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A review by okcryptid
Ship It by Britta Lundin
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.