Name: Antisocial
ISBN: 9781945116100

Heidi Cullinan

One encounter with antisocial Xander Fairchild's artwork is enough to turn Skylar Stone's carefully orchestrated one-percenter life upside down, unlacing his secrets and inviting him into a secret anime-soaked world. But will they be brave enough to embrace their fragile new relationship and let it last beyond the summer?

Antisocial

I don't even know what's the worst part of this book. It's horrible.

I'll try to make sense of my notes for you, but summing it up: NO! You could stare for an hour into nothing and you would get more than from reading this book.

Sounds mean? Maybe. But this book is not only badly written, it makes a fetish of Japan and the so-called asexuality representation is plain harmful. So imagine how affected readers will feel with being portrayed this way. It's more than 'mean'.

So where to start... I really don't know where to start so I'll try to go chronologically through my notes. There is a slight spoiler but I feel it's very important to know about this. I will mark it though, so you can decide for yourself.

So. First thing I wrote down: Antisocial states that it's unusual and totally a Japanese/Manga/Anime thing for high schoolers to be without their parents. Have you read english YA? How often are there parents present? There are so few where the parents have a role in a story that I tell you about this in my reviews. Maybe that'll give you a hint that it is not a Japanese thing.

Japan itself is so fetishezed in this book it's not even funny anymore. Everything is Japanese but the people. There is not one character who is Japanese. Or Half. Or a quarter. No, that's not true. There is one, but he is dead and has been way before this story started.

Okay, I can get being interested in Japanese Culture. Being a teen it may be understandable to fetishize it a little. But it's still not right. Having an adult author be that way? Not cool.

I mean, one of the characters speaks like maybe 3 Japanese sentences. He uses it for sex talk. If my better half spoke in their mother tongue to me, yes totally okay for sex talk. Using a language you don't even speak? Not okay!

There could be said way more about that Japan Fetish but I want to talk about something that's very dear to me.

The ace rep. Or the NOT ace rep. I do not accept anything I have read in this book as ace rep. If you want to read about ace spectrum characters DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! DON'T DO IT! Says the ace spectrum reviewer. Or screams at you. Whatever you prefer.

First it states that all men are sexual beings. Wrong?! And even an allosexual man does not think about sex 24/7?

And then the allosexual character is portrayed as a saviour for accepting the other character's kinda maybe asexuality. The allo one knows this before the person themselves btw. But okay. Maybe. Sounds totally unrealistic to me, because I suspected it myself even though I didn't know the actual word or that it is a possibility and I kinda thought everyone felt this way and I therefore was always very confused when people were like "I'd fuck that" without knowing the 'that'. But enough about this. Because I could go on for hours and I maybe will but not here and not now.

Before I read Antisocial I read an article by Heidi Cullinan in which she talked about being not ace but having a low libido or something. I have forgotten the actual details. Or rather I made me forget about it. Anyway, having this article in the back of my mind and reading this book? Tainted the book even more for me. But it would have been bad either way.

I was very pissed that the aroace side character - someone who knows how it is to be stereotyped - stereotypes all fraternity guys. Because you can't be in a relationship with them. They are all the same! Sure. 

I HATE THIS BOOK WITH THE WHOLE OF MY HEART AND SOUL AND BODY AND EVERY LAST DROP OF ACENESS IN ME!

How about having sensitivity readers? Huh?! Have people who know the stuff read over your "Hm, I think that could be the way it is"?! I would have done it for free fucking hell!

Okay, calming down. Or trying to. Give me a minute. Or an hour, I don't know.

Those things alone were dnf worthy and I thought about dnfing so many times... But then there was a certain scene. And it reminded me of something from my past that I thought I was kinda okay about but apparently not.


SPOILER HERE with explicit language

One of the characters is in a fraternity and the new maybe members are at a party with everyone when one person is like "you have to blow our guys here and the first to make his finish gets to fuck a prostitute!"

And I was like "I'M OUTTA HERE!"


Disclaimer: I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

Abbey

Antisocial by Heidi Cullinan follows two young men at a fictional college, which is influenced by Japenese culture. Xander is an introverted art student who is in need of some help when it comes to social media promotion for his senior project. Skylar is a frat business student who makes it his senior project to help Xander out.

***Spoilers ahead***

I really love all the talk about art in this book and its funny moments. I especially liked the way they gushed about Fullmetal Alchemist because that's still one of my favourite shows to date. 

However, I have to admit, I had high hopes for this book, but I struggled to not only read the book but also struggled to like it.

Firstly, all of the Japanese references felt super out of place and made me cringe. Especially when the main characters spoke Japanese and they have no connection to Japan other than a fascination with the culture. The only Janapese-American character even mentioned in the book is dead. An example of how this fascination crosses a line is where Skylar tells Xander that they have a Shinto (a very popular Japanese religion/faith) shrine in the basement of their fraternity house... Shinto shrines are sacred places where kami (gods) live, to claim that there is one in a basement is ridiculous. 

Secondly, I want to talk about a secondary character that looked very promising but was overshadowed. Zelda, a nonbinary aro/ace person. One scene describes Zelda being forced to use a binary bathroom, and then it's portrayed as a joke and never talked about again... that's not okay.
And one more thing, at one point, Zelda promises to connect Skylar with other gray ace/aro people, yet you don't hear about any connection being made for the rest of the novel.

Thirdly, this weird "spidey sense" Xander seemed to have towards Skylar's gray-asexuality was very odd to read about. With all his talk about wanting to kiss Skylar and how he is attracted to him, this "voice" seemed completely out of character. Especially since Skylar has shown no behaviour of trying to dodge any conversation on relationships with Xander. Made absolute no sense. 

That being said, I thought the author did an adequate job of representing the ace/aro spectrum. The only problem I had with that aspect was that Skylar had to be "rescued" and accepted by Xander. This narrative is primarily for those who are allosexual (people who are not asexual or on the spectrum). Furthermore, the relationship seemed highly sexual for something that is supposed to be primarily an ace/aro and gay relationship. I can understand one or two scenes being very sexual in a book, but it seems like their whole relation revolves around it. And there is quite a lot of detail when it comes to those scenes... Is it still important to have books about asexual individuals for people who are allosexual? Of course, however, there are so few books that center around an asexual/ace spectrum main character written for asexual/ace spectrum people, and we desperately need them.