I've already spent two posts covering No Rings Attached (a general review and a response to a particular recurring idea) (well, and a third thing that uses the book more as a philosophical prompt), but I still haven't done my writing analysis yet, so that's what this post is for. Per usual, this is part of Sapphic Book Bingo 2023. This book ended up matching a lot of categories, so I'm not sure which one I want to use yet.
SPOILERS for No Rings Attached by Rachel Lacey, I warn because I know all of you out there are up and raring to read it. But if you aren't, you also don't have to read the book to enjoy(?) this post.
Additional warning: Jesus christ this post is fucking long.
On Love (or lack of it)
Methods of Romance
Okay let's start things off like usual, with a list of examples this book gave on how to illustrate that two characters love each other. In spite of the issues I described with the central relationship in this story, it actually had quite a few good aspects too!
And if this list feels unstructured or randomly ordered, I can only regret that I couldn't organize it better; this book inspired me to make a lot of smaller observations about a lot of different things, but it's hard for me to assign any of it to a particular throughline or central idea. So, you're getting scattershot thoughts instead. (This is true of the later sections as well.)
- Some basic stuff to start with, at least some of which I'm sure I've already covered before:
- A growing sense of wanting to care for, support, and protect someone you're in a relationship with--seeing them as sort of an extension of yourself.
- Finding comfort in another person's presence, to the point where their presence actively removes anxiety you'd be feeling when alone.
- Adjacent to the above point, being willing to be vulnerable with another person in ways that you're not with other people.
- Public displays of affection! Just... in general.
- This might seem kinda shallow or obvious, but I think it's worth noting that this and most other books start off with the characters doing quick internal assessments of the other character to determine potential dateability after meeting each other for the first time. If a romance is about the development of a relationship, then it makes sense that step 1 in that development would be considering the possibility at all--but it also makes sense that step 1 stops at "Well, she's cute, but let's wait and see what she's actually like first."
- On the topic of "stages of development", different aspects of the characters' relationship can develop independently of each other. I thought about this when our two leads had a dance scene together with a lot of focus on physicality, and it occurred to me that it could effectively count as "the equivalent of a sex scene before the characters are ready to have sex". So we can see how the characters' physical relationship could progress from dancing -> kissing -> sex, for example, while their emotional openness develops seperately, along a different path.
- Lia and Grace initially bond over the fact that they share a mutual friend who's equally important to both of them. I think it makes sense that two characters can bond over how they handle their other relationships, and this can take many different forms. (But mainly it shows that they have similar views of other people, and it illustrates how they handle relationships with others that they care about.)
- On a semi-related note, there's a few different places in the book that emphasize the importance of platonic relationships (Lia and Grace's shared love of Rosie, Grace spending time dancing with her roommate Ollie) and I think that including relationships like that in a romance story can help add additional depth and context to what it means to love in general.
- Jealousy is mentioned a few times throughout the book. It's not the healthiest emotion associated with romance, but it can be an indication of a kind of love and something worth exploring on its own (see also: my comments on protectiveness/possessiveness in Treasured).
- Holding onto the memory of a person in place of actually getting to be with that person (for whatever reason you can't just be with them, including by personal choice).
- More generally speaking, this makes me wonder about all the different ways that different characters handle extended seperation from each other, or would, if it happened. It's not something that needs to happen in any given story, but it's a topic I'm interested in--in some sense, I think it illustrates love from another angle.
- When a character presumes themselves to be limited or incapable of experiencing love, and then spending time with another character causes their romantic instincts to burst in out of nowhere.
- A character showing a fascination with another's uniqueness, particularly when that character is expressing their passions--most commonly through the means of artistry or nerdiness, I think.
- When a character initially feels one way about a topic, but when that topic becomes associated with their loved one, it changes their feelings on it. (Inspired by Lia starting off with somewhat more butch tastes in women, but then the femme Grace causes her to change her mind about that.)
