Ann Zhao brings the online culture of Wellesley College to the forefront of her YA debut Dear Wendy. Amid the many anonymous online personalities on campus, freshman Sophie Chi runs Dear Wendy, an anonymous relationship advice account, bringing to life the trope of the Type A student. Fellow student Jo Ephron takes a more free-spirited approach, which she personifies with her own rival account titled Dear Wanda, and the two begin duking it out over who offers better advice. Both aromantic and asexual, Sophie and Jo unknowingly have more in common than they think, and become IRL friends who together navigate the complexity of not pursuing romantic relationships and what that means for their friendships and futures. We spoke with Zhao, a Wellesley alum, about the beauty of queerplatonic relationships, and the importance of cherishing community.

How did you want to explore the concept of decentering romance throughout the novel?

I had that idea in my head early on because I have struggled with this for a lot of my life. As soon as I became a teenager and people in my life were interested in romance, whether fictional or real, I always felt this massive disconnect with people. I liked reading romance books, but I didn’t care for shipping in fandoms. And I certainly didn’t care about any other people in my life that way. When I was in eighth grade, one of my friends got a boyfriend for the first time, and I was so grossed out every time she talked about it. As my life continued, more and more people were so obsessed with either finding love, or the person that they thought they were in love with. I felt very alienated because of that. I wanted to include those feelings in this book, because people really do feel this way. I also have a lot of friends who have expressed this feeling that, since they haven’t dated anybody before, and they haven’t fallen in love before, [it] means that they’re behind everybody else or that it’s never going to happen for them. I want to push back against that idea.

You really have to cultivate all of the relationships in your life, not just your romantic ones, because building a community of friends and family is so important to our survival. The whole heterosexual nuclear family—or even now, a gay nuclear family—is much more common, and I think it’s very isolating. It’s a shame that society, at least in the West, has been built off that [concept] in the last century, because it’s really lonely, even with one other person.

What was the most interesting aspect of writing about Sophie’s experience as a first-generation queer person and her relationship with her family?

The experience that children of immigrants especially have with talking to their families about queerness is that queerness is a very Western concept. Imperialism and colonization have suppressed queer communities in non-Western countries. The challenge with being a child of immigrants and talking to your family about queerness is that they sometimes just literally will not get it because they’ve never been exposed to these concepts before. They do not understand what to do with that. They may not have the language to talk about it. [For example] I’m not sure if the average Chinese parent who moved here in the ’90s would know the words for certain queer identities that are perhaps more obscure than just “lesbian” or “gay.” I am lucky to have pretty supportive parents, and even if they don’t get it, they support what I do. With Sophie, I wanted to show parents who don’t get it, but she still has a good relationship with her them otherwise.

What was the most important thing you wanted to portray about Jo’s fear of loneliness?

That storyline was very personal to me because for much of my life that anytime one of my friends has gotten into a relationship, I’ve felt personally abandoned by them even though that’s absolutely not the case. This especially happens when I start talking to them less after they’ve gotten into a relationship. I wanted to include that feeling in this book, because it’s a very common feeling for a person to have, regardless of their sexuality. This is especially an issue for teenagers because this is when [romantic relationships] start to happen.

Sophie and Jo are looking for alternative ways to create love within their own lives. Why was it important to showcase the intimacy of what queerplatonic relationships could look like?

I think that was important to show because it’s a thing that can happen for somebody who’s not a romantic partner of yours. I think it’s really special to have these magical moments in your friendships with people, and it should be celebrated and portrayed in fiction.

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao. Feiwel and Friends, Apr. 16 $19.99 ISBN 978-1-250-88500-5