Ship It

Claire's an obsessed jerk. Let me just get that out ahead of everything else. Claire is one of two viewpoints in this book, and I won't even call her a protagonist, because Forest, the male viewpoint character, is FAR more sympathetic. Yeah, he's a touch homophobic at the beginning of the book, but he learns. Claire, on the other hand, has one goal that she's obsessed with and Will. Not. Let. It. Go. Single-minded determination can be a great thing, but Claire doesn't see or understand the harm she's doing in pursuing her goal. The few times she does see, she doesn't seem to care. Sure, she's sixteen, but holy crap, girl. Maybe, when people tell you a thing can't happen, you should stop and ask them why instead of stubbornly insisting it CAN happen if only they'll let it.

Let me back up slightly. Claire is a superfan of a show called Demon Heart. In the show, a demon hunter and a demon-with-a-heart play off each other in what the fans see as a romantic manner. This comes as a huge surprise to at least one of the stars of the show, Forest Reed, who plays the demon hunter. Forest has a rather disastrous interaction with Claire at a Q&A (he's an asshole about her question, which is about the two characters being gay) and the show decides, in order to salvage things, to have Claire travel with them to the next few public appearances, since she's a big name in the fandom. Forest sees this as a job he has to put up with for a paycheck. Claire sees this as a chance to make her ship real, and goes to - well - ridiculous lengths to convince the showrunners and stars.

Ultimately, Claire is right that representation is incredibly important. And she's probably even right that showrunners and stars should take risks with their careers to bring that representation to screen. But she's such an asshole about it that I can't even cheer her on. She's even kind of a jerk to Tess, the cute fanartist she meets at the first convention (and keeps running into at the ensuing cons).

Claire aside, I actually enjoyed the book. There were a couple of twists at the end that I very much enjoyed.

One bit I did NOT enjoy was Tess identifying as pan “because bi means two.” That definition of bisexual - that it's binary, only attracted to men and women - is biphobic and has NEVER been true. Bisexual means attracted to your own gender and others. That first definition tries to make bisexuals seem transphobic, and I'm frustrated that it persists. So it's disappointing to see the statement made in the book go unchallenged.

There's also an anxiety-inducing scene late in the book that I can't say much about because it's a major plot twist, but if you have issues with intimidating men, maayyyybe skip this one.

There is quite a bit of representation in the book, between Tess, the pansexual black girl, Claire, a questioning/queer white girl, and Forest, who is definitely questioning his sexuality, and learning about gender and sexuality representation issues from Claire. Oh, also Caty, a studio assistant, who is bisexual. (But who clarifies, unnecessarily, that she's attracted to boys and girls.)

So I'm quite torn on this book. I liked it, but it has issues.

You can find all my reviews and more at Goddess in the Stacks.

This book had some very good parts in it. Unfortunately, it also had some pretty bad parts in it, so it's a little difficult for me to properly describe how I feel about it.

As someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere and used my limited access to the internet to get hardcore into the world of fanfiction, there was a lot in the book for me to relate to. Lundin's descriptions of writing fic and of having literally no idea about your own sexuality are both pretty spot on.

That said, I really didn't like Claire. At all. I've shipped crack ships before, so I understand the vague frustration that comes from knowing it will never be canon. However, a really, really important aspect of fandom, in my opinion, is understanding that your view of the characters is just that: YOUR view.

Claire doesn't get that. She is convinced that the entire fandom feels the way she does, which then convinces her that she MUST convince the showrunner that it needs to be canon. She comes across as a zealous evangelist who refuses to understand that her view isn't the only one. Which is super unlikely, especially in fandom. Sure, some ships do often have an overwhelming majority, but there are ALWAYS others. Or people who prefer no ships at all and love the source material for other reasons.

If Claire had used the influence that she is (inexplicably) gifted to fight for the rights of fanfic in general, I would have been all for it. Instead, she alienates good people in favor of singlemindedly pursuing something that is really just for her own gratification. As Tess rightly points out, but of course Claire ignores her. Or rather, she adds a throwaway sentence about diversity into her zealous SmokeHeart speech at the end and for some reason that makes it all okay.

I dunno. This book had really good potential, but instead it seemed to represent the part of fandom that honestly can get really toxic and rude to anyone who doesn't think the same way they do, and I'm just not down for that.

And, while I try not to judge too much because I guess it's not technically hurting anyone, RPF does kind of freak me out. When you start getting invested in the personal lives of real people, things can get really messy, really fast. Especially when those real people don't actually feel or do what the fans wish they would. My point with this one is that the RPF Claire posted about Forest and Rico was WAY out of my comfort zone, and that knocked her from “overzealous and a bit inconsiderate” to “wow, she really doesn't care about anyone else's personal feelings, does she” in my eyes.

I'm usually willing to overlook some improbability in my books (which this one was full of) because it is fiction, but I can't overlook problematic characters like Claire.

I'm still giving this 3 stars because I really did enjoy some of the prose and the attempt to relate to fandom and people of all walks of life, but it really missed the mark by having such an extremist main character and giving her no real character development to realize why she might be wrong about some stuff.

Fandom and fanfic are amazing, beautiful things in so many ways. This book does not represent those ways. Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and Ashley Poston's Geekerella are both much more my speed when it comes to fandom representation.

EDIT 11/10/18: Every time I think about this book or see it in a store, I cringe a little. It's like a mediocre food that has a worse aftertaste. Three stars just didn't feel right anymore, so down to two it is.

EDIT 10/23/21: I accidentally clicked into something and now Goodreads thinks I just barely reviewed this book. What the heck Goodreads, it's been three years and tbh I did not really want to have think this much about this book again. Blegh.

This book did not sit well with me. I kept having to push myself to finish it. There were a few good moments here and there but overall this just felt very immature and toxic. And this is coming from a former avid shipper. I don't “do” fan-fiction but many SHIPS have sailed from my end. So no mystery in why I decided to pick it up. But what a disappointment. I didn't see cuteness in this. I saw very unhealthy relationships and behaviors. I didn't “ship” Claire and Tess. They did inexcusable hurtful things to each other. I generally wouldn't ship Claire with anyone because she was awful. She had no consideration for anyone's feelings but hers. Forest is in the book just to make Claire look good. Which is nearly impossible because she's an obsessive, entitled teenager that is unrelenting about pushing her own fantasies on other people. You know things are going terribly wrong when the homophobic actor looks more of a victim than the queer mega fan of his TV show. The ending wrapped up in a nice bow did little to redeem any of the things that happened up until that point.

I'm really amazed on how people can find endearing such a mean-spirited book. Claire comes off as if she's on a moral high-ground because she advocates for queer relationships on TV, while talking about country people as of they're all inept hicks, brushing aside several instances where racism comes into question and generally just being awful to the people around her. There was one point where I actually sympathized with her, what Tess did to her at that point was horrible, they should have never gotten back together.

Honorable mentions: Cathy - the unhinged social media manager. What a peach that one, huh?