- Although the book trips up on how to handle communication of boundaries, it at least acknowledges at multiple points that respecting someone's boundaries is a good thing, and shows Lia caring for Grace by doing her absolute damndest to keep those boundaries in mind. It even romanticizes the fact that Lia does this.
- As an example of where I think the book didn't do as well as it could have, although I'm all for partners supporting and helping each other through their personal issues, I didn't like that Lia did all the supporting for Grace without needing or receiving similar support in return. (I know there's moments in life where one person needs more help than the other, but ideally it balances out in the long term; in a book serving as an example of an ideal relationship, I think it should balance out over the course of the book, unless it's part of an ongoing series about the same relationship, or it's indicated they've already supported each other equally in the past.)
- Although I've spent a lot of time emphasizing frequent communication and letting your partner know what you're feeling, I do think the book raises an important point in that we don't always know what we're feeling, that sometimes situations are ambiguous or up in the air for reasons outside of our control. I think it's still important to communicate that this is where things stand, but a healthy relationship will accept and adapt to that situation as appropriate.
Awful parents and anti-love
Once again, the "shitty parents" trope makes another appearance. Mainly I mean Lia's parents in this case, although most of the plot centers around Grace assuming her parents were shitty before eventually determining that they weren't.
Anyway, it occurred to me that characters like Lia's parents can be used to draw a contrast--to show the difference between what it looks like when characters are unloving and what it looks like when they are loving. In other words, contrasting a poor parent/child relationship with the romance between the two leads. And I think it can be compared to a lot of situations in actual reality, especially as far as queer people are concerned!
So in this particular book, the main issue we see with Lia's parents is that they have seemingly already decided of their own accord what kind of partner would be most appropriate for Lia without taking Lia's own desires into consideration, to the point that they will criticize Lia's own personal choices if they don't match up with theirs.
Also, their qualifications for an "ideal" partner seemingly don't have much to do with love or care. Lia's parents push for her to have a male partner, specifically, highlighting a bit of queerphobia (even though they otherwise claim to be supportive of Lia's bisexuality). They favor the first partner that Lia ever matched up with, implying that they prioritize familiarity over compatibility, or perhaps just a sense of sticking to a plan and never changing it.
When Lia shows up with a girlfriend already in tow, Lia's parents continue to ignore said girlfriend to the point where they leave for the wedding reception without making sure to take her with them. However, again, they remain glowing and affectionate to the ex that Lia has already expressed multiple times that she's not interested in.
And I think there's a certain tragedy in this story that the book itself doesn't really delve into too deeply, which is that Lia's parents are so dead-set on this kind of stuff that it's started to impact how Lia handles her own life and relationships. She wonders why her own tastes and her parents' tastes never seem to line up, why her parents never seem to approve of the people she chooses to date, and wonders if it's her own fault--if she's just not dating the right kinds of people. She wonders why her parents haven't made a comment that Grace isn't the kind of person Lia usually dates, as if that's something her parents ever noticed or cared about.
And there's never really any closure on this; the wedding proceeds as planned, Grace gets the notification about her half-sister, and then the plot changes gears to focus on that. We never see Lia examine her relationship with her parents, and associated assumptions about dating, again. And... that in itself is something very relatable. Your parents are shitty, and nothing changes, and it's hard to explain why, and then you move on with your day. But damn it's frustrating.
Anyway, again, Lia's parents can serve as an example of how not to treat someone if you love them. Trying to control their actions, ignoring their personal wants, judging them for their personal wants, ignoring the people they're close to, visibly preferring the company of others... This kind of behavior is the opposite of what we hope to see when two characters care about each other, and so it helps to highlight what kinds of feelings are involved in actually loving relationships.
Intense longing for relationships
In addition to keeping track of what I think would be more universal feelings in regards to what love means, I'm also still making sure to pay attention to the aspects of it that I think are more particular to me (and maybe some other people similar to me). In this book, what this meant was the characters resonated with me most strongly when the book pointed out just how badly both of them wanted a relationship. Well, "wanted" isn't the most accurate term for what Grace was feeling, but anyway:
Lia wants a relationship badly from the start of the book. Now, a lot of this is built off of the increasing pressure of watching everyone she know getting into relationships, and not wanting to be left behind or become irrelevant to her friends because of it (and I relate to that, too)--but Lia does seem to be a romantic at heart in a more genuine sense.
