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Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! We’re stoked to be celebrating this awesome week for the fourth time with some great aro book recommendations! You can also find our previous rec lists here: 2023, 2024, 2025. The contributors to this list are: Mikki Madison, Rascal Hartley, Puck, JD Rivers, Tris Lawrence, Linnea Peterson, Nina Waters.

Not Your Backup by C.B. Lee

Emma Robledo has a few more responsibilities that 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, she isnt always taken seriously. A natural leader, Emma is determined to win this battle, and when thats 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.

Dear Stupid Penpal by Rascal Hartley

Atticus “Finch” Davani does not want to be an astronaut. He hates space, he hates the ship, and he strongly dislikes his fellow crew members. He makes that painfully clear in his letters to Aku, his corporate-assigned penpal back on Earth.

Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Wasp’s job is simple. Hunt ghosts. And every year she has to fight to remain Archivist. Desperate and alone, she strikes a bargain with the ghost of a supersoldier. She will go with him on his underworld hunt for the long-long ghost of his partner and in exchange she will find out more about his pre-apocalyptic world than any Archivist before her. And there is much to know. After all, Archivists are marked from birth to do the holy work of a goddess. They’re chosen. They’re special. Or so they’ve been told for four hundred years.

Archivist Wasp fears she is not the chosen one, that she won’t survive the trip to the underworld, that the brutal life she has escaped might be better than where she is going. There is only one way to find out.

Awakenings by Claudie Arseneault

As the city’s eternal apprentice, Horace has never found a clan to belong to. E has joined Trenaze’s guards with hopes to finally earn eir place during eir trial day at the Great Market—that is, until the glowing shards haunting the world break through the city’s protective dome. Armed with a sword and too little training, Horace doubts in eir ability to defend the market-goers. But eir last stand is interrupted by a mysterious elven figure who can dissipate the shards with a single, strange sentence: your story is my story.

From the moment it is uttered, Horace knows the sentences holds true for em, too—and when the elf collapses in the middle of the market, e carries them to safety. After an afternoon of board games in their quiet, sharp-witted company, Horace is ready to follow this elf as they seek the forest that haunts their dreams, and answers to the confounding events at the Market. Their story is eir story, and e is willing to confront the dangers of the road to hear their laugh again and finally feel like e belongs.

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

Sophie Chi is in her first year at Wellesley College (despite her parents’ wishes that she attend a “real” university, rather than a liberal arts school) and has long accepted her aromantic and asexual identities. Despite knowing she’ll never fall in love, she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at Wellesley. No one except her roommate knows that she’s behind the incredibly popular “Dear Wendy” account.

When Joanna “Jo” Ephron―also a first-year student at Wellesley―created their “Sincerely Wanda” account, it wasn’t at all meant to be serious or take off like it does―not like Dear Wendy’s. But now they might have a rivalry of sorts with Dear Wendy? Oops. As if Jo’s not busy enough having existential crises over gender, the fact that she’ll never truly be loved or be enough, or her few friends finding The One and forgetting her!

While tensions are rising online, Sophie and Jo are getting closer in real life, bonding over their shared aroace identities. As their friendship develops and they work together to start a campus organization for other a-spec students, can their growing bond survive if they learn just who’s behind the Wendy and Wanda accounts?

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

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.

If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann

Winnie is living her best fat girl life and is on her way to the best place on earth. No, not Disneyland–her Granny’s diner, Goldeen’s, in the small town of Misty Haven. While there, she works in her fabulous 50’s inspired uniform, twirling around the diner floor and earning an obscene amount of tips. With her family and ungirlfriend at her side, she has everything she needs for one last perfect summer before starting college in the fall.

…until she becomes Misty Haven’s Summer Queen in a highly anticipated matchmaking tradition that she wants absolutely nothing to do with.

Newly crowned, Winnie is forced to take center stage in photoshoots and a never-ending list of community royal engagements. Almost immediately, she discovers that she’s deathly afraid of it all: the spotlight, the obligations, and the way her Merry Haven Summer King, wears his heart, humor, and honesty on his sleeve.

Stripped of Goldeen’s protective bubble, to salvage her summer Winnie must conquer her fears, defy expectations, and be the best Winnie she knows she can be–regardless of what anyone else thinks of her.

Devil Venerable Also Wants To Know by Cyan Wings

In a Mary-Sue novel, the readers all liked the Devil Venerable, the second male lead who devoted himself whole-heartedly to the female lead. However the female lead only loved the male lead who abused her physically and mentally.

