Me on Eliza and Her Monsters

Title: Eliza and Her Monsters
Author: Francesca Zappia
Release Date: May 30, 2017
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins imprint)

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea. Eliza can't imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community, and has no desire to try. Then Wallace Warland, Monstrous Sea's biggest fanfiction writer, transfers to her school. Wallace thinks Eliza is just another fan, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza's secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she's built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart.

Eliza and Her Monsters is smart and serious, a look at creativity and fame and pressure, at art and fandom and community. At how we isolate ourselves and how we connect with other people.

Eliza is shy, creative, and totally okay with being a loner when she's at school. She's fine with it, because her friends are somewhere else. Easily reachable on the internet. She doesn't need the real world with her health-conscious parents pushing at her to do something else with her life or her sports-focused younger brothers. She knows what she's doing, what she'll keep doing after high school and college. She'll continue on with her webcomic Monstrous Sea, continue chatting with the giant mass of fans online who devour each and ever page. Fans who don't know that a high school student is the comic's creator, which is totally fine with Eliza. Anonymity is something she craves. But then she meets Wallace, then she finds out he's one of her comic's most popular fanfiction writers. Then she wonders if talking face-to-face with people isn't so bad. If there's more to life than Monstrous Sea.

A big part of this story is all about creativity and passion. Eliza came up with Monstrous Sea because she was inspired, because she had a story to tell. And she was happy. But then it blew up, then it became popular. Then it gained an audience of fans, superfans, and trolls alike. Then came the pressure and the expectation. It turned less into something Eliza did for fun and something more for other people so they wouldn't rage in the comments if she had a down week and the art wasn't as good or if she got busy and missed an update or two. The webcomic becomes her life, becomes everything, but that isn't healthy. She's more than an artist, than the person who created the universe of Monstrous Sea and its cast of characters. She struggles with finding the balance between work and play, between school and family and the comic. I think this book accurately covers what a lot of creative types and creators go through, the balance between life and working to pay the bills that many search for on a daily basis.

This book is serious and thoughtful, about the struggles of art and the strain it puts on artists. About the ways we isolate ourselves when we don't want to interact with certain parts of the world. About the ways we can connect to people halfway around the world, have meaningful connections and conversations with them over a shared interest. About how so many can love one idea, like a TV show or comic, because they found something moving and meaningful in it. About how online communities and interactions can be both supportive and a hindrance. About the realities of anxiety and panic, how keeping it bottled up inside isn't healthy. I would definitely recommend this to fans of the author's previous book, for those looking for an honest look at the intersection of art and fandom and mental health.

(I downloaded an e-galley of this title from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.)

Me on Queens of Geek

Title: Queens of Geek
Author: Jen Wilde
Release Date: March 17, 2017
Publisher: Swoon Reads (Macmillan imprint)

When BFFs Charlie, Taylor and Jamie go to SupaCon, they know it's going to be a blast. What they don't expect is for it to change their lives forever. Charlie likes to stand out. SupaCon is her chance to show fans she's over her public breakup with co-star, Reese Ryan. When Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie's long-time crush on her isn't as one-sided as she thought. While Charlie dodges questions about her personal life, Taylor starts asking questions about her own. Taylor likes to blend in. Her brain is wired differently, making her fear change. And there's one thing in her life she knows will never change: her friendship with Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about the Queen Firestone SupaFan Contest, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Queens of Geek is smart and honest, expressive and openly diverse. It's a great look at how people with so many vast differences can come together because of similar interests, and a great look at what can happen when you take risks.

Charlie is kind and expressive. Explosive, personable. SupaCon means furthering her acting career, it means fan interaction, but it also means spending time with her ex and co-star Reese while nursing a serious crush on fellow actress and YouTuber Alyssa. She's torn between getting to know Alyssa and being forced to spend time with Reese becasue both the studio and the movie's fan base want it so much. Taylor is smart and supportive, creative and focused on the fantastical. SupaCon is her chance to meet her favourite author, her chance to tell her how much the books mean to her, how much she's inspired her. But then the signing ends early and Taylor's only chance to meet the author is a fan contest, which means being up on stage in front of hundreds of people, which might be too much of a change for her to handle. Especially on top of her growing anxiety in terms of change and college and possibly not being with her other best friend, and crush, Jamie.

I like the back and forth between Charlie and Taylor's points of view. Their stories, their journeys, are rather different. Which is great to see. There's no one way to be a teen girl, there's no one way to interact with the world and work to make your mark on it, and there's no one way to fall in love. There isn't a specific gender you have to fall in love with. You don't even have to fall in love if you don't want to. Taylor and Charlie aren't perfect, they still get anxious, get worried. They panic and say the wrong things. They don't want to get hurt and make decisions that upset and hurt others. But they do learn. It can be really hard to let go of your neuroses and your worries, to stand up to the people who hurt you. It can be hard to ignore the hate. But friends and family, other support structures, are always there to help you.