Lia wants a powerful kind of love. She wants something intense and wonderful. This ties into her desire to talk through romantic feelings whenever they seem like they might be relevant, and it ties into how she wishes to interact with Grace. There's a moment in the book that notes that she'd be content if she could just slow dance with Grace all night. I related to all these kinds of feelings; when I snuggle up to my wife at night, I think of how comfortable it is and how there's nowhere else I'd rather be.
Although Grace is reluctant to enter into any relationships for fear of getting hurt, this doesn't change the fact that she otherwise enjoys the idea of being with someone; it just means she has to fight against those feelings. Once she does start getting closer to Lia, due to how long she's been alone, her emotions go into overdrive as soon as she starts getting some cuddling in herself. She starts leaning into feelings of "Oh god I missed this so much."
In short, I'd say I relate to both Lia and Grace because both of them are very sensitive to feelings of romance. Once they start getting more actively romantic with each other, just the prospect of being able to have this is exciting and overwhelming to them.
Maybe that's too much for some people? It's perfect for me, though. My own feelings towards romance are very much the same. While Lia is just excited for romance in general, Grace is excited as more of a side effect of having been alone for such a long time; but I was in both of those positions for over thirty years, so I was vicariously bursting at the seams as much as the characters were when watching them try to sort things out with each other.
In fact, while watching Lia and Grace, I couldn't help but draw comparisons towards my fursonas. I already made Xena to represent my inherent desire for sentimentality and romance, and I already made Aurora to represent my sense of anxiety and loneliness, and so I already imagined these two to be in a close romantic relationship with each other due to these traits. So I already had a proclivity towards fantasizing about relationships that are built on a dynamic similar to this one.
What I'm getting at is that perhaps this is another thing I should view as a personal quirk/strength, and lean into it with my own writing. Maybe not in exactly the same ways each time, but at least leaning into the idea of "sensitivity" as an inherently exciting aspect of romantic relationships for me.
On Writing
Tropes
Still trying to track tropes in these sapphic romances as I notice them. Identifying patterns and such.
- Again, "shitty parents" is a common and relatable trope.
- I'm finding that the main characters are continuing to smell like scented candles (vanilla in Grace's case).
- This book contains another example of everyone around the potential couple saying the couple looks good together before they're actually a couple (though in this case, due to the fact that they're pretending to be together, it could be said to be mere politeness).
- The leads being, or pretending to be, completely oblivious for why they're experiencing the emotions they're experiencing when they're going through the process of falling in love with someone. ("Why am I so nervous about sharing a bed with this person?!")
- At some point, Grace comments "I thought it was a lesbian requirement to fall for at least one of your friends." I don't know one way or another, but I suppose I'll be on the lookout for it now.
- Every time I've seen a book take place in London, I've felt like the leads/author were weirdly enamored and praising of the city. I guess I can't fairly say one way or another since I've never been there myself, but it feels odd to me.
- I feel like dogs tend to make an appearance fairly often, and yet I don't feel like they're usually fleshed out very well as their own characters. (Ironically, the most well-characterized dog so far for me was the one in One Walk in Winter.) But like, where's all the cats!?
- When characters have sex, I can't help but notice that they tend to go directly for the finish line, so to speak? I can't tell if this is a holdover from cishet romances, or if it's just what most readers are generally hoping for by the time they actually get to an erotic scene. (Related: I'm not sure that written erotica is capable of doing it for me, just inherently.)
- Just as a side note, honestly, the act of the two leads having sex in and of itself is a trope. You might say it's an essential part of a romance, but I disagree, since I see sex and romance as separate things. It does make me want to look at the books that are tagged "tame/euphemistic" on The Lesbian Review to see how they handle things, though.
