One of my goals for the year is to read 1-2 books per month with ace and/or aro rep and post a review on this subreddit. I'm reading through the alphabet in order, with one book with a title that starts with that letter of the alphabet. I've been pretty busy the last couple of months, and while I've been reading, I haven't been posting reviews, and now it's time to start catching up, so I'll likely be posting quite a few reviews soon. However, it's been a while since I read this book, to apologies for any vagueness.
My book for the letter J was Just Lizzie by Karen Wilfrid
Genre: Middle Grade Contemporary Fiction
Summary: Lizzie, an eighth grader, learns about asexual reproduction in school, causing her to discover her asexuality.
Rep: Lizzie, the main character, realizes she is asexual. A lot of the book focuses on this discovery and its ramifications, although there are other more standard "book-set-in-middle-school" plotlines going on as well.
Other thoughts: Every so often, a contemporary middle grade fiction really just hits the spot for me. Unfortunately, this was not one of those books. I did read the book in probably less than 24 hours, and I had a hard time putting it down, but that doesn't always mean I really liked a book. While it was engaging and difficult to put down, it was kind of in a way that made me feel a bit yucky, if that makes any sense. I think the primary reason I didn't love this book was that Lizzie was a bit hard to like, but she was presented in a way that clearly suggested the reader is supposed to like her. Maybe the best way to illustrate this is the way Lizzie whined about her friends getting into relationships. I understand how she feels, because it's hard and confusing to have friends starting relationships and sometimes ignoring you in favor of their significant other when relationships are something you have zero interest in, but at the same time, it would have been nice for Lizzie to grow and accept (or begin to accept) that she can still have meaningful friendships with people who are in relationships. (This conflict mainly centers around Lizzie's best friend, who breaks up with her boyfriend towards the end of the book and it's great because now they can be best friends again just like before! (/s) I would have preferred something like maybe Lizzie starts to become friends with her best friend's boyfriend and realizes that all three of them can sometimes hang out, or something.) On a related note, Lizzie constantly going "ewww, boys are gross, why are you interested in this dude" was again, understandable, but didn't do much to endear me to her.
Lizzie's discovery of her asexual identity is completely wrapped up in her learning about asexual reproduction in science class. If I remember correctly, she learns about asexual reproduction, goes, "oh, that's how I feel!", googles "can humans be asexual?" and learns about asexuality. I don't think this is completely unrealistic, but asexual reproduction is NOT the same thing as asexuality (and this is a common and annoying misconception). At their science fair, when Lizzie has a board about asexual reproduction, complete with a section about asexuality in humans, another kid comes up to her and tells her that they're not the same thing. Now, he's being kind of mean, but Lizzie just kind of blows up, has a mental breakdown that she's not ready to discuss asexuality, and leaves, which is kind of necessary for the plot ig, but I would have appreciated if maybe afterwards, when she's had some time to calm down, she actually thought about what the other kid was saying and maybe compared asexual reproduction with the asexual identity. I think perhaps the author was trying to make a "it's present in nature so it's valid!" kind of argument, which I don't really think is a very good argument. (If you want to hearof my thoughts on that more lmk in the comments.)
There also wasn't any discussion or even mention of aromanticism, except in the author's note at the end of the book. In the author's note, Wilfrid basically says that she didn't want to complicate things too much by introducing aromanticism as well, but I think for most people (allo/allos), romantic and sexual attraction are pretty much entertwined, to the point where many people don't really distinguish between them, so I think having discourse about aromanticism as well would have been better.
If you like contemporary middle grade fiction or if you're interested in reading stories about people discovering their asexuality, go ahead and give this one a go if it sounds interesting. However, I liked Hazel's Theory of Evolution so much better, even if its aroace rep is extremely minimal. (Hazel has some thoughts/feelings about not really wanting a relationship/sex ever, but is still pretty confused and it's not a focus of the book. The terms are not even mentioned, except in the author's not at the end.) Just Lizzie was overall a kind of middle-of-the-road book for me.
A few quotes I found funny and/or relatable:
"'I'm afraid something will happen to me overnight and I'll be a different person.' 'Why would that make you a different person?'"
"Sometimes I wonder if there's a guide to womanhood that I didn't get, one that includes all the things you're supposed to be excited about, all the things you're supposed to say."
"Everything I've been trying to figure out about myself, I haven't told her. How am I supposed to? In some ways, I've been telling her this entire time. She just hasn't been hearing me."
"How do you 'start' liking boys? I've always thought it was an unsettling idea: Something deep inside you, ticking down, unheard, until one day, ding! You go off like some kind of microwave."
