FF Friday: Ashlin & Olivia, by Aster Glenn Gray

[rachelmanija]

A sweet and extremely relatable F/F second-chance romance by the author of Briarley.

Olivia is on a one-week trip to Florence with her college class when she spots someone she hasn’t seen in seven years – Ashlin, who was her best friend when they were both thirteen, before that relationship came to a disastrous end. She can’t resist approaching her, though she’s nervous about whether Ashlin will still be mad at her.

From then on, the story alternates chapters from when Ashlin and Olivia were both thirteen, and in the present day when they’re both 21. At first it feels very cozy and idyllic, but it soon becomes clear that that’s a reflection of how Olivia idolized Ashlin. The depiction of what it feels like to be 13 and have a friend who’s your entire world and who understands you like no one ever has before, and how you create a two-person reality together, is incredibly vivid. And so is the depiction of the downside of that, and the intensity of being 13 in general.

There’s nothing melodramatically tragic going on – just ordinary pain and ordinary joy –
but it’s intense in a way that captures the intensity of those particular experiences. If you’ve ever experienced social anxiety or had a bad experience trying to introduce a new friend to old friends… let me put it this way, I am still gunshy about that.

It’s a romance, and a very believable, sensual one at that, but a bit of an unconventional one in that its main concerns are slightly to the side of the usual concerns of romance. (Perception, memory, a specific set of real-life experiences – there’s a moment involving crushed magnolias that is just brilliant.) The ending is more romance-conventional than the rest of the book, and I could have used it being either more open-ended or for it to be longer.

A lovely story and one that I think a lot of you could really relate to.

Only $2.99 on Kindle: Ashlin & Olivia

Comments

[asakiyume]

Excellent review. That part with the magnolias really does speak to how memory works (and tricks us).

[scioscribe]

Oh, that sounds wonderful. And... bought.

I love the way this sounds like it straddles romance and a lot of genuine coming-of-age issues and uses them to reinforce each other's complexity--obviously memory and romanticization are very important to both.

[sartorias]

It sounds lovely and I bought it, but I'm way behind in my reading due to being basically one-eyed for now.

[muccamukk]

*insert eternal sigh of frustraition at kindle-only books*

between your and kore's reviews I really want to read this.

[osprey_archer]

There's actually a paperback version, here.

[muccamukk]

print on demand via amazon. I should have said amazon rather than kindle. I don't mind ebooks generally.

[nenya_kanadka]

Seconding this sigh!

I discovered that my Kobo claims to read mobi, but how to get the Amazon books onto it idk. (I can't complain about them being Amazon since I've made money through them, heh.

[muccamukk]

There's some complicated thing about downloading an older version of Kindle Desktop, and then using calibre to strip the DRM. I've never had any luck.

[genarti]

I've done it, but it's an annoying number of steps and I have to re-remember how to do it every time.

IIRC, you get Kindle Desktop, and then you download a local copy of the book within that, and then you rummage around until you remember where it stores downloaded book files get the file, and then you add it to calibre (which you have installed a third-party plugin to to de-DRM things) to de-DRM it. At which point I convert it into epub, because I don't think my Kobo reads mobi, but possibly that step is skippable with the right Kobo model!

[carbonel]

If you own a Kindle device, even an ancient one, you can sidestep a lot of that.

If you can get the Kindle working long enough to register at Amazon, you can download the .azw or .az3 files directly to your computer. From there, if you have the de-DRM plugin installed on Calibre, it will convert it to mobi. You can set your copy of Calibre to automatically convert mobi files to ePub as part of the import process.

I have a hand-me-down elderly Kindle that I never use (I prefer my iPad), but having it has made my download-and-convert process for Kindle e-books (which I read on Marvin3) a lot easier.

[muccamukk]

It has to be a specific version of kindle desktop, or it won't work at all, and finding that is more than a little of a pain.

Latest update of kobo reads mobi though!

[genarti]

Bah, what a pain! That's exciting news about kobo, though.

[rachelmanija]

You can convert mobi files to epub using this free online tool: https://www.online-convert.com

If you don't want to pay anything to Amazon, maybe you could buy direct from the author?

[muccamukk]

You can use calibre too, and non kindle e-readers now read mobi. Getting the mobi files at all is more the problem; it's about a six step process involving tears and possibly witchcraft. Or at least it was last time I tried it.

I not infrequently buy from the author direct, but have met some hostility and am now longer hot on trying with total strangers.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I liked this one so much I ended up reading Briarley, and I liked that one too! Thanks for the rec.

I think what I related to in Ashlin & Olivia was entirely different from what you and possibly most people did, but that's a good book for you, I suppose.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, great! What did you relate to in it?

[mildred_of_midgard]

The idea that you have an overriding interest that you're incredibly passionate about, while everyone around you is watching Twilight or whatever. In general, I also really like books that manage to convey the joy someone finds in pursuing their passions, regardless of whether their particular passion appeals to me.

I've never had an intense friendship or ever really cared about friends, I can take 'em or leave 'em, so that part was a bit..."Yes, I have read about this phenomenon among you humans, in the course of my anthropological studies at a Martian university!" (Which is how I feel about a lot of things.)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Forgot to mention my favorite quotes from Briarley!

“Then we are at an impasse,” said the parson, “for my daughter is not mine to offer.”

The dragon mused. “She is engaged?”

“She is very much engaged,” the parson said gravely, for it was true, in its way: Rose was very much engaged in war work, in her studies, in a great many things that did not involve catering to the moods of a dragon.

BEST QUOTE EVER. Also,

It struck the parson that it had been quite foolish of the enchantress to try to force the young man to learn to love by cutting him off almost entirely from human contact.

See also: everything that is wrong with our society's system of retributive justice.