A copy was provided by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review 
 I do not recommend this book to ace spectrum readers. I discuss why, at length, in my review. 
 This story contains some classic aspects of NA: college setting, main characters coming to terms with identity, lots of angst, struggles with family and carving out their own path. It has a chosen family aspect, complete with former professor mentor/mother figure. One of the romantic leads is a grumpy loner artist, and it spends a lot of time on his artistic process, gives lots of details to sink into around that. Cullinan has an engaging writing style, includes lots of details. 
 All of that might be enjoyable to me as a reader, were it not for two central aspects of the story that I found troubling and harmful, which unfortunately seep into pretty much every part of the story. 
 The first is the way the story engages with Japanese culture and religion (specifically Shinto). In my read, it goes beyond cultural appropriation into what feels like fetishization. There are no Japanese or Japanese American characters in the story. There is one absent character who was Japanese American, but he is dead; he was the husband of the mother figure in the story. The mother figure is a former professor and one of the people who "teaches" the other characters about Japan and Japanese culture, often by quoting her dead husband. 
 Every aspect of the story, every intense moment, every growth arc and realization in the story wraps around this intense fascination with and objectification of Japanese culture and religion. It's deeply embedded in the narrative, from the made up town name to the imagined history of the college where it's set, from the art the MC does to the way the romance arc is shaped, from the moments of epiphany to the culminating travel to Japan. These white men openly take and change aspects of culture and Shinto religious practices for their own, have mystical Shinto-ish religious experiences that impact their choices, go to Japanese restaurants when they are upset, make romantic bento boxes, think of their romance in anime story arcs. It's inescapable and creates this handwavy framework for the story, where the way these white MC's problems are solved is through objectifying and appropriating (often pseudo) Japanese culture, and religion. It means that the characters don't actually have to do the work themselves of figuring out what they want or need, they can just have a mystical Japanese religious experience to show the way, or figure it out based on what they know of Japanese culture. In short, this is lazy storytelling, on top of being deeply problematic. 
 There are other aspects of this kind of lazy storytelling; token disabled and POC secondary characters being the first that comes to mind. I especially disliked the way the disabled token character got "better" and didn't bring her mobility devices on a hiking trip in Japan, and the way the Black character of course explained at length about how many scholarships he got for college and how it was all because of Obama. There are other lazy handwavy moments, too. Both MCs get (view spoiler)[ cut off financially early in the school year, (hide spoiler)] but this is never presented as an actual issue, or something we even need to know how it gets resolved. Two different troubled family relationships are magically repaired despite the fundamental issues in them not being discussed or worked on. A core issue in the artist MC's arc around his art is just never resolved at all. A non-binary character is forced to go to a binary gendered bathhouse and it's presented as a joke and then never resolved, just handwaved away and never mentioned again. (This moment with the bathhouse is completely unnecessary to the plot, by the way. It is clearly only tossed in to make this "joke". And it's near the end, which I found very difficult as a non-binary reader, as it caught me by surprise.) 
 All of the things I mentioned so far are troubling, and were difficult to read. For me, though, the hardest thing was the ace spectrum representation. Here is a review by an ace spectrum reviewer, and here is another review by an ace spectrum reviewer. I will add links to more if I find them. This book centers Skylar's exploration of gray sexuality and coming out process around being gray ace. 
 I am sharing my perspective as someone who you'd think would generally be a core audience for a book like this: a queer person questioning whether I might be on the ace spectrum (specifically questioning whether I might be gray ace or demisexual). I found this representation of asexuality to be deeply harmful to me, as an ace spec questioning reader. It basically told me that my only hope, if I am gray ace, is to get rescued and accepted by an allosexual romantic partner, but that such acceptance and rescue are a rare miracle. 
 This book is pretty clearly written for an allosexual audience. Its cousin would be one of the trans acceptance narratives discussed in this post: http://www.gayya.org/2015/09/the-acce.... In general, Skylar is presented as someone with internalized self-loathing around his asexuality, who slowly comes to accept himself (through the love of a good man). Xander, the allosexual love interest, is presented as someone who literally has some kind of ace spidey sense in the form of an internal voice telling him that he shouldn't try to kiss Skylar, but that he's not wrong that Skylar is into him. Once they begin dating, Xander is presented as this miracle for accepting Skylar's boundaries, not pressuring him around sex, and saying that he doesn't feel that there is anything missing from their relationship. I found this framework deeply troubling and harmful. 
