“Real writing” is done by serious people, whereas fanfiction is written by weirdos, teenagers, degenerates, and women.”
This is a comics convention. When did this industry start caring about what fourteen-year-old girls like?
Have you ever found a book that feels as if it was written just for you? From the first two chapters, I was in love with this book.
- Small town girl – Check.
- Self-identified outcast – Check.
- Obsessed over a band or a show or a movie to the point of writing fanfic about it – Check.
- Who is also extremely pretentious and way too judgy – Big ‘ol check.
Claire, a sixteen-year-old self-proclaimed outcast, is obsessed with the TV show Demon Heart. After being embarrassed by one of the two leads during a convention Q&A, Demon Heart’s PR team rigs a raffle so that Claire “wins” the grand prize: the privilege to travel on a three-city tour as a grass-roots voice of the “true” fans, and to build up some positive buzz via social media with the hopes that the uptick in interest will save the show from being canceled after one season.
Aside from Claire’s parents and Rico, everyone else is an asshole. Claire makes it her mission to convince Demon Heart’s showrunner to make the two male leads of the show a couple as part of the show’s canon. She does this via some very shitty manipulative techniques. And she has a lot of shitty things said to her in response because she’s “just a crazy teenage girl who writes fanfic and doesn’t understand anything.”
Claire is also dealing with VERY STRONG FEELINGS she has for another female fan she met at the first convention and what it means. Is she gay? Is she bi? Can she tell this girl she likes her if she herself isn’t even sure what her feelings mean?
The good:
- I loved this book so much. I devoured it in just over 24 hours. The clear similarities between one of my all-time-favorite shows Supernatural and the obsessive fan culture that goes along with it had me grinning throughout the entire story.
- I also love to read and write fanfic but that is something I have shared with three people in total and I have not dared let anyone I know read any of it. For those who already know this, feel free to skip this next part but there are so many excellent excellent unpublished writers out there writing fanfic. In an era of prestige TV and passion project films, etc….I would read fanfic over consuming 90% of Nobel, Pulitzer, Oscar, BAFTA, Palme d’Or, or Emmy-nominated content.
The bad:
- The book basically shows that the ends justify the means. This is a fan’s fantasy come to life.
And this fan is a damn bully and uses her platform to shame and coerce the creators and the actors. - The ending was the fanficci-est of all, particularly the redemption arc of one of the aforementioned assholes. I’m not complaining because it was awesome, but it didn’t make much sense.
- Things were a little too neatly wrapped up but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the hell out of it.
And here are some other amazing quotes because I like them.
“If you care about gay characters so much, go make your own TV show.”
“I’d like to, but I’m too busy rewriting yours for you.”
……….
“I open my email, but there’s nothing new, so I open Facebook, but I hate Facebook, so I reopen Tumblr. My own personal endless loop of being an anxious person with a phone in public.”
