When her father has a stroke Pop star Leontyne Blake returns to her hometown. Small-town nurse Holly Drummond isn't impressed by Leo's fame. That isn't the only thing that makes her different from other women. She's asexual. Can the tentative friendship between those two women develop into something more?

Perfect Rhythm

Izza

Lucia Correa

** spoiler alert **
           4.5 Stars rounded up to 5 Stars.

As I have come to expect, a well written book by Jae. This time around a romance with unique MC’s. Mega Pop star Leontyne Jenna Blake returns to her hometown when her Father suffers a stroke. She eventually discovers that here in Fair Oaks she is not Jenna Blake pop star, but She’s just Leo Blake. “She is still the daughter of Gilbert & Sharon, you know? The little girl who got a rock stuck up her nose when she was three.” Holly’s Mother, keeping it real.

Leo meets her Father’s full-time caregiver nurse, Holly and both have insta-dislike for each other. But as they spend time together they eventually become friends. Holly is reluctant for their relationship to become more serious because she is asexual. This is where Jae’s masterful writing explains asexuality without it sounding like it’s a google definition or information dump. Before reading this book, I had heard the term but didn’t really understand what it meant. I wasn’t wrong but what I didn’t realize the wide spectrum of asexuality, that Holly/Jae explains to Leo. 

Although Holly’s asexuality is an important part of the book, it is by no means the only issue Leo has to deal with - her estrangement with her Father, his illness, her career and her music and just maybe she comes to like the small town and its inhabitants. And lest we forget, it is a romance. 

My only quibble is I thought closeted Ashley deserved a tiny bit of understanding. Leo ran away, but Ashley stayed in the small, southern town, never acknowledging that she was a lesbian. She was afraid and didn’t have many if any other lesbians other than Holly for support which she lost.

First reviewed on: Books to get lost in

Actual rating: 3.5

 I’ve got a love-hate-relationship with this one.

I can’t promise this review will make much sense, but I’ll try my best. I’ve got a special treat for you though!

But let’s start with the review itself:

I love Holly. She is a great and interesting character. Her being ace is simply a part of who she is. Leo is harder to love… a part of this may be the way being seen as a sex object has shaped her…

Anyway, I really enjoyed their romance, because guess what? No love at first sight! Instead they have a kinda rocky start and then they begin to get to know each other. Slowly. And they fall in love. Slowly. I’m all for slow burn romances, because they always feel more real and they really show and don’t tell.

And thanks to this book being all about character development we get to read about other than stuff than love as well. I like more plot than simply see-for-the-first-time-fall-in-love-instantly-little-bit-of-drama-the-end, okay? There usually are other people in a person’s life than their love interest. And one has going on more than simply being in love.

Leo’s father for example plays an important role and I loved how his health is not a one time only scene.

So, this sounds like a 5 stars read, doesn’t it?

Well.

There is the asexual part. And this is the part why I don’t really know how to rate this book. Every rating feels wrong and unfair. I don’t think I felt this helpless and mixed up about a review before. Luckily I had the chance to meet Jae at Frankfurt Book Fair 2017 and she was very nice about me asking questions about Perfect Rhythm. So I could find some clarity (gosh, that sounds so dramatic!).

Holly herself is greatly portrayed in her asexuality and I enjoyed how she isn’t sex-repulsed. Because asexuality is a spectrum and there are asexuals, who enjoy sex. I loved how Jae put a trigger warning before the sex scene in her book as well. Way more authors need to do this!

But when she first told Leo about being ace, she used liking chocolate to make her understand. And I felt really disappointed because up to then everything was great. Asexuality isn’t about liking or not liking sex. It’s about not feeling sexual attraction.

So I asked Jae why she used this analogy and she said, she wrote Perfect Rhythm because a good friend of her is ace and there aren’t enough ace romances out there (so fucking true!). This friend uses chocolate to make people understand a little. Most people don’t know about romantic and sexual identities. Everything is the same for them and they think, everyone wants to have sex. So telling them “hey, I don’t feel sexual attraction, but I can love as deeply as every romantic person” confuses them.

I can get behind that.

Then there is Leo who reacts very acephobic in her thoughts. Being like “can I really date an asexual?!” is not nice. Annie told me how one can judge if that’s a good thought or not if you exchange the asexual for black for example. I wasn’t sure if I am ‘allowed’ to feel pissed about that thought. Well, now I feel like I am allowed.

I asked Jae about this as well. She portrayed Leo as an allo with absolutely no information about asexuality as well and she says this reaction is sadly realistic. People think like this. This doesn’t mean it’s a good way of thinking but they do.

I can get behind that.

Leo ends up dating Holly of course. I would have liked it more if Leo kinda apologized for this? Or told herself how fucking stupid she was to think like this because it’s wrong and acephobic and so so so stupid.

You may be wondering why I waited this long to review Perfect Rhythm if I was that unamused by it.

I felt like Jae is not acephobic. So I put writing this review off for weeks. And then I saw she would be a the Book Fair and I knew that was my chance!

I got this feeling, because of several things:

- Holly later explains asexuality to Leo in a way better way
- Jae hat sensitivity readers (she told me 4 ace spec total, one demi, one aroace and if just one sensitivity reader would have said anything she would have changed the thing that they didn’t like)
- her talking about asexuality at the end of Perfect Rhythm and this post on the Ylva blog

How to end this wannabe review? I don’t know. I’m not sure if it helps you in any way? But at least we get reasons for the way asexuality is portrayed in Perfect Rhythm by the author.

There was never a more difficult to write review than this one believe me! And I’m not proud of this one. But sometimes feelings are confusing and in this case they are very confusing. I think I’ll read Perfect Rhythm again in a year or two and then come back to this review.

Jae: Thank you for being this honest and patient with my questions. I enjoyed our talk a lot!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy through the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

KADY BURNS

At first I wasn't sure how I'd feel about an asexual MC in a romance novel, but turns out that I really enjoyed this story

Perfect Rhythm

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