Story ideas
- Before meeting each other, Grace and Lia have a pre-existing close friendship with Rosie, and this ends up being important to everyone involved. Grace in particular feels a certain jealousy towards Lia for having become an additional best friend of Rosie's after Grace left the country. This situation felt to me like a love triangle, but a platonic love triangle rather than a romantic love triangle (though it still influences the core romance). I thought that was an interesting concept, and I think similar situations could be used to explore the more nuanced, complex aspects of relationships.
- When Grace first learns she's not biologically related to her father, she assumes it's because her mother cheated on him. She doesn't even consider the possibility that it was a case of her parents using a sperm donor until it is pointed out to her that that is, in fact, what actually happened. This is a case where a society's focus on drama and sensationalism caused someone to assume something off the bat without ever even considering other possibilities, and I think stories of similar situations could be explored to show how we all have to figure out how to break out of those kinds of instincts, if we want to be able to pursue every avenue available to us.
- When Grace goes on her trip to meet her half-sister, Lia makes use of the same trip to do something she's always wanted to do and visit more museums. It wasn't given that much focus in the story, and it was kind of a coincidence that it even worked out this way for the characters, but it makes me reflect on how I like the prospect of the two protagonists of a romance simultaneously helping each other to pursue their personal dreams.
- Speaking of road trips, this is the second time I've seen a road trip used as a plot point during this Bingo. It's a good setup for going on miscellaneous adventures... or DATES. (Although this particular book also made me reflect on the fact that... the act of traveling itself kinda sucks, doesn't it? Bad traffic and scary road situations... The tedium of prepping for, boarding, and waiting on a flight, followed by jetlag afterwards...)
- To reiterate on the topic of parents, I still think it's a good idea for a story to show the lack of love a protagonist experiences within their family while growing up, and contrast it with the genuine affection that their new love interest feels for them... while simultaneously exploring how that same family's treatment has also warped the protagonist's views on what love even is, further complicating matters. (Yes I have personal issues, and I'm bitter about it.)
- Grace's main plot point deals with how a particularly dire life event caused her to re-examine, recontextualize, and question her existing connections with all of her family members. I feel like I'd enjoy writing a story about how there can be revelations that just turn a person's social circle entirely upside-down like that--and I feel like there's several different ways it could happen.
Other notes on writing
- Part of characterization is highlighting what makes one character different from other characters. (I know, I know, this is probably pretty obvious, but I'm writing these notes largely as reminders to myself of what to focus on.)
- Write to your audience. Another obvious one, but again, something that's worth reminding myself of and giving due consideration. (Who I assume to be my exact audience will vary from book to book, but if I focus on lesbian romance, it's probably safe to assume that the majority of my audience would be lesbians (or at least bisexual)).
- There were a lot of named characters in this book, but it felt like most of them were irrelevant to the larger story. I don't think this was for the purpose of making the characters feel like pillars of the community like I've alluded to before, but I guess it could've been. But it just reminds me to be mindful of trying to make it clear to my own readers which characters are actually worth remembering for later (and maybe ideally there would be more of these than just the two leads and the protagonist from the previous book).
- I think I already mentioned in the spoiler-free review that I felt like the chapters in this book were broken up in weird ways, sometimes seemingly to try to shove in something vaguely resembling a plot twist. I wouldn't want to do that with my own writing, but it does make me think about how it's worth considering how chapters should be broken up instead. And I think they can be handled in different ways, but I suspect my personal strength would be in planning out the timeline ahead of time and making sure each chapter focuses on a different singular event in that timeline (even if that singular event is used to develop multiple threads at once). If every chapter's end needs something to convince the reader to keep reading, well, I'll just allude to whatever event is coming up next.
