Book Review: Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca

Hey all, Sam here.

I’m continuing my Pride Month posts with more talk about Asexuality, because it is an important topic to me, and I feel like most of the time when I mention Asexuality in everyday conversation, people don’t really understand what it is or they have these misconceptions about what it is.

Last week, I talked about I Am Ace by Cody Daigle-Orians, and you can find my post at the included link. Today I’m talking about another book, but this one came out after a handful of years running a podcast by the same name.

Basically, as a wrap up to this introductory section for today’s post, I’m working on expanding my own knowledge and understanding about my own identity. It would be lovely if more folks out there could also take the time to take in information like this, whether it is about your identity or sexuality or not. Because I feel like knowing more and understanding more leads to more compassion and understanding for those around you. We can be better allies if we take the time to understand what is going on around us.

Okay, let’s get started.

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.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

This was a short, easy-to-digest book. Overall it’s only 160 pages long, and the end of each chapter includes a link to bonus episodes of the “Sounds Fake But Okay” podcast, which is a really cool addition to the information in this book. Actually, I’ve started listening to the podcast (from the beginning), so I have a couple hundred episodes to listen to, but they’re mostly around 30-ish minutes long–at least in these beginning episodes–so they’re easy enough to listen to when I go for a walk or something.

I like how Sarah and Kayla present the information on Asexuality, Aromanticism, and Demisexuality/Demiromanticism. It feels very conversational, as if we’re all just hanging out at a coffee shop or a casual pub or something and talking.

I didn’t tab up my book with this one the way I did with I Am Ace by Cody Daigle-Orians, but I did still really connect with what was being presented. And I know that listening to the podcast has been really impactful as well.

Overall, I’m just really enjoying this discovery that I’m not as weird or alone in the world as I thought when it came to how I felt about things. I’m glad that books like this exist, and I hope that it finds its way into the hands of people who need them…whether that is to understand their own gender or sexual identity, or understand the identity of someone they know, or just to understand more about the world in general. I think that there hasn’t been a huge amount of information out there about Asexual, Aromantic, Demisexual, and Demiromantic perspectives out there in the world, non-fiction or fiction, and the more information that gets out there, the better.

I mean, I know that I’ve gotten so very emotional when reading books and finding myself represented in the characters in a way that I haven’t before. Reading Loveless by Alice Oseman was extremely powerful for me, and I was in tears within the first 5-10 pages.

I started toying around with the idea that I might be somewhere on the Asexuality Spectrum when I was in my mid-to-late 20s. I was just about to try being open about Ace as my identity when I started dating David, and for the first time in my life I found myself feeling sexual attraction and sexual desire. It made me stop and question my identity once again. But by reading books like this one, it’s clear that I’m still very much within the spectrum of the Ace community. I’ve only ever felt that sort of sexual attraction and desire for one person, and that person is now my husband. That doesn’t change the fact that I am Ace.

I toyed with the idea of using Demisexual as my identity, but to me personally, that doesn’t seem to fit right. To me, I would fit as a Demisexual if I felt some sort of sexual attraction to more than just David after developing a close relationship with others. And I’ve considered Greysexual, a person who only experiences sexual attraction rarely or weakly. But again, to me rarely implies more than once.

I’m grateful to folks like Sarah and Kayla, who have put this information out in the world, in both podcast form and now book form. This book starts with a glossary and ends with references and an index. The chapters are broken down into aspects of life and how it relates to the Ace/Aro identity. So there are chapters on: Society, Yourself, Friendship, Romance and Partnerships, Sex, Family, Gender, and even a Miscellanea chapter. Most of the chapters are around 15-20 pages long, so they can be read pretty quickly.

So both books I’ve discussed a bit so far this month have been fun, quick, informative reads, and while there is some overlap in the information within them, I also feel like hearing it from different perspectives gives it greater odds of being understood, which can be useful.

I’m glad that I’m starting to do more research for myself to understand Asexuality better, because it really is helping me to understand myself better. It is honestly a beautiful and wonderful sensation to read a passage in a book like this and realize that it perfectly describes something that I’ve felt or experienced. It’s like the puzzle pieces just fall into place and I can see myself more clearly, and that is beautiful.

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Well, that is all from me for now. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back later today with another book review, as well as back soon with more geeky content.