Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

Summary from Goodreads:

Three friends, two love stories, one convention: this fun, feminist love letter to geek culture is all about fandom, friendship, and finding the courage to be yourself.

Charlie likes to stand out. She’s a vlogger and actress promoting her first movie at SupaCon, and this is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star Reese Ryan. When internet-famous cool-girl actress Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought.

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 her best guy friend Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about a fan contest for her favorite fandom, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde, chosen by readers like you for Macmillan's young adult imprint Swoon Reads, is an empowering novel for anyone who has ever felt that fandom is family.

Review:

I knew I was going to love this one. This book represents so much of what we are lacking in YA. It’s diverse. It tackles mental health. It covers fandoms in a way I’ve hoped and dreamed of in YA for some time. And it all takes place at a convention. Needless to say, the book would have to be all sorts of terrible if I didn’t like it. Thank goodness, I ate it up.

Reading it felt like attending my first con all over again –except maybe better. My first con was New York Comic Con –when I was in college and only just discovering fandoms and even what my fandoms were. Mine, was believe it or not, possibly more dramatic than the one in this book. It involved some serious ins and outs with my then boyfriend. And like Taylor, I’m not usually someone who loves giant crowds of people. It also involved me seriously taking a look at my life and what I wanted out of it, and realizing who my true friends were. So, I totally and 100% get how lives can change at these cons.

Also take note, when I went to Comic Con in New York, we bought tickets the day of…I’m pretty sure today you have to take a fan test to even qualify to get tickets –which are not sold at the door. And when I went, I had no idea what I was getting into and what I’d discover. It led to me going to other cons like Boston Anime Con and Leaky Con (my real fandom) and later ALA, Boston Comic Con, Walker Stalker Con, and BEA. And while there’s a lot of things I remember with a sour taste in my mouth from that weekend at my first con, I probably would never have had the courage to go into the big crowds I belonged to later, if I had never experienced it to begin with.

Needless to say, Taylor was like my spirit animal. And Jamie is like the dream guy all geeky girls dream about. But, weirdly, my favorite moments of the book were the ones that centered on Charlie. I became obsessed. I loved her character. I loved her star quality and her shine. And I super fell for her love story. Reading about her felt like guilty pleasure reading about the love life of Taylor Swift. It felt like celebrity gossip.

So, this book seriously had a lot going for it. It took place at a con and described the con in such a true to life way. The love stories were awesome. Sometimes it read like gossip magazines, in a good way. It was diverse and full of growing up moments. The one thing that did nag it me a little, throughout, was some of the cheesiness. Sometimes the snarky dialog came off as cheesy and not funny and sarcastic (like I think the author intended). There’s a lot of clichés in the conversations between Taylor and Jamie and not enough substance. And a lot of her Taylor’s online postings were super cheesy too. I wanted more substance there also. Though, I guess, she did always sound like a teen.

All in all though, this was amazing. I loved the concept. I super related to everything. And I could not put it down. I give it a 9/10.