- I noticed a couple of parts of the book where the narration completely skipped over an event I thought would be used for characterization, the most notable one being the play that Lia and Grace sit down to watch near the beginning of the book. In this case it was a bit awkward, but it made me reflect on how there are occasionally parts of books that I wish would be skipped over even if they're a necessary part of the timeline of events. And that, in turn, made me reflect on how what a book chooses not to focus on can be as important a part of the world-building and characterization as the parts that are focused on (since it highlights what is or isn't important, or is or isn't predictably normal, to the world and characters).
- On the other hand, there were also a couple scenes and descriptions here and there that I felt didn't really serve to develop the plot or characters at all. But in spite of what I've seen common writing advice say, I think this can be appropriate, too; an absent thought can still exist in an author's story if it characterizes what's important to the author, in my opinion. It helps add personal individuality and flavor to the whole thing.
- At this point, I've talked a lot about problematic aspects of characters and stories and how I personally feel that the author has a responsibility to acknowledge in some way that these things are problematic. I've mainly thought about this in terms of painful topics, but there's another side to this, which is indulging in pleasant fantasies that would cause problems if attempted in real life. I still think the author has a responsibility to acknowledge these as problematic in some form or another, but as long as the author does this, I think it's okay... And I'm saying this, in part, to give myself permission to explore some personal interests that I'm usually inclined to feel guilty or embarrassed about. (But this kind of personal development is difficult, so we'll see where it actually goes.)
- When writing my own stories, I feel like it might be a good idea for me to keep my own notes about everything weighing on a character's mind at any given point in time. (I'll bring this up again later.)
Other stuff
Trauma
As I've said before, I feel like this book isn't so much about Lia and Grace's relationship as it is about Grace learning to deal with personal traumas. The core plot of the book ends up being about this, it influences Grace's character and everything she does... it's a large part of what this book is.
A summary, if you need one:
- Grace's parents die from a car crash, but it's not immediate. Grace gets to see them alive long enough for them to tell her that they're going to be okay.
- Grace tries to save her father with a blood transfusion, but learns her blood is incompatible with her father's, and it's because of this that she learns that her father is not her biological father (in other words, just after it became impossible to talk with either of her parents about this).
- Grace loses faith in the idea of romantic relationships because she thought her parents were happy, only to learn of this secret and assume her mom slept around on her dad, indicating they secretly weren't happy.
- Grace does not tell any of her other living family members about this, because she's worried that they'll disown her when they learn she's not biologically related to them, and now that her parents are gone, she wants to hold onto as many family ties as possible.
- Due to the above combination of violently losing people close to her without warning, and feeling betrayed by those same people, Grace decides to avoid forming close personal relationships with anyone if she can help it, even though she also craves close connections for these very reasons as well.
- In spite of this, she gets a crush on her best friend Rosie that is not reciprocated, so she hides these feelings and leaves the country to go live with her maternal grandmother. Because she leaves the country, Rosie then forms a similarly close connection to someone else (Lia).
- Grace also starts feeling a romantic connection towards Lia, and tries to do this thing where she is simultaneously emotionally disconnected while still partaking in all the dating and sex that a romantic relationship involves, getting mad at both Lia and herself when this leads to confusion and hurt feelings.
- At the end of the book, when Grace meets up with her half-sister and learns that her parents may have just used a sperm donor rather than cheating on each other (and this is eventually confirmed), Grace then has to deal with the emotional fallout of realizing that her loneliness is entirely self-inflicted and based on false premises, all because she was too scared to try talking out her fears with anyone.
I have to hand it to Rachel Lacey, this is a masterful orchestration of tragedy begetting tragedy begetting tragedy, just piling on top of each other until the character is a quivering mess of anxieties that make her simultaneously frustrating and relatable. Well done.
At the same time, though, it just felt like... a lot. There were times when it felt like there wasn't anything to Grace's character other than all this tragedy and trauma.
But on the other hand... sometimes that is what trauma does to someone. And as much as I got upset with Grace for taking her feelings out on Lia because she feels attraction to Lia, I have to admit that I've lashed out at people I care about due to my own traumas, and I can only guess how much of my values and worldview were shaped by that same trauma.
