*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review*

Sounds Fake But Okay is a nonfiction book about aromantic and asexual identities.

I'm in the asexual spectrum, probably demisexual if I had to put a label on it. I don't usually read nonfiction, but I do want to read more.

I think this book was bad. Badly written, and badly researched, among other things. It reads like it's a podcast script, not an actual novel.

Other than that, there was no need for two cisgender people to talk about JKR and HP. How many times do we, trans people, tell you to shut the f up and listen to us?

Overall, don't read this. Not worth it.

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 a critical 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.

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.

I feel awful because I really wanted to enjoy this one but i didn’t. The format was extremely annoying to read, it almost felt like a rough draft not rewritten yet. The information I was hoping would be there within the book also just wasn’t.

I found this book really educating and intersting.

I liked the various topics covered in the book but the writing style was just not for me.

Asexuality also known as invisible spectrum, sometimes really gets invisible, because it is usually confused with celibacy which it's NOT!
Thank you for throwing light on topic like this.
Thank you Netgalley for the arc in exchange of honest review.
Highly recommend reading it!!!

Loved this book so much! So informative. As a straight person I thought that I had a vague clue about the whole spectrum of sexuality but apparently not. Clever, funny and fascinating, I'd highly recommend this book.

This was an amazing take on a community that usually doesn't get much voice. This was a perfect opening conversation for many people. Super needed in our world right now.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am AroAce, and an own voices reviewer.

Just like their podcast, this book felt like a hug and advice with a side of big juice from your older sisters. Thank you to Kayla and Sarah for writing this.

i have mixed feelings about this book, i will start off by saying i don’t think it’s a bad book but it does lack depth. the author’s touch on a myriad of topics without going into great detail about any of them which leaves the book missing something. i also feel there wasn’t enough research done on the legwork and impact of the queer community.

basically i thought this book was going to be something it’s obviously not so therefore it’s not for me.

I understand why some folks are saying this just scratches the surface, but I felt this was an informative read and a good introduction to the "aspec lens."

To start things off, I absolutely love the "Sounds Fake But Okay" podcast, it has been my go-to, non-fiction podcast for the past year and a half.

This is a wonderful exploration into society through the eyes of people who identify on the asexual spectrum. The comparison between sexual and platonic relationships highlights the skewed hierarchy build around relationships and the accompanied expectations. It reflects on how people who choose to live in relationships that fall outside the expected norm (poly, platonic, single) are constantly challenged on their choice of life.

I would highly recommend this book for high-school libraries and for any person interested in expanding their understanding of the LGBTQ+ community as well as the impact of a sex/romance driven society.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I appreciate the authors' openness about not being experts. They're just two asexual speaking about their experiences and what they've learned, Which is great, but a lot of it felt... misplaced? There was a lot of going back and forth, sort of like it was written in a 'stream of consciousness' way, which could be really good, but it just felt rushed and a bit messy. There's still some good information and discussions in here, but I don't think most ace people are going to learn anything new from it. I appreciate it for what it is, and will always support own voices ace books.

I requested this book in a bid to learn something new as a-sexuality is something I don't know a lot about. I felt as though it was rather disjointed though, and not overly helpful. I think perhaps it would have been better to listen to the podcast rather than read the book.

They did make some good points about how we are raised to believe things like marriage and having babies is the norm, and that other options are not always talked about. I would definitely agree with that, and I'll admit, I am one of those who assumed my children would do the same because it's "what you do". Now that they are older and coming to terms with their own gender and sexuality, it's become clear to me how much I don't know. I had hoped to educate myself a little more with this book.

Sounds Fake But Okay is a primer on the ins and outs of asexuality, based on the experiences of two podcast hosts. They argue that asexuality provides a unique perspective on topics such as sex, relationships, family, and so on, and they supplement this with first-hand accounts from people on the ace spectrum.

I went into this wanting to educate myself a bit about asexuality, an often misunderstood identity that the authors do a great job of demistifying. A particular strength is their ousting of misconceptions surrounding asexuality. I also appreciated their exploration of how as a society we prioritise romantic relationships over platonic ones.

However, I found myself struggling to identify what is so unique about the 'aspec lens' that the authors keep touting. Many of the ideas covered, of challenging heteronormative standards, for example, or exploring alternative family dynamics, are things that have been explored and established by queer and feminist theorists already. I would have therefore liked a more in-depth exploration of the things an aspec perspective can uniquely offer.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the inclusion of firsthand experiences, gathered from a survey that the authors conducted. Some of these perspectives show how being asexual can clash with other identities— from the discomfort felt by an aspec woman struggling with the feminist notion of sexual liberation, to an aspec man expressing the challenge of being black and queer. I just wish some of these accounts could have been more in-depth rather than a multitude of snippets. I also think they could have been integrated into the text more rather than just copy and pasted. This is something Walt Odets does well in Out of the Shadows (an exploration of the psychology of gay men's lives) by introducing and then discussing each of the first-hand accounts he includes.

Overall, I think this is a decent introduction to asexuality but could be more in-depth and authoritative in its research and perspectives offered.

Many thanks to Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with a Digital Review Copy.

I was so excited to see a work on asexuality, especially since it's such an underrepresented area, but I wish this work has been more inclusive of BIPOC experiences : ( it seems the authors might have branched out to talk to a wider audience.

it was archived before I could have a chance to give it a go. I read the other reviews and probably it was for the best. I found out this year that I am ace, that's why I wanted to read this one. Thank you for the opportunity, though.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who was looking to be educated on something I didn't understand so I could better help my child with questions on the asexuality spectrum, I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I felt like this book was a mess and not very helpful at all. #SoundsFakeButOkay #NetGalley

This book invites you to look at society through purple glasses and realise that 90% of everything we think is influenced by something we made up, not actual fact. Our authors bring in a range of experts, friends, and opinions to show you the world through asexual eyes and explore how our sexuality and gender can influence our lives. Raising some painfully valid points about how we place value or lack thereof in someones sexuality, whether you're ace or allo, there's an important message throughout.

However, I found myself mostly skimming this book as the formatting and style felt very much more like a transcript than a book and was at times difficult to follow or engage.

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.

"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.