Upside Down is the sweet, feel-good story I didn’t know I desperately needed.

Unfortunately, Jordan equates sharing the ace label with uniformity of experience, and until he realizes sharing a sexuality doesn’t make the tough parts of building a lasting relationship (like openness, communication, vulnerability) any easier than sharing any other label, he still may not find his HEA. However, neither man can resist the warmth and giddiness their five minutes together a day causes, whether brief snatches of eye contact or short conversations, and soon they are going on “friendly outings.”įor Jordan, rather than being the burden he expected, his new label is like the answer to all his dating woes and the insecurities caused by his sexual “abnormality,” and the overall ease and comfort of his relationship with Hennessy amplifies this feeling. Jordan being an “asexual, book-loving gay man” makes him almost irresistible to Hennessey, but he’s reluctant to get involved with Jordan since he’s in an emotionally vulnerable place, and Hennessey is his support group leader. When they next meet on the bus and they connect over a love of books, Jordan’s humor and intelligence makes him even more intriguing. Jordan’s anxiety and unease during the group meeting immediately reminds Hennessey of his own struggles, and he can’t help but be drawn to him. So when Hennessey moves to a new town (after breaking up with another schmuck convinced his D-game will “fix” him), he decides to pay it forward by starting his own support group. He’s also grateful to have found a queer aro/ace focused support group to help him along the way and recognizes how important the group was to him accepting and being at peace with himself. Headphones Guy Hennessey Lang knows first-hand how difficult it is being asexual in an allosexual world, a world that defines “normal” sexual behavior as wanting/needing sex and often conflates it with love, intimacy, and HEAs.

Yet, when his best friend Merry drags him to an ace support group, the feeling of being seen and known for the first time in ages is overwhelming-almost as overwhelming as officially meeting “Headphones Guy,” the fellow passenger on his bus he’s been crushing on. The thought of adding asexual to this plethora makes him alternately hopeful and ragey. Jordan O’Neil has fought hard to own his many, MANY, labels-gay, introvert, anxious, quirky (and its myriad subsets)-but he is not a fan of them. Audiobook Buy Links: Amazon/Audible | iBooks

Upside down nr walker