 Skylar comes out to Xander in a deeply pressured moment and then vomits afterwards, and Xander then of course, rescues him. In general, Xander (and other allosexual characters, esp his best friend Unc) are framed as rescuers for Skylar, around all sorts of things, including allonormativity and sexual pressure from his fraternity. Skylar is in a fraternity where he's often bombarded with sexual pressure that makes him feel sick. There is a notable hazing scene that was full of sexual coercion and really horrible to read, where he basically gets rescued from the sexual coercion by Xander and Unc. 
 Skylar's gray ace identity is framed through these intense contrasts that set Xander up as rescuer: Xander's acceptance of his boundaries vs experiences of sexual coercion and pressure. For example, Skylar feels pressured and obligated to do a form of sex work in order to please his father, that's all about passing as allosexual and going on fake dates with girls who then pressure him sexually, in order to gather information his father wants. He also feels like he has to flirt with his tutor so she won't tell his father how badly he is doing. Skylar is caught in this maze of passing that's full of coercion and pressure, and Xander creates a safe accepting space where he gets to be himself, rescues him from it. I found the inclusion of all this intense pressure and coercion very harmful to read; it often felt gratuitous, like it was there to frame Skylar as trapped, helpless and a victim. (It was also presented in a way that was deeply anti sex work, which was hard to read.) 
 There is an attempt to offer Skylar some support in the presence of an aroace secondary character, Zelda, who is also non-binary. I had high hopes for the inclusion of another ace spec character, but it didn't do what I was hoping it would to help the story (or Skylar). I did like that Zelda was so openly ok with being aroace (in contrast to Skylars fear and self-loathing) and that they are so critical of allonormativity. It gets lost, though, in the fact that they are basically critical of everything, and other characters seem to pat them on the head and not really listen, treating their politics more like grumpiness they feel affectionate about. There is one scene where Skylar talks to Zelda about ace stuff, and it is very infodumpy. (Though I did like the moment when Zelda sets a boundary around talking about sex.) I dislike infodumps of this sort; it sets Zelda up as an object more than a person; they are the one who will inform the reader, and Skylar, the truth of his identity. And yet strangely, the infodump offers more confusion than clarity to the reader, I think. In particular, I wasn't sure that there was a clear understanding of the split attraction model, which feels like something a gray ace romance should really be clear on. So, it was an infodump that...didn't really serve its purpose. Zelda promises to connect Skylar with other gray aces at the end of the conversation, which felt like it could be this great thing...and then it never comes up again in the story. (There are a bunch of dropped threads in the story, so it's not that surprising, but this one really didn't work for me.) Basically, Zelda is there as a stand in for ace community support for Skylar, but he doesn't actually get to be in ace community or really connect to other ace spec folks. We never even really see him connect with Zelda much after that one scene. 
 There is a queer hating bullying background story for one of the MCs. Some aspects of it worked for me: there aren't a lot of details about the trauma, and it's clearly presented as traumatic and still impacting his life. There are two things that I found troubling about it. The love interest "discovers" it through some rather intense internet research into his background when they are still strangers, and never tells him that he already knew, just waits for a longish while and asks him about it. The second thing is that his love interest comes up with this plan to help him establish a safe internet presence, as a cyberbullying survivor, a plan that is basically about remaking him, and then when it's shot down (as it should be), doesn't actually do much to resolve this open question of his social media presence and internet safety. It just kind of gets dropped from the story. Yet another dropped thread. Basically, the bullying is included as this plot device to get the characters together, and doesn't get the kind of narrative attention it needs. 
 Trigger Warnings: (view spoiler)[ Fetishization of Japanese culture and religion is embedded throughout the story. Sexual pressure and coercion targeting an ace spec character is described in detail. Ace spec identity is presented as something gray ace character should be grateful that an allosexual character would accept and respect. Self loathing ace spec character. Queer hating bullying in the past, and queer hatred from family members, strangers, frat brothers that is textually challenged. Parental emotional abuse. Non-binary character forced to use binary gendered bathhouse, their objections are minimized and used as a throwaway joke. Anti sex work slur, that gets challenged. (hide spoiler)]