January Queer Book of the Month: Hopeless Aromantic by Samantha Rendle

Sydney Goodwin: Stratford-Perth Pride

Hopeless aromantic, written by Samantha Rendle, is an educational, humorous, and thought-provoking book going into the nuances of what it means to be aromantic, and the existential dread that can come with realizing you may be on the aromantic spectrum.

Broken up into 8 chapters, Rendle adds her own personal experiences along with cited research on the experience of being aromantic in an alloromantic world. Ranging from definitions of the different types of relationships, the overlap of aromanictism and mental health, and how to be a good ally if someone you know/love comes out as aromantic. Rendle opens her book with a short introduction called Foreword by Sarah Costello, the co-author of Sounds fake but okay, Costello explains how within the conversation of asexuality, there needs to be equal talk about aromanticism, but at the same time, the two are not mutually exclusive, they are not one in the same, and how books much like Rendle’s is so vital for the aromantic community. In many discussions of aromanictism, it is often combined with the orientation asexual, getting overshown by the latter or entirely ignored; even within the orientation AroAce (aromantic asexual), most of the attention is on the asexual aspect, even though aromantic is the first half of it. Rendle has a section of her book which covers arophobia and how to tackle it; many mistake their arophobia as concerns for someone’s future. It is considered normal in society to view being in a romantic relationship as something that is universally desired and that there is no other way to fulfill your life.

Rendle reassures readers that no matter how you feel, or where on the aromantic spectrum you suspect you fall on, you are valid, and no one can tell you that the way you’re living is wrong.

Hopeless aromantic can be purchased at local bookstores, from amazon, or borrowed to read at the Stratford-Perth Pride’s library.