The final message of the book is ultimately one of hope. Not so much the pressure to deliver the best web series ever.Īnd when Unhappy Families is nominated for a Golden Tuba award, Tash's cyber-flirtation with a fellow award nominee suddenly has the potential to become something IRL-if she can figure out how to tell said crush that she's romantic asexual. Tash Hearts Tolstoy tells a story about how difficult it is to exist as an asexual person in the real world, but it is a story with a positive turnaround that provides the kind of delightfully sappy and satisfying conclusion awarded to straight romances in YA literature all the time. Tash is a fan of the 40,000 new subscribers, their gushing tweets, and flashy Tumblr gifs. Her show is a modern adaption of Anna Karenina-written by Tash's literary love Count Lev Nikolayevich 'Leo' Tolstoy. Kaz Brekker in Six of Crows is pretty heavily coded to be demi/gray sexual/romantic, but it's never said explicitly.From the author of Lucky Few comes a 'refreshing' ( Booklist, starred review) teen novel about Internet fame, peer pressure, and remembering not to step on the little people on your way to the top.Īfter a shout-out from one of the Internet's superstar vloggers, Natasha 'Tash' Zelenka suddenly finds herself and her obscure, amateur web series, Unhappy Families, thrust in the limelight: She's gone viral. Unfortunately there really aren't a lot of books that actually talk about a character being asexual. Tash is not only discovering who she is as a rising YouTube director but also who she is as an asexual youth. OH! And the Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen has a demisexual - romantic MC, but the novel is really a supplement to the fiction podcast The Bright Sessions (which has an additional asexual-aromantic coded character).

Radio Silence, also by Alice Oseman, discusses asexuality/demisexuality, but only in the fringes as the main character/narrator is bi, and it's her friend who's asexual. There's also Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann following a black woman who's asexual-romantic and it discusses a lot of intersectionality and the different levels of love, attraction, and societal stigma.

I know it's been a couple of years since you posted this, but you could also read Loveless by Alice Oseman - a whole book on a college aged girl discovering her sexuality (aromantic asexual) - and the writer herself is aroace.

Tash hearts tolstoy