Book Review: "The One True Me and You" by Remi K. England

The One True Me and You was absolutely adorable and it left me smiling!

Kaylee is excited about attending her first Con and meeting friends she’s known online for years. And as a popular fanfic author, she’s looking forward to meeting some of the people who inspired her to start writing. But more than that, she wants to do three things: try using they/them pronouns, wear cosplay that’s more masculine, and kiss a girl for the first time.

Teagan is competing as Miss Virginia in the Miss Cosmic Teen USA pageant. She has a real shot to win it all this year, and the $25,000 scholarship will really make a difference in her future. She loves competing but doesn’t like having to hide who she really is—a gay, fanfic-loving, fan art-drawing geek. She just has to keep it all to herself for one more week.

But the Con and the pageant are in the same Orlando hotel. And when Kay and Teagan meet, they both feel an instant connection, but Kay hasn’t ever felt this way before and Teagan has to outsmart the pageant chaperones. Of course, both have the same nemesis—Miss North Carolina—who, if she discovers all that is going on, will make life hell for Kay back at home and will stop at nothing to ruin Teagan’s chances for victory at the pageant.

Cosplay and pageants in the same book? How did Remi England know me so well? I thought The One True Me and You was just a great story, one about finding your authentic self and finding the courage to show it to the world. While there certainly was angst in this book, ultimately I found it really joyful, and I read it in one sitting.

Definitely a fun, sweet, positive YA romance!

Book Review: "Spoiler Alert" by Olivia Dade

Olivia Dade's Spoiler Alert is a cute rom-com with more depth than I expected.

April is a huge fan of the show Gods of the Gates. She even writes fanfiction of her own, featuring the main couple from the show, Aeneas and Lavinia. But she’s always kept this activity and her affinity for cosplay a secret from her friends and family to avoid potential embarrassment and ