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A review by ihateprozac
Geekerella by Ashley Poston
4.0
3.75 stars. This was every bit the mega cute, geeky, contemporary romance I expected it to be!
Geekerella is a love letter to fandom encompassing cosplay, fanfiction, blogging, conventions, and fan culture. As someone who has attended and worked at cons, it brought back the feelings of belonging and joy I experience walking into a convention. It reminded me of all the friends and networks I've forged, and how online friends and con family helped me to make changes in my life and supported me in times of need. Every teen who's ever made an online friend or learned something about themselves through a book, TV series, or film needs to read this!
I won't lie, I try to avoid Cinderella retellings because I don't like the original story. I love the fairy godmother and all the glitz, but I get terribly anxious anticipating how awful the stepmother and stepsisters are going to be! But that being said, the way the source text is retold through the lens of fandom is executed so well! We have a con and cosplay contest as the ball, a vegan food truck and budding seamstress coworker as the pumpkin and fairy godmother, and an insecure budding actor as our prince. Throw in some secret identity and enemies-to-lovers tropes and you've got a really cute story!
It's a super fast read and you can't help but have a big ol dumb smile on your face the whole time.
Admittedly it's not perfect, and I had issues with the minor characters and some of Elle's behaviour. I didn't feel Josh and Brian's subplots were adequately fleshed out, and Gail was frustratingly scatterbrained and only constructed that way to propel one particular scene. I also wish the author had done a better job at addressing toxic fandom. I wish she'd highlighted that Elle's blog posts and in-person behaviour at the con went beyond simple critique and were hurtful to Darien. The author doesn't properly address the fact a) actors are just doing their jobs, and b) they don't belong to you. They're not pieces of meat or singing and dancing monkeys.
Overall this was a cute YA contemporary, and while I don't love Cinderella, it was an adorable interpretation of the source text through the lens of fandom. I think this needed to make a clearer message with regards to the fan-actor dynamic, but it nonetheless great to read a love letter to fandom and the friends we forge through it.
Representation: Indian-American MC, multiple queer female minor characters
Geekerella is a love letter to fandom encompassing cosplay, fanfiction, blogging, conventions, and fan culture. As someone who has attended and worked at cons, it brought back the feelings of belonging and joy I experience walking into a convention. It reminded me of all the friends and networks I've forged, and how online friends and con family helped me to make changes in my life and supported me in times of need. Every teen who's ever made an online friend or learned something about themselves through a book, TV series, or film needs to read this!
I won't lie, I try to avoid Cinderella retellings because I don't like the original story. I love the fairy godmother and all the glitz, but I get terribly anxious anticipating how awful the stepmother and stepsisters are going to be! But that being said, the way the source text is retold through the lens of fandom is executed so well! We have a con and cosplay contest as the ball, a vegan food truck and budding seamstress coworker as the pumpkin and fairy godmother, and an insecure budding actor as our prince. Throw in some secret identity and enemies-to-lovers tropes and you've got a really cute story!
It's a super fast read and you can't help but have a big ol dumb smile on your face the whole time.
Admittedly it's not perfect, and I had issues with the minor characters and some of Elle's behaviour. I didn't feel Josh and Brian's subplots were adequately fleshed out, and Gail was frustratingly scatterbrained and only constructed that way to propel one particular scene. I also wish the author had done a better job at addressing toxic fandom. I wish she'd highlighted that Elle's blog posts and in-person behaviour at the con went beyond simple critique and were hurtful to Darien. The author doesn't properly address the fact a) actors are just doing their jobs, and b) they don't belong to you. They're not pieces of meat or singing and dancing monkeys.
Overall this was a cute YA contemporary, and while I don't love Cinderella, it was an adorable interpretation of the source text through the lens of fandom. I think this needed to make a clearer message with regards to the fan-actor dynamic, but it nonetheless great to read a love letter to fandom and the friends we forge through it.
Representation: Indian-American MC, multiple queer female minor characters