Because what makes something traumatic isn't just the intensity of the original event, it's the fact that it impacts the entire rest of your life. This can be seen with Grace, too; not only does she second-guess any kind of connections she forms with anyone, but she looks at random men she knows and wonders if any of them might be her father, a particularly bad trigger can cause her to relive the night that her parents died, the extra emotional weight of just existing means that she has to take time to emotionally prepare herself before she can get up and do things.
Grace's constant state of anxiety also makes it harder for her to be honest with herself about exactly what she wants. In moments of uncertainty, she kinda just does whatever people ask her to do (and of course it doesn't help that she's lonely and doesn't want to lose the few connections she has). When she faces the prospect of meeting her half-sister, she panics and has to fight with herself about whether she wants to run away from the whole situation, or if she could even live with the idea of never investigating it further--and she later resents and blames other people for pulling her in one direction or another.
I relate... to a lot of this. I also relate to when the narration points out, "Instead of toughening her up, each loss or heartbreak only seemed to make her more fragile." I also relate to how, when Lia finally reaches her limit with Grace, but then says that she can't bring herself to be angry at Grace, Grace says "I'm angry enough at myself for the both of us."
My traumas are different, and they affect me in different ways, but I feel like this is a realistic portrayal of someone who has to live with trauma and is still struggling to figure out how.
When the book is dealing with Grace's perspective, we see how all of these different anxieties of her are just constantly weighing on her and pressuring her at all times. She never stops thinking about them, because all of them are always directly relevant to whatever it is she's trying to do with herself. And I felt like that was a pretty powerful aspect, too; it makes me feel like it'd be a good idea to keep a running tally of everything that's weighing on my own characters' minds when writing my own stories. It would not only help highlight currently running story arcs, it would help highlight why those things are story arcs in the first place. (It's a story! A story is usually about resolving something unresolved!)
Still, I do want to go back to the point on how it feels like Grace's entire personality. Here's a specific example: At some point, Lia notices that Grace has a tattoo, and asks her about it. Grace explains that she got it shortly after her parents died, because she knew her mom would've hated it, and she was still freshly mad at her mom. She says that the design of the tattoo is mostly irrelevant to her. I feel like this represents a missed opportunity.
Since Grace's trauma is so thorough that it runs throughout all her actions, it makes sense that it would be connected to her decision to get a tattoo as well. But fitting in with the idea that a person is more than just their trauma, I feel like this moment could've been used to point out that, although just getting a tattoo was enough to make her mom mad and so the design didn't matter towards that, the specific design could have been used to characterize some other aspect of Grace. Have it be something that's personal to her aesthetically or emotionally, or just hint at some other part of herself that even she's not aware of.
Because no matter how thorough a person's trauma is in real life, and how many parts of a person's life their trauma influences, a person is never just trauma, either. There is still a person inside there, a person with values and wants and needs. The trauma may have made those things foggy, but I sincerely believe those things are still at the heart of a person no matter what, and end up expressing themselves in other ways. Sometimes in ways the person doesn't even notice or realize.
If I'm being honest, I guess I do appreciate how well Grace was depicted, as someone who always has to live with something bad that happened in her past. I'm glad for the representation, I guess. I just feel like it could've been made even more poignant if more focus was put on how someone like that can still find ways to build something better for themselves, like I try to do for myself, like I encourage anyone to try to do.
I know you can do it.
Random notes that I didn't know where else to put
- Even with as much as a romantic as I am, I'm not the type of romantic who thinks that everyone should be paired up with each other in one way or another. For one thing, romance isn't for everyone! For another, chemistry doesn't work like that!
- There was a moment near the end of the book where Grace runs off into the forest to be sad, and Lia eventually heads into the forest to go looking for her. I have had fantasies of similar things when comforting myself with private romantic thoughts, so it was kinda reassuring to see someone else put a similar fantasy into a book (although the end of my fantasy was very different and didn't involve getting stuck in spiderwebs).
