and opinions while occasionally filtering ideas from others as a way to strengthen their own legitimacy. Their role as podcast hosts, which centers their experiences, does not allow them to share personal stories without reinforcing the idea that the book is about THEM. Sounds Fake But Okay might be about the aspec lens, but being written by podcast hosts in the tone of their podcasts centers the authors, not the content. This makes the comments from listeners feel supplemental, not like genuine aspects of the arguments. This is why Angela Chen in Ace can discuss her personal experiences with asexuality without overtaking the stories of everyone else (I kept wondering why it worked for her but not for Costello and Kaszyca). Chem maintains distance as a reporter and does not center herself and her experiences. Whether Costello and Kaszyca wanted to or not, their role as podcast hosts inherently centers them in their podcast book, especially since they write with their podcast personas.

[alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blew me away with its intersectionality and expansiveness. Love the overarching messages that I've used a direct quote from the final few pages to illustrate here:

"the aspec lens also teaches us that the bounds of love, family, community, and self are not so limited as the narratives we hear as young people might lead us to believe...it teaches us that humanity is vast and complex, and althought our social order and the resulting legal frameworks may do everything in their power to force us to do otherwise, we are welcome to build our lives and our personal worlds however we goddamn please. In the very first sentence of this book, we posited that the aspec story is a love story. That they all are, in the end. And what we hope you can see by now is that the reason for this is because love is not limited to romance or sex or that nebulous thing called attraction. Ultimately, to love is to care. And if there is anything that the aspec doctrines teach us to do well, it is care. So many aspec folks have at one time or another felt like an outcast because of the way we experience the world, so we care that those around us are comfortable in their skin and in their relationships. We care so much abour understanding ourselves and one another that we, as a community, have created an entire arsenal of terms and titles and words to describe our identities. We care to build a world where all people, aspecs and allos alike, feel safe to explore and be, not likited by the confines of a rigid and arbitrary status quo. The way aspecs love may be a bit different from what is expected of human beings, but that does not make ir any lesser." (147-48) <3

[Liv]

frustrating!!!! for a book that talks about the split-attraction model so much, they really do Not account for the allosexual aromantic perspective at ALL. i picked this book up because even though i've reached a saturation point with my research into asexuality, it had the word "aromantic" in the subtitle, and it is really really really hard to find aromantic content, even harder to find aromantic content without asexual content overshadowing it.

i had cautious hopes for this book, and it did not deliver on that front. asexuality overshadows aromanticism at every turn, and the only time aromanticism is discussed is if it's paired with asexuality. very, very frustrating for someone like me who spent years researching asexuality at the expense of aromanticism bc i just...didn't have enough exposure to aromantic content to realize i WAS aromantic romance-repulsed. absolutely wild time to get to age 28 and realize you've been looking at the Wrong end of the spectrum the entire time, largely because aspec spaces pay way more attention to asexuality than they do aromanticism. idk if that's just because there's fewer of us allo aros out there, or because the possibility of alloaro-ism hasn't even occurred to us due to [checks notes] all the things i've touched on in this review, but whatever the reason, i'm #tired and more than a little bit irritated too.

still worth reading if you're new to aspec perspectives, but don't go into this one expecting anything radical. to be clear, i am not faulting the authors too much here. yes, they could have done a better job gathering aromantic perspectives. but they're also inventing a genre as they go here, and there's only so much you can expect from pioneers before you've got to roll up your sleeves and (unfortunately) create the content you wish to see in the world yourself.

aspec lit is still very much in its infancy, and while i'm so grateful it even has a space to exist, i'm still so frustrated by the limited range of it all. we are still having to cater so hard to amatonormative sensibilities. i wish i could fast-forward 30 years to see the future of the genre, just so i can come back here and endure this entry-level "we promise we're not that super weird" stage with a little more grace.

[Sheba Hector · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as an arc from Netgalley.

Sounds Fake But Okay discusses sex, relationship, family, gender, and many other topics through a 'purple aspec lens". This "lens" is used throughout the book. I think this book would be better consumed as an audiobook as the content of the book is more personal and bring up many personal stories from the authors and the views of their survey. This novel asks its readers to question the things we know about gender, relationship, and other aspects of their lives. It gives multiple examples of people living on the ace spectrum. I enjoy the chapter about family and different types of families. It was interesting to read about people's meaning of family. The authors have also reassured their readers do not necessarily have to identify as asexual or aromantic at the end of the book. However, they should leave with an understanding of the terms and apply whatever material to their lives.

However, two things decrease my reading. The authors use a controversial figure in the book, Hanya Yanagihara. Also, certain lines could be framed differently. For example, the novel points out that the author of Harry Potter has said offensive remarks but that does not take away the hope and enjoyment of the book. I think it is insensitive to tell people that they should look at certain media from a larger view.

This is a fine book for anyone who wishes to learn more about asexuality and aromanticism.

[Madi · Rating 1 out of 5]

What I’m learning from coming across books by podcasters that I didn’t know were podcasters is this: I’m not a fan.
Heavily reminded of Amanda Montell’s The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality in terms of tone while listening to the audiobook(s), except a little more grating for me personally as it was a conversation between two people (very much like a podcast, but broken in to “chapters”…) who at times felt like they veered from their scripts. I can’t imagine that some of the small interactions translated well to text, but in reading reviews, that seems to have been a possibility.

Don’t even want to touch the JKR shout out/“example” of using a critical lens when it completely lacks that. So many disclaimers and contexts were given at the beginning of this to situate where Costello and Kaszyca are coming from, but why did this even need to be included given the content of the book?

Felt more passionate in writing this review because this listen sort of pissed me off and left me more irritated than bored like Montell’s book based off a podcast. Was hoping for more out of this, but maybe I’m just too “gender-pilled”/sociology brained.

[Elizabeth Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a 7/10 for me. I think the content is good quality and would be a way for ace-spec people to begin navigating the waters. The mix of the authors' personal experiences and those of others allowed for a diverse range of perspectives on many core issues.

On the negative side, the 'survey' that gathered participants was not fully discussed as to how it happened, when it happened, etc. That led to some concerns about credibility. I read the book half through NetGalley and half through the Kindle epub. The Kindle epub uses red text for author's foot notes, which is inaccessible for some readers. Likewise, having all the citations at the end of the book (rather than numbered and presented consecutively with author notes) was confusing at times.

[Jasmine Galloway · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing style was hard to get through but once I saw all the people talking about them defending JKR and reading/enjoying HP content🤮🤢 I called it quits.

Also the book doesn’t seem to know who it’s written for. Everything is very “did you know ace people exist???!” But then also it’s like “ace people: I am talking directly to you bc you know you’re ace and also don’t think you’re better than people, don’t be an ass” ?? Like?? Who are we taking to??

Idk I liked some parts but any mentions of JKR in 2024(!) immediately gets a DNF for me.

[Ezra]

Did not finish book. Stopped at 64%.
I tend to not read reviews before starting books, but I think I should have in this case. As someone who is grey-ace and with aro/ace friends, I was really interested in this book. I thought it would maybe be a good resource to direct people to. And it may have been if it weren’t for the fact that this was published in 2023 and somehow was still including Harry Potter references. Positive Harry Potter references. I don’t have any patience for that, and especially not from queer media, and so I will not be finishing this.

[a_win_in_clear_rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say everything I want to, because that would take a long time.
But this book made me feel so validated, and made me realize that aspec education and visibility is a much bigger part of my life than I ever could have expected it to be.
Also: I highly recommend their podcast as well, I normally dislike listening to things like podcasts but I love Sounds Fake But Okay!