Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection

by Linsey Miller, Madeline Dyer (Editor), Rosiee Thor, Moniza Hossain, Akemi Dawn Bowman

Overview

Discover the infinite realms of asexual love across sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary stories

From a wheelchair user racing to save her kidnapped girlfriend and a little mermaid who loves her sisters more than suitors, to a slayer whose virgin blood keeps attracting monsters, the stories of this anthology are anything but conventional. Whether adventuring through space, outsmarting a vengeful water spirit, or surviving haunted cemeteries, no two aces are the same in these 14 unique works that highlight asexual romance, aromantic love, and identities across the asexual spectrum.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645679561
Publisher:	Page Street Publishing
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Madeline Dyer writes YA thrillers, fantasy, poetry, personal essays, and memoir. She is the SIBA-award-winning author of the Untamed series and the Dangerous Ones series, as well as the adult contemporary novels In My Dreams and My Heart to Find from TCK Publishing, the latter of which has been nominated for the 2021 Reader’s Choice Award for Romance. In 2020 she organized and hosted the first virtual YA Thriller Con and hosted the second annual event in July 2021.

Editorial Reviews

"This compelling collection offers readers so many opportunities to feel seen and connect. A first purchase for all teen collections."

—SLJ, starred review

"Themes of grief, community expectations, resilience, self-esteem, and queer joy are woven throughout this anthology [...] readers hungry for intersectional ace (and frequently also aro) representation will be pleased to see a range of queer identities, racial backgrounds, and disabilities."

—Kirkus Reviews

"Dyer expertly delivers on the collection’s premise of creating a variety of colorful, aspirational places to which queer and aroace readers might flock and find community, belonging, and representation."

—BCCB

“Being Ace is an essential YA anthology. It’s a perfect palette that paints the richness of asexuality, in all its many shades and hues. This is the first anthology I’ve read that really gets what it means to be authentically, honestly ace. Fantastic!”

-Saundra Mitchell, bestselling editor of All Out, Out Now and Out There

From the Publisher

2023-08-11
A multigenre anthology of short stories for teens that centers asexual protagonists.

A teen Slayer who is repulsed by sex is the target of monsters attracted to her virginal blood—until she deconstructs her community’s buy-in of the heterosexist concept of virginity in “Smells Like Teen Virgin” by S.E. Anderson. In S.J. Taylor’s “The Witch of Festa Falls,” a girl living in 18th-century Norway is able to save her community from a fossegrim, a terrifying creature from folklore, because she’s immune to his charms. “The Third Star” by RoAnna Sylver follows an aro-ace, agender, autistic teen who is worried about their queerplatonic relationship when their two partners go through rough patches, all while surviving on an emergency craft in the depths of space. The Little Mermaid is rescued from the clutches of exploitation and finds an unexpectedly platonic alliance with a merman prince in Moniza Hossain’s “The Mermaid’s Sister.” Themes of grief, community expectations, resilience, self-esteem, and queer joy are woven throughout this anthology. The stories range widely in tone and genre, although the majority are speculative. While some are immensely satisfying, others feel noticeably underdeveloped and rushed. But readers hungry for intersectional ace (and frequently also aro) representation will be pleased to see a range of queer identities, racial backgrounds, and disabilities (including a protagonist with hyperacusis and cerebral palsy who uses a power wheelchair).

May not take the whole cake, but asexual readers hungry for representation will find some outstanding pieces to dig into. (content warning) (Anthology. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews