Category: Aromantic

Promising the Moon

By Em

Aurora Melnyk was a perfectionist. She wanted to be perfect or be nothing. Growing up the daughter of the best ballerina in history, according to the public at least, meant she was to always be in the spotlight. Even when she didn’t follow her mother’s steps in ballet and turned to contemporary, all eyes were on her to see if she could live up to her mother. Every mistake, every injury was broadcasted for the world to see. At least, all injuries besides her knee.

Her constant knee problems finally come to head when Juliette Deveraux, her dancing partner for almost two years, forces her into a doctor’s office.

Now, at her dream school and an opportunity of a lifetime, she has to decide what is more important. Her life dream or her well-being. The choice isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Or she could choose option number three. Lose it all.

Representation:

Gender: cis girls, cis boys, non-binary

Sexual Orientation: queer (unlabeled)

Romantic Orientation: aromantic (side character), homoromantic

Race/Ethnicity: white, biracial, Latinx, east Asian

Disability: mental illness

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare (series)

By Yuhki Kamatani

Not only is high schooler Tasuku Kaname the new kid in town, he is also terrified that he has been outed as gay. Just as he’s contemplating doing the unthinkable, Tasuku meets a mysterious woman who leads him to a group of people dealing with problems not so different from his own.

Representation: gay MC; queer, questioning, asexual/aromantic, nonbinary, and trans side characters.

Ownvoices: for nonbinary and asexual representation.

Meet You By Hachiko

By Loren Greene

What would you do if your best friend lived half a world away—and suddenly vanished?

Loner Grace Ryan feels completely invisible. Awkward and shy, she can’t seem to get ahead in her studies, social circle, or new relationship with her childhood best friend. But discovering Tokyo street fashion ignites her creativity and leads her into an unlikely online friendship with a Japanese high schooler.

Beautiful and fashionable Kana eats, sleeps and breathes English in order to pass her university entrance exam, but she’s tired of sacrificing her own happiness for everyone else’s high expectations. Kana finds a friend and conversation partner in Grace, relieved to distract herself with someone else’s problems for a change.

Just when things are finally going right, Grace’s best friend abandons her, her relationship falls apart, and Kana disappears without saying goodbye. Fearing for her friend’s safety, Grace boards a flight to Japan…only to realize that she is completely unprepared for the bright lights and confusing streets of the real Tokyo.

Finding one lost girl among twelve million is much more than she bargained for.

Representation: questioning aromatic/asexual MC.

Ownvoices: ace spectrum representation.

Take Me to Your Nerdy Leader

By Hailey Gonzales

Paige has always been scared to be herself. The real Paige- the nerdy Paige- who just wants to have real friends, talk about anime, lose her virginity, and share her art- doesn’t exist at school or to her friends. Only quiet Paige does.

Her new school in Bowden is full of opportunity. There’s Revolution Recognition where she can share her art. There’s confident and enigmatic Shawn who she just feels drawn to. The anime club poster is only icing on the cake. She sees her chance! If only she can reach out and take it. And the cute boy she keeps running into is definitely on her radar.

Representation: heterosexual aromantic MC; bisexual side character.

Hullmetal Girls

By Emily Skrutskie

Aisha Un-Haad would do anything for her family. When her brother contracts a plague, she knows her janitor’s salary isn’t enough to fund his treatment. So she volunteers to become a Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier sworn to protect and serve the governing body of the Fleet, the collective of starships they call home. If Aisha can survive the harrowing modifications and earn an elite place in the Scela ranks, she may be able to save her brother.

Key Tanaka awakens in a Scela body with only hazy memories of her life before. She knows she’s from the privileged end of the Fleet, but she has no recollection of why she chose to give up a life of luxury to become a hulking cyborg soldier. If she can make it through the training, she might have a shot at recovering her missing past.

In a unit of new recruits vying for top placement, Aisha’s and Key’s paths collide, and the two must learn to work together–a tall order for girls from opposite ends of the Fleet. But a rebellion is stirring, pitting those who yearn for independence from the Fleet against a government struggling to maintian unity.

With violence brewing and dark secrets surfacing, Aisha and Key find themselves questioning their loyalties. They will have to put aside their differences, though, if they want to keep humanity from tearing itself apart.

Representation: aromantic/asexual MC; trans girl side character; pansexual side character.

Grease Bats

By Archie Bongiovanni

So, no one told you life was gonna be this gay! Grease Bats stars Andy, a trans genderqueer individual who is both tough and loving, and their BFF Scout, an all-feelings-all-the-time mistake-maker. 

Andy and Scout are best buds, roommates, and gay disasters. Along with their friends and plenty of beer, they’re just trying to make it through their 20s, survive late capitalism, and navigate the dating world. Tough and loving Andy dates like there’s no tomorrow, while Scout is still languishing over her ex-girlfriend…from like two years ago.

Representation: genderqueer and lesbian MCs; aromantic/asexual and questioning bisexual side characters.

Ownvoices: author is genderqueer and queer.

Hazel’s Theory of Evolution

By Lisa Jenn Bigelow

Hazel knows a lot about the world. That’s because when she’s not hanging with her best friend or helping her two moms care for the goats on their farm, she loves reading through dusty encyclopedias. But even Hazel doesn’t have answers for the questions awaiting her as she enters eighth grade. How can she make friends in a new school where no one seems to understand her? What’s going to happen to one of her moms who’s pregnant again after having two miscarriages? Why does everything have to change when life was already perfectly fine?

As Hazel struggles to cope, she’ll come to realize that sometimes you have to look within yourself—instead of the pages of a book—to find the answers to life’s most important questions.

Representation: questioning aromantic and asexual MC with two moms, one of which is B; trans Latinx side character, disabled side character, Jewish and Asian side characters.

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy

By Mackenzi Lee

Sequel to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.

Publisher’s description:

A year after an accidentally whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. However, her intellect and passion will never be enough in the eyes of the administrators, who see men as the sole guardians of science.

But then a window of opportunity opens—a doctor she idolizes is marrying an old friend of hers in Germany. Felicity believes if she could meet this man he could change her future, but she has no money of her own to make the trip. Luckily, a mysterious young woman is willing to pay Felicity’s way, so long as she’s allowed to travel with Felicity disguised as her maid.

In spite of her suspicions, Felicity agrees, but once the girl’s true motives are revealed, Felicity becomes part of a perilous quest that leads them from the German countryside to the promenades of Zurich to secrets lurking beneath the Atlantic.

Representation:

Sexuality:
Asexual and aromantic: Felicity
Lesbian: Sim

Sim is Black and Muslim.

Ownvoices: Queer

Summer Bird Blue

By Akemi Dawn Bowman

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

Representation: Rumi is asexual/aromantic. 

Not Your Backup (Sidekick Squad #3)

By C.B. Lee

Emma Robledo has a few more responsibilities than the usual high school senior, but then again, she and her friends have left school to lead a fractured Resistance movement against a corrupt Heroes League of Heroes. Emma is the only member of a supercharged team without powers, and she isn’t always taken seriously. A natural leader, Emma is determined to win this battle, and when that’s done, get back to school. As the Resistance moves to challenge the League, Emma realizes where her place is in this fight: at the front.

Representation: Latinx aromantic/asexual MC; Asian bisexual side character; trans side character.

Ownvoices: Asian and queer representation.