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this book is everything to me🥲 granted, not every story was to my liking, but as an asexual person, i deeply appreciate the rarity of finding such meaningful representation within the realms of general fiction, particularly in the fantasy and sci-fi genres, authored by fellow aces. i am so grateful this exists!! and i thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the diverse characters, exploring unique worlds, and delving into various narratives, all while celebrating the many facets of love; knowing and reinforcing that love takes many forms, and each of them deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated🖤🤍💜

Introduction ★★★★��
“Seeing ourselves depicted in stories—be they films, television shows, or books like these—is one of the most powerful ways we come to understand ourselves. Depiction shows us we have a place in the world. It proves someone like us, someone with our experiences and thoughts and feelings, can live, dream, act, and occupy space. And it proves we can do those things as ourselves, without hiding, without denying our truths. Depiction says we can be anything—a villain, a hero, a wisecracking sidekick, a caring best friend, a curious adventurer, an ordinary someone, a being of impossible magic. We are bound only by what we can imagine ourselves to be.
Depiction is a powerful magic, but this book enacts an even deeper kind: representation.
It’s one thing to see ace characters depicted in stories. It’s another to have ace writers writing those stories. Representation is depiction in the hands of those needing to be depicted. It takes the magic of depiction further. Representation says, “You deserve more than just the ability to see yourself in a story. You deserve to tell that story.��

How to Love a Sidewinder ★★★★��
“Would it be okay if I never bring someone home to you?��

Across the Stars ★★★★��
“I’ve got nothing against falling in love—I’m just not sure my idea of love is the same as most of the people here.
I’ve never looked at another person and felt some kind of magical, cosmic attraction. I’ve never looked at someone and thought, “I’d love to kiss them.�� I look at people and think, “I’d like to be their friend.�� Maybe love follows that, and maybe kissing follows the love, but for me, there’s an order. A science.
That’s not cosmic. It’s just me.��

Well Suited ★★★★��
“I am yours, just as you are mine.��
Mine.
The word rattles against Brindle like chains. It is an unimaginable thing, to be tied to anyone in this way. She is her own. She belongs to no one but herself. Others look on with expectation, with assumption, as if they know what is in her heart.
But they cannot know, for her heart has held only one person so close. Not a lover, but a friend.��

“Are they single?��
And the question is so absurd, it makes Brindle burst into laughter. It is all people seem to care about—single or taken, both words somehow a violence. But there is a space outside those words where Brindle and Fig reside, and it is part of what makes them so well suited for each other. They are not single, floating through life independently and alone. They are not taken, like a victim of some theft. Perhaps what they are is given, honestly and hopefully, to one another in equal partnership.��

“I chose it because of you, they don’t say. Because fig is your favorite fruit, and I want to be your favorite person.��

Nylon Bed Socks ★★★★��
“I wanted to be loved
in the way that was right for me��

Give up the Ghost ★★★★��
“How could I be worth anything, how could I ever hope to be worth anything, when I was missing what some considered one of the only unifying human experiences. All of it together painted a clear picture of who I was meant to be, but I was all wrong.
No, the picture was wrong. The painters were wrong.��

“The flowers had twisted like they were searching for the sun and instead settled on me.��

No Such Thing as Just ★★★★��
“You don’t need fixing. You’re beautiful, and kind, and generous, and I want to remain your friend for a very long time to come.��
“Just friends?�� Halcion asked, not sure whether they were relieved or disappointed.
“There’s no such thing as just,�� she replied.��

Smells Like Teen Virgin ★★★★��
“That they haven’t lost anything. That they are still as whole as before. That the concept of virginity is a holdover from a time when people had no choice, no say in the matter, when it was viewed as a way to control those who were once seen as property.��
I say nothing. I think I might be crying again.
“Purity is just a state of mind, my dear. If someone is made to feel dirty after having slept with another, then that’s a failure on society’s part. Not theirs.��

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a person who takes control of their own pleasure and life. Who’s embraced who they are and bows down to nothing or no one. And I’ll cut down anyone or anything who has ever made a person feel otherwise.��

“I stand there, shaking, slightly hoping his touch will do what the books say it will—fill me with fire or electricity or whatever—but none of that comes. It’s just fingers against skin. I don’t warm under his smile. My tummy doesn’t flutter from the gentleness of his touch. It just is, and I just am.��

Sealights ★★★✩��

Moonspirited ★★★★��
“For as long as I can remember, there has been something in me that’s been livid and sick and at odds with the world around me.
“You’ll know when it happens.��
It’s that amusement, that arrogance of assuming everyone can fathom allure—and find it everywhere, in words, gestures, tidings between people—that always leaves me with nothing but a sour taste in my mouth, even after a tale meant to entice all would come to an end.
It’s the sick feeling I’d get as my own body changed, tearing me away from the safety of being a child and thrusting me into realities where eyes would start following me, gazes that told me they wanted something that in turn set something inside me into sheer refusal.
It’s an obsession, an interest that I’ve never understood, even when I was still skinny and gangly and was told to have some fun with the other kids, miners and lower town youth come hanging around the mining fields. I thought we’d brave the old tunnels or go out in the fields proper to catch swamp eels and frogs like I was used to with Maiko.
Their idea of fun was not that. I left barely having told my name to anybody, and feeling as though something was strange or wrong with everyone for being so fixated on bodies and touch.
As it turns out, much of the world shares what I still call obsession—and I was the odd one out.
That’s when I realized what Maiko meant to me. How I could be me, without ever having to answer to those questions of gaze, or interest, or company, which I never wanted or asked for in the first place.��

“When the Painter takes the priesthood robes, they do so out of spite—if celibacy is the only way this world can think us real, then so be it. Let us cut ourselves from all the things people call living, cut those earthly ties, and become what they’ve always wanted us to be: unnatural, strange. Not part of what it means to be human.
I’ve always loved that part.��

The Third Star ★★★✩��
“I can’t speak, so they don’t either. The boy and girl who know me best don’t prod me, or suggest a word I don’t mean, which would only make my frustration worse. They both just patiently wait and hold me steady, letting me find my own words, in my own time. It’s that silence more than any words that tells me I’ve trusted the right people with my heart. Their silence tells me I’m home.��

The Mermaid's Sister ★★★★��

The Hazards of Pressing Play ★✩✩✩��

No Cure for Doubt ★★✩✩��

The Witch of Festa Falls ★★★★��
“And I like plenty of people, but never in ways that spark physical passion or desire, which suits me fine.
There’s nothing lesser about friendship, nor is there anything wrong with who I am. I know this to the roots of my soul. It’s the only thing that keeps my head up when others in this village behave as though I do not belong, simply because I sing in a language they’ve forgotten and love in a way they refuse to understand.��