Readers: Why doesn’t the female lead like the Devil Venerable?!

Devil Venerable: This Venerable also wants to know. But what I really want to know is why I even like the female lead at all.

In order to understand why the female lead wasn’t attracted to him, the self-conscious Devil Venerable brutally interrogated the entire cast of characters from the novel.

Background characters: I have so many things I want to say but I don’t dare to say it to his face!

After obtaining the book, the Devil Venerable discovered that the book described the world he lived in. This book said that after he sacrificed himself for the female lead, the fourth male lead, his silent and loyal subordinate Yin Hanjiang, blackened and attempted to kill her as a sacrificial offering for his lord.

Devil Venerable Wenren E: Yin Hanjiang, this Venerable wants to know why you wanted to kill the female lead.

Yin Hanjiang was silent.

Wenren E: If you refuse to speak, this Venerable will cut out your tongue and drink it with alcohol!

Yin Hanjiang: …

Wenren E: What the hell are you blushing for?!

The Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren — a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Find these and other books on our Goodreads book shelf or buy them through the Duck Prints Press Bookshop.org affiliate page. Also available as a list on Pagebound.co.

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1. What are you currently reading?

• Don't You Like Me vol. 1 by Lv Tian Yi: this is a kinda odd modern BL that started looking like it'd be fairly standard high school rivals to lovers "omg they are boarding school roommates" kinda stuff........ and then 25 pages in the mc's grandfather dies and passes on the ability to see ghosts. And the mc is phobic of ghosts. And the only way to not see the ghosts is to interact with someone with very high yang energy, such as... the rival roommate ml. And mc needs to touch the ml every five minutes to not see ghosts. Oh and the ghostsight also prevents him from just talking about why he needs to do this. So needless to say lines of consent are batshit in this, and it's kinda a mess (and it's very weird that a couple reviews are like "damn ml is a sexual predator wtf" as if mc didn't go from "ugh I hate that guy" it sleeping in his bed without permission in the space of like a day after getting these abilities. But obviously it's all ml's fault for not reading mc's mind or something idefk.) Anyway. Weird book. MC is pretty tsundere, I hope he gets that out of his system soon, lol. I'm a bit over halfway done with vol. 1 (of 2)
• made a little progress on Daomu Biji. I'm traveling almost all week and didn't want to carry it with me, so that's meant not much reading, sigh.

2. What have you recently finished reading?

• The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin: well. I finished it. That's something right? The pacing on this is just a disaster. I'm sorry to say that about such a powerful writer but oof, what a mess.
• SHWD episode 2 by sono.N: maybe slightly better than vol. 1? Less dwelling on gender in the workplace, more about the relationship, but the mc has gone zero to 60 in their devotion to ml and I don't get why at all.
• Kase-San and Cherry Blossoms (Kase-san and... vol. 5) by Hiromi Takashima: easily the best in the series imo.
• Dandadan vol. 10 to 12 by Yukinobu Tatsu
• Planeta by Ana Oncina: sci-fi GL. A mindfuck and a half. Very interesting book.
• Sakamoto Days vol. 19 by Yuto Suzuki
• Kaiju No. 8: B-Side vol. 2 by Naoya Matsumoto and Keiji Ando: interesting to get Narumi's backstory.
• A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow vol. 5 by Makoto Hagino: probably the slowest pace volume yet in a stupidly slow-paced series. I'm this close to dropping it tbh.
• My Adorable Betrothed by Dokueki: modern BL. The most PWP single-volume thing I have ever read. Not bad for that, I guess, but if I just want PWP I've got AO3 for that so whatever.

3. What will you read next?

Novels: I'll finish Don't You Like Me vol. 1 and 2

Physical Graphic novels (library and otherwise): I've been traveling 5 of 7 days since last Wednesday, so I wasn't able to read any library books, so idk, whatever I said last week is still true. For others... I'm visiting my mom rn, which always means a trip to Kinokuniya and some gifted money for me to spend there, so I grabbed my own copies of the first three books of Murderous Lewellyn's Candlelit Dinner so I'll reread those probably. And mom went with me and bought herself the first three volumes of Moriarty the Patriot so probably that too, if I can swing (re)reading them before I leave tomorrow afternoon.

Graphic novels on Libby: Firefly Wedding vol. 2 by Oreco Tachibana is due in 3 days; I'm gonna get through it but given unenthusiastic I'm feeling, I'll probably drop the series; That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime vol. 8 by Fuse is due in six days, so also that.