This book brings up so many current topics, important topics, like intersectionality and feminism, like body-shaming and mental health, like sexuality and internet fame. I hope teens read this and feel empowered, especially teen girls. Do what you want, like what you like or who you like, and don't let anyone take that enjoyment from you. I would recommend this to fans of Fangirl and All the Feels, those looking for diversity in contemporary YA, and those who love being part of a fandom that gives you the chance to breathe and express yourself.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Raincoast Books.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (274)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love
Author: Sarvenaz Tash
Release Date: June 14, 2016
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

From Goodreads:

John Hughes meets Comic Con in this hilarious, unabashedly romantic, coming-of-age novel about a teenager who is trying to get his best friend to fall in love with him from the author of Three Day Summer.

Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy...
Archie and Veronica...
Althena and Noth...
...Graham and Roxy?

Graham met his best friend, Roxana, when he moved into her neighborhood eight years ago, and she asked him which Hogwarts house he’d be sorted into. Graham has been in love with her ever since.

But now they’re sixteen, still neighbors, still best friends. And Graham and Roxy share more than ever—moving on from their Harry Potter obsession to a serious love of comic books.

When Graham learns that the creator of their favorite comic, The Chronicles of Althena, is making a rare appearance at this year’s New York Comic Con, he knows he must score tickets. And the event inspires Graham to come up with the perfect plan to tell Roxy how he really feels about her. He’s got three days to woo his best friend at the coolest, kookiest con full of superheroes and supervillains. But no one at a comic book convention is who they appear to be... even Roxy. And Graham is starting to realize fictional love stories are way less complicated than real-life ones.

I am rather intrigued by the books coming out that have more to do with fandom and conventions and how it's totally acceptable to be into comics and sci-fi and fantasy when you're a teen. I remember high school in not the best light, as a place where some classmates would give me and my friends weird looks for being into fantasy novels and art and writing our own stories. That doesn't have to be hidden anymore, and I wish books like this, books like Fangirl and others about fandom and friendship, were around when I was in high school.

Blog tour: Gena/Finn

Hi all! Welcome to one of today's stops on the final day of the Gena/Finn blog tour! I'm so happy to be part of the blog tour, I love books by Hannah (they always punch you smack in the heart), and I was excited for this one with her friend Kat and reading about fandom and life and problems and how everything can intersect. Thanks so much to Raincoast Books and to Hannah and Kat for answering my question. :)

Gena/Finn certainly highlights how some internet friendships start, two people who have a shared interest in something coming together and talking about it before moving onto other things. Like Gena heading off to college and her meds and her hallucinations. Like Finn struggling to find work and figuring out her relationship with Charlie. In the beginning they barely know each other, but they still share some personal details. Do you think this is what internet friendships give us, a space to share some of the things we can't with those close to us? Is it the weird filter the Internet provides, the ability to have the sounding board qualities of a person but not be an actual person? The separation from not talking face-to-face?

KAT: Something Finn comes to realize early on in the book is that the people you meet online actually are real people. I think Charlie feels that his online friends, the members of his guild, are just faceless names, but Gena and Finn are waking up to the fact that the person in the computer is incredibly human and important. And, in fact, they find it really hard to maintain a separation. So I would say the internet can provide that filter for some people in some cases, but I don't think that's definitive of online friendships.

HANNAH: I don't think Gena ever had to wake up to that, actually. She has some of the same experiences I do--she's been in fandom for a long time, she went to a small school and thus is very good at deep conversations and very bad at small talk--so for her opening up has always been really natural.

Title: Gena/Finn
Authors: Hannah Moskowitz & Kat Helgeson
Release Date: May 17, 2016
Publisher: Chronicle Books

Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have little in common. Book-smart Gena is preparing to leave her posh boarding school for college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city. Gena's romantic life is a series of reluctant one-night-stands; Finn is making a go of it with long-term boyfriend Charlie. But they share a passion for Up Below, a buddy cop TV show with a cult fan following. Gena is a darling of the fangirl scene, keeping a popular blog and writing fan fiction. Finn's online life is a secret, even from Charlie. The pair spark an unlikely online friendship that deepens quickly (so quickly it scares them both), and as their individual "real" lives begin to fall apart, they increasingly seek shelter online, and with each other.

