msjenne's review against another edition
emotional
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
In this book about the joys of fanfic, why is the fake fanfic so bad?
But otherwise it was pretty cute.
But otherwise it was pretty cute.
okcryptid's review
3.0
I've been waffling on this rating. I fully expected to hate this book based on out-of-context reviews I'd seen on, you guessed it, Tumblr--but the simple fact is that this isn't a terrible book. Cringey? Absolutely, especially if you're at all versed in the bottom of the barrel regarding Tumblr/shipping culture. Bad? Ehh... Look, from someone who makes it a priority to read the worst of poorly-written popular fiction, Ship It doesn't even come close. I'm not breaking any new ground by positing that the black-or-white read of this book as either being AAAA SO GOOD OMG I DIE or Highly Problematic, Must Shame Immediately Via The Discourse is highly reinforced by, you guessed, it, Tumblr culture.
The prose runs with fanfic swiftness, flowing so well that reading it is like traveling down a smooth highway at top speed, only to encounter some cringey line like Claire defending her highly explicit RPF to the subject of her fic by saying "They're just dicks, you dick!" and suddenly you're absolutely derailed, crashing, burning, dead. But once you understand that the author writes for Riverdale, the high melodrama and completely wack-ass character interactions become less jarring and more just weird, indulgent fun.
My main source of angst with this book comes from the characters. I don't mind that Claire is flawed--how else is she supposed to learn anything about herself?--but she's just so difficult to root for. If there were some sort of message here about her inability to be self-critical being toxic to the few important relationships in her life, it'd be different. I think that's what the author was going for, but it just didn't come through for me.
Forest would be the same way if he felt at all like a real person. I'm expected to believe that this young actor in his early twenties getting his first big break 1) doesn't have a Twitter and 2) never looked up stuff about his character online? On ANY form of social media? SmokeyHeart has such a diehard, universal ship following but he's never been sent a SINGLE piece of fanart? Come on. The dude isn't anything, he's just boring.
And then there's the issue of Tess, who gets done dirty the whole book through, equally a victim of having to bend to Claire's will like everyone else and poor development from the author in her trying to "force" queerness onto Claire (it just feels so jarring). There's an AMAZING moment where Tess highlights Claire's hypocrisy in her call for "equality" in representation by pointing out that SmokeyHeart shippers aren't calling for this same kind of representation regarding, you know, people of color, or women on the show from being unceremoniously killed off. Unfortunately, what feels like a really important revelation that Claire's demand for LGBT canon representation isn't entirely altruistic is sidelined in a "I asked Jamie to include more black people FWIW" line that just felt weak and inconclusive to me. If you weren't going to do anything with it, why bring it up at all?
I cannot imagine what this book is like to read if you haven't spent at least two years on Tumblr. Like something written in a whole different language, maybe.
Wild idea, but maybe you can enjoy this book like I did--neither hailing it as something to be lionized or demonized. It's just a wacky little story.
The prose runs with fanfic swiftness, flowing so well that reading it is like traveling down a smooth highway at top speed, only to encounter some cringey line like Claire defending her highly explicit RPF to the subject of her fic by saying "They're just dicks, you dick!" and suddenly you're absolutely derailed, crashing, burning, dead. But once you understand that the author writes for Riverdale, the high melodrama and completely wack-ass character interactions become less jarring and more just weird, indulgent fun.
My main source of angst with this book comes from the characters. I don't mind that Claire is flawed--how else is she supposed to learn anything about herself?--but she's just so difficult to root for. If there were some sort of message here about her inability to be self-critical being toxic to the few important relationships in her life, it'd be different. I think that's what the author was going for, but it just didn't come through for me.
Forest would be the same way if he felt at all like a real person. I'm expected to believe that this young actor in his early twenties getting his first big break 1) doesn't have a Twitter and 2) never looked up stuff about his character online? On ANY form of social media? SmokeyHeart has such a diehard, universal ship following but he's never been sent a SINGLE piece of fanart? Come on. The dude isn't anything, he's just boring.
And then there's the issue of Tess, who gets done dirty the whole book through, equally a victim of having to bend to Claire's will like everyone else and poor development from the author in her trying to "force" queerness onto Claire (it just feels so jarring). There's an AMAZING moment where Tess highlights Claire's hypocrisy in her call for "equality" in representation by pointing out that SmokeyHeart shippers aren't calling for this same kind of representation regarding, you know, people of color, or women on the show from being unceremoniously killed off. Unfortunately, what feels like a really important revelation that Claire's demand for LGBT canon representation isn't entirely altruistic is sidelined in a "I asked Jamie to include more black people FWIW" line that just felt weak and inconclusive to me. If you weren't going to do anything with it, why bring it up at all?
I cannot imagine what this book is like to read if you haven't spent at least two years on Tumblr. Like something written in a whole different language, maybe.
