Lack of Ace Representation in YA

I've been planning this post for a while. A couple months, at least, though it sat as a draft for about 98% of that time because I was trying to figure out how to get my thoughts together. This is gonna be a little long, but I feel like this needs to be said, so I'm not gonna hide it under a cut.

I have a scarf made to resemble the ace flag. It's my favorite thing.

A big part of YA is the romance. I understand that. I really love fluffy, summer-y romance books and I've gotta say that Percy and Annabeth from the Percy Jackson series trump my OTP list even higher than Usagi and Mamoru from Sailor Moon do. And that's really saying something.

Picking up book blogging and learning from the queer community has taught me something: I have found NO ace representation in the books I've read.

(If you want to know what asexuality is, try this website. It helped me realize that my "ew, physical aspects of romance" outlook wasn't just me being childish.)

The prevalence of queer books has grown even since I joined Goodreads back in my freshman year, and that's great! I love seeing less heteronormativity. We need more of it.

Unfortunately, I still don't see myself reflected in any books yet. Don't get me wrong, with the right book *cough* Cinder *cough* I can totally see why the love interests are perfect. Prince Kai and Captain Thorne are probably my most favorite love interests ever. Aside from Percy, of course. I think he and Kai are tied for first place.

But for the amount of times I've read The Lunar Chronicles books or any of the other series I consider "fluffy", I've seen three times as many books where all the female characters can think about is making out (or hell, going even further) with the guy they like.

And I don't understand that.

Let's talk about Life in Outer Space for a little bit. If I remember correctly, Sam didn't even realize he had a crush on Camilla until after halfway through the book, and I loved that! I got to see their relationship build up with them as friends first, so by the time he realized it, I was like "Yes!!"

And the Percy Jackson series though! Percy and Annabeth had so much room to grow together as friends, and seeing them written as a couple in the Heroes of Olympus half of the series is just like:

Like, why can't every romance be like theirs? 

So many books I've picked up have romance that builds up so quickly, especially with guys the narrators just met. Earthbound has a love triangle established within the first 50 pages -- one of the guys she's only known for less than a year, and the other one she hadn't even talked to at the point she thought she had a crush on him. This isn't something unique to Earthbound, either. I'm pretty sick of this trend at this point.

And the Lux series. I read the first two books because my friend loves the series, and I tried to give it a decent chance, but all those makeout scenes honestly put me off. I would've ditched the book at the first sign of their "romance" if it wasn't for my friend. (Honestly, I don't even know if their relationship can be defined by actual love, since they seem to hate each other's guts and are really only together because of their idiocy and mistakes they can't seem to fix because they're at--or in--each other's throats.)

I get that I'm not gonna see much representation of myself in books. Asexuals are only about 1% of the world's population, if I remember correctly. Honestly, I'm more than happy with books I've put on my fluffy shelf on Goodreads -- some of them are more chaste, some of them not, but it's not overflowing with unneeded sexual tension like the Lux series. The Lunar Chronicles and the Percy Jackson series have given me so much more than the standalone books on my fluffy shelf have, and I could probably write a blog post in and of itself just talking about those two couples. All the couples in both The Lunar Chronicles and Percy Jackson series focus more on the characters' relationships rather than how they interact physically with each other, and I love that to no end.

I just want to find more books that focus on the characters and the relationship itself rather than "His lips look so kissable. I want to eliminate the space between us." I'm not kidding, quite a few books I've read have used those lines. (Not together. I condensed the narrators' inner monologues.)

I want more books that focus on the fluffy parts of dating someone, whether it's being happy to see their face in the morning or sassing them in the form of sarcasm or however else they show their affection.

I know the chances of me finding actual ace representation is slim to none, but I want more books where I can feel the same feelings as the narrator and not make faces at the page because all they do when they're together is make out. Or think about making out.

And I have made faces at books (while I'm in class!) because the characters got physical.

I just want more books where I don't have to make faces at them for that.