- There's a different part of the book that makes note that Grace admires Lia's uniqueness. I do too! I admire everyone's uniqueness! Uniqueness/personal expression is my other main love outside of romance, as I've said before, and I feel like romance is at its best when it involves connections over personal uniquenesses. That bit just stood out to me and I wanted to highlight it
- This kinda ties into the "bad parents" stuff, but when the book started talking about how Lia liked planning ahead and felt bad when she felt like she wasn't making as much progress as her peers (particularly where romance is concerned), I was wondering if the book was going to examine how her parents basically trained her to feel that way, because that was how they lived their lives. But... No, that possibility never actually got examined.
How I would've written it differently
Ah, finally we get to this section.
So... the structure of the plot was a little weird. The book is advertised as a fauxmance, implying that the reason Lia and Grace are going to grow closer to each other is because they're having to fake a relationship with each other. But no, that plot point was just an explanation for how they meet each other, and it's basically dropped after the first third of the book or so. The rest of the story is about Grace's journey to meet her sister, and Lia... just happens to be there by coincidence, to some extent.
So if I were to write this same story my own way, what would that even mean? "How would I write a story about a fauxmance differently"? Or "How would I write a story about meeting new family differently"? Because I can't imagine intentionally writing a story that just shifts from one to the other. I don't feel like it has a particularly natural-feeling narrative flow.
Well, if I wrote a fauxmance with the same setup and reasoning for it that this book had, I definitely would've gone more into the relationship between the protagonist and her parents, and I would've had the protagonist and her partner do a lot more to fight against it and move on from it. I wouldn't have just had the event just... limply end and then move on to other things, even if that's more accurate to what would happen for a lot of people in real life.
If I did the half-sister story... I dunno. Because I still feel like that part of the story didn't really feel like a romance, even though it contained a romance. Like... the actual story was about Grace dealing with trauma, being afraid to face it, but eventually doing so and learning from the experience (to some extent). That was the actual story, but the actual story was being used to illustrate why Grace's relationship with Lia was so messy. So the story wasn't really about the relationship. Except it was, in the sense that after Grace finally finished dealing with her family issues, the book still had to resolve the issues between her and Lia so they could get together in a very weirdly forced way (i.e. by having Lia get randomly hit by a car so Grace can relive her trauma one more time).
I dunno! I just can't imagine that I ever would've written a story that was fundamentally about a single individual's trauma, and then did my best to structure the events of it so that it resembles a romance! And I feel like that's what ultimately happened here, for some reason! Not that I wouldn't write a story about a single individual's trauma, I just wouldn't try to make it a romance, and hopefully I wouldn't also imply that a romantic relationship was the solution to the trauma. (Not that I think that's what No Rings Attached did. Although I can't tell if it was due to lack of trying.)
Final thoughts
A lot of this book involved struggling and failing to navigate boundaries when one person isn't sure whether they really want a relationship or not, and similar questions of whether getting into a relationship is even a good idea when someone is scared of all the potential for harm that comes with a relationship. In regards to all this, there was one quote from Lia that really stood out to me:
"I would never pressure you to do something you don't want to do, but I also don't want to see you back out of something this important just because you're scared, especially not when I'll be there to hold your hand and back you up."
And I feel like that gets to the heart of it. There aren't any clear answers in this quote about what's right and what's wrong, I know that. I know there never really are clear answers when it comes to these kinds of things, when it comes to figuring out how to deal with personal emotional damage especially. But if anyone struggling with these kinds of issues can find someone who they trust to provide the kind of support described here, I think happiness ultimately comes from putting in the effort to learn to trust that support, from the admittedly scary trial and error that comes from actively testing that support, seeing where it helps you, seeing where it falls short, understanding and adhering to your own boundaries while still trying to expand those boundaries where you can.
I think this can lead to finding the parts of yourself that are worth loving, and connecting to that other person, or those other people, and learning to love them, too. Whether it's romantically, platonically, or otherwise--whatever kind of connection fulfills you, gives you confidence, and brings out the best in you.
I know you can do it.