Sixteen-year-old Claire lives a fairly lonely existence in her small town in Idaho. She doesn't quite fit in with anyone; her one "friend" is the girl she sits next to on the school bus who reads her bible the whole ride and doesn't say a word to her. Claire's one source of comfort is the fantasy television show Demon Heart.
She is so obsessed with the show that she writes fan fiction, or more specifically, slash fiction (fan fiction that pairs two characters of the same sex), about the show's two main characters, Smokey and Heart. She's fairly well-known among fans of the show; in fact, her Tumblr page has a very healthy number of followers.
When Claire learns that the two actors who play Smokey and Heart will be appearing at a local Comic-Con, she can't wait to meet them, and ask the show's creator whether the sexual tension between the two characters is imagined by so many of the show's fans, or whether the chemistry is intentional, and if they plan to bring that aspect of their relationship on to the show. She gets the chance to ask such a question during a panel discussion, and Forest Reed, the actor who plays Smokey, literally laughs at her and says she's crazy, which devastates her. Forest asserts that there's no way his character could be gay, and there's certainly no way he plays it that way.
But when the clip of Claire's question and Forest's reaction goes viral, the show's producers realize they're in trouble with their fans and the LGBTQ community, so they get Claire to be their guest at the next two ComicCons on their publicity tour. Their hope is that Claire will be starstruck and eventually will forget about her issues with Forest's response. But they don't count on how seriously Claire takes the idea that Smokey and Heart should be gay, and that LGBTQ representation really matters. It's not long before Forest, Claire, and the show's creator, Jamie, are in a bit of a battle, with each one trying to foil the other.
Meanwhile, as Claire becomes more and more insistent, she is also struggling with an identity crisis of her own, when she keeps running into Tess, a pansexual artist, who clearly is interested in Claire. But does Claire know what her heart wants? Would pursuing a flirtation with Tess, who thinks she should drop the idea of Smokey and Heart's sexuality becoming canon, distract her from her focus? Will Forest's exposure to the show's fans and fanfic help him better understand why such representation might be important to the LGBTQ community?
I loved the concept of Ship It. I'll admit I've read some slash fiction over the years and I do think it's good that the fantasy/superhero world is becoming more open to characters who are queer, gender fluid, etc. But I really found Claire's character to be utterly unrealistic and just way too entitled, plus I didn't like the way she treated other people, including Tess. The actions of other characters were a little questionable, too.
Others have enjoyed this, so it might have just rubbed me the wrong way. I loved the ideas on which the book was built, but I just didn't think the execution worked. Oh well...
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