Gena/Finn is honest and heart-wrenching, so telling about the relationships we have with others and the different things we share with different people. This reads almost like an homage to fandom, to the friendships we make with people we only know across the vast distance that is the Internet, because sometimes those friendships end up defining us. For better or for worse, or somewhere in between.

Gena is bright and excited, pushing hard to make it out of her boarding school and off to college in the fall. She's looking forward to the new start while spending her downtime writing fanfics about her current interest, the cop show Up Below. It's great expanding on scenes and imagining what might've happened or (according to some fans) what should've happened. Finn is fresh out of college and floundering a bit. Now that's off in California with her boyfriend Charlie, she's struggling to find a decent job and sound happy in the e-mails to her parents. The only thing she has that cheers her up is Up Below and the little corner she's carved out for herself in its fandom. It's like they needed each other when they first met online. They needed someone to talk to, to talk out ideas, to share personal things that they wouldn't dare tell those close to them.

So much of this book is about fandom, about being a fan and sharing thoughts and ideas with other fans. About meeting people who feel the same way and slowly sharing other things with them. It shows the ups and downs of fandom, the fanfic writers and artists, the ones who are obsessed with certain characters, the ones who go to conventions to meet the actors and cosplay. The ones who hide themselves in fandom to avoid their 'real lives.' Some people need this escape, this time away from work or school or family in order to express themselves.

There's also a lot to be said about friendship and relationships in this book. The differences between the-person and online ones, the things we hide from those we're close to and the things we freely share with near-strangers on the Internet. How do we define these relationships? Can we? Clearly we need them, clearly Finn and Gena need them. Different people do different things for us, support us in different ways. They let us share or create, yell or cry or party. As multi-faceted as we can be, so are the relationships we have.

This book definitely doesn't hide that behind fandom, behind cheery letters to family and friends behind stories and art, there are people looking for a way to escape real life. That sometimes things get too hard, get too serious, and we're so afraid to ask for help, to admit defeat, that we retreat into something that makes us happy. That sometimes it's the connections we make with people we barely know that make us the strongest or the safest we've ever been. A definite must-read for those looking for books about friendships, relationships, fandom, and how they shape our lives.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Raincoast Books.)

Me on Kill the Boy Band

Title: Kill the Boy Band
Author: Goldy Moldavsky
Release Date: February 23, 2016
Publisher: Point (Scholastic imprint)

Okay, so just know from the start that it wasn't supposed to go like this. All we wanted was to get near The Ruperts, our favorite boy band. We didn't mean to kidnap one of the guys. It kind of, sort of happened that way. But now he's tied up in our hotel room. And the worst part of all, it's Rupert P. All four members of The Ruperts might have the same first name, but they couldn't be more different. And Rupert P. is the biggest flop out of the whole group. We didn't mean to hold hostage a member of The Ruperts, I swear. At least, I didn't. We are fans. Okay, superfans who spend all of our free time tweeting about the boys and updating our fan tumblrs. But so what, that's what you do when you love a group so much it hurts. How did it get this far? Who knows. I mean midterms are coming up. I really do not have time to go to hell.

Kill the Boy Band is outrageous, full of four teen girls, their current obsession, and the lengths they'll go to to meet them. Only things go a bit weird and nothing goes according to plan.

This book is all kind of insane. I knew going it that it was going to satirize fandom, that it was going to highlight the dark dark DARK side of fandom. The obsessive side, the oblivious side, the nasty side. Everyone seemed like they'd lost their minds. That for the four teen girls, consequences didn't matter. Than they could kidnap a member of a boy band. That they could tie him up. That they could ransack his hotel room.

There's always going to be a dark side to being a fan, unfortunately. To be part of a fandom. There will always be people who spend all their time on their fandom. Who go to every concert or event. Who try to get backstage. Who follow them. Who send them creepy-sounding messages. It's not healthy. This book shows how unhealthy it is, what it does to people. It makes them vicious, like Isabel, or in denial, like Apple, or regretful, like Erin. Or thoughtful, like the narrator. The narrator, by whatever name she goes by, seems to be the most sensible. She's shocked at every turn when her friends do something crazy. Like kidnap Rupert P. Like go through his pockets. Like go up to the band's hotel room. But she still goes along with it. She wants to know. She wants to see.

I can see where many will find this book funny. It's outrageous, both in plot and in the different characters. In the beginning, I thought it was fun. But I kept waiting for common sense to kick in with someone, anyone, and it didn't. I think that's where I went wrong with this book, that I had to suspend my common sense, and I couldn't fully do that. This book just wasn't it for me. BUT. But. If you were already interested in reading this, if the summary grabs you, if you're looking for a dark comedy about being a crazed fan, then by all means give this a read.

(I received an advance copy of this title from Scholastic Canada.)