Wild idea, but maybe you can enjoy this book like I did--neither hailing it as something to be lionized or demonized. It's just a wacky little story.
labocat's review against another edition
1.0
I cannot put together how bad of a book this is but here, have a live-read twitter thread about how much I hated this and how unhinged Claire is and how much this book validates her viewpoint.
sc104906's review against another edition
4.0
I received this as an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Claire is obsessed with the new television show, Demonheart, to the point that she writes fan-fiction about the show. The only thing is, she ships the two main male characters. However, she is not the only fan obsessed with bringing these two characters romantically together. Claire is famous among the fic-ers. She finally has an opportunity to ask the creators and the actors about the romantic relationship between the two main characters when the visit with the local Comic Con. When Claire poses the question one of the main actors, Forest, completely shuts her down, which leads to a PR nightmare. To save face, the show invites Claire to travel with them around the country to visit other cons. Claire takes this as an opportunity to convince Forest and the creator of the show to ship the two main characters. While Claire forces others to confront their own issues with sexual orientation, she is also forced to address her own sexual identity, when she meets another cute fangirl at the con.
This was a cute story. It was completely in my wheelhouse, I basically love almost any book about a con. I enjoyed the characters. I thought it was an interesting exploration of sexual identity as it relates to authors and actors.
Claire is obsessed with the new television show, Demonheart, to the point that she writes fan-fiction about the show. The only thing is, she ships the two main male characters. However, she is not the only fan obsessed with bringing these two characters romantically together. Claire is famous among the fic-ers. She finally has an opportunity to ask the creators and the actors about the romantic relationship between the two main characters when the visit with the local Comic Con. When Claire poses the question one of the main actors, Forest, completely shuts her down, which leads to a PR nightmare. To save face, the show invites Claire to travel with them around the country to visit other cons. Claire takes this as an opportunity to convince Forest and the creator of the show to ship the two main characters. While Claire forces others to confront their own issues with sexual orientation, she is also forced to address her own sexual identity, when she meets another cute fangirl at the con.
This was a cute story. It was completely in my wheelhouse, I basically love almost any book about a con. I enjoyed the characters. I thought it was an interesting exploration of sexual identity as it relates to authors and actors.
linneahedvig's review against another edition
4.0
I loved this!! It reminded me a lot of Geekerella and The Princess and the Fangirl. It was really entertaining and cozy and brought up some interesting questions about the relationships between fans and shows.
gvdickerson's review against another edition
funny
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Very cute, loved the Supernatural nods. Very gay, very much reminded me of my teen self.
cavvythecat's review against another edition
1.0
Making the protagonist, the stand in for all fangirls, like This is not the statement that the author thinks it is.
rhallstead's review against another edition
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
rileyjarman's review against another edition
2.0
I was really excited for this book based off of the description but so many things just did not sit right with me. I’m gonna list them here just to keep my own thoughts organized:
- The fetishization of gay relationships by Claire. Already when I read explicit sex scenes between two male characters written by a female author I feel weird about the context of that, even more so in this book since Claire compares fan fiction to porn which just makes me feel icky.
- The normalization of writing slash about real life people (even if the “real life people” happen to be fictional, treating this as something acceptable is wrong to me).
- Having a character continue to write slash about said real life people even after meeting them as some sort of revenge when that person upsets them.
- Double whammy of real life people fanfiction and incest when they talked about Jonas Brothers slash fics! Whether this was meant to be a joke or not I did not like the way it was approached or handled, both characters laughed it off without actually seeing any true fault creating/endorsing this type of media.
- The stereotypes that Claire defaults to when thinking of people (the lesbian students at her school, being surprised Tess wears dresses) read as very ‘not like the other girls’ to me.
- The outing!
- The outing!!!
- THE OUTING!!!!!
- But seriously, having a Queer character out another character to their mom when they’ve already expressed they’re not comfortable being open about their sexuality??? Then to have those two characters reconcile and get together at the end of the novel???
The whole book read as a very juvenile, wish fulfillment-y story with so many flaws I really couldn’t enjoy it. The entire time I couldn’t help but assume that this author created a fake show to mimic an actual show they loved, but in this universe the author could make the show runner and evil bad guy and have the actors make out so that fans could get horny over it.
- The fetishization of gay relationships by Claire. Already when I read explicit sex scenes between two male characters written by a female author I feel weird about the context of that, even more so in this book since Claire compares fan fiction to porn which just makes me feel icky.
- The normalization of writing slash about real life people (even if the “real life people” happen to be fictional, treating this as something acceptable is wrong to me).
- Having a character continue to write slash about said real life people even after meeting them as some sort of revenge when that person upsets them.
- Double whammy of real life people fanfiction and incest when they talked about Jonas Brothers slash fics! Whether this was meant to be a joke or not I did not like the way it was approached or handled, both characters laughed it off without actually seeing any true fault creating/endorsing this type of media.
- The stereotypes that Claire defaults to when thinking of people (the lesbian students at her school, being surprised Tess wears dresses) read as very ‘not like the other girls’ to me.
- The outing!
- The outing!!!
- THE OUTING!!!!!
- But seriously, having a Queer character out another character to their mom when they’ve already expressed they’re not comfortable being open about their sexuality??? Then to have those two characters reconcile and get together at the end of the novel???
The whole book read as a very juvenile, wish fulfillment-y story with so many flaws I really couldn’t enjoy it. The entire time I couldn’t help but assume that this author created a fake show to mimic an actual show they loved, but in this universe the author could make the show runner and evil bad guy and have the actors make out so that fans could get horny over it.