Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Stranger Than Fanfiction

Like the title suggests, this reads like fanfiction. And not good fanfiction either. It reads like the self-insert fics I wrote about my favourite singer when I was 17 years old. Which is surprising, considering Chris Colfer does this for a living. I was just killing time writing improbable romantic fantasies without any kind of beta review or editing. And yet, down to the quality of writing, it very much feels like someone found my fanfiction.net account.

It’s not all bad, mind you. It’s compelling and short enough that I powered through it easily. But it’s not good either. It kinda feels like an after school special with the dumbed-down definition of trans, the disabled brother who could be a cardboard cutout for all the time they spend talking about him like he’s furniture, and the author hitting you over the head with life lessons.

I liked some of the humour (Lewis and Clark vs Lois and Clark; Joey’s mind-movie of God, Moses and Jesus trying to tell Christians they actually don’t mind gay folks; the William Shatner Online Institute), but other jokes fell incredibly flat, if not downright offensive (“I always wanted a gay best friend” 🤢).

I wanted to read the Land of Stories, since it’s so popular, but if this book is a faithful representation of Chris Colfer’s writing, I think I’ll pass.

Content Warnings

kj468's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Despite being published in 2017, this book very much had "2003, we haven't yet had a culture reckoning about what's not okay to say" vibes. There were lots of jokes that were rather cringe and one of the main characters has a disabled younger brother who seems to only exist to further the narrative of the able-bodied character (and includes language like "confined to a wheelchair"; they stay at a hotel called the "Teepee Inn" and while one of the characters acknowledges that it's "not very politically correct", the author could have just not used culturally appropriation as a hotel name). One of the main characters is trans masc and one is a gay guy, and both are closeted for most of the book; overall, these characters are handled well enough.

At times, the book felt a bit like D.A.R.E. propaganda, showing teenagers using drugs and alcohol in not particularly realistic fashions and with not particularly realistic effects (ie two of the characters seem to do approximately five shots while having a serious conversation, and one of the characters was already drunk before those shots; the characters smoke weed that the more experienced smoker of the group decides is "laced with some shit" but there's not much of an explanation for why the character thinks that).

Ultimately, I mainly read this book because I was on the beach and it was the book I had with me, and also to confirm my suspicions about the foreshadowed plot twist. The plot twist at the end felt fairly obvious to me, given the anvil-sized hints laced throughout the book, but I did like that part. If I read it in a different setting, I likely would have DNF'd it due to the general insensitivity throughout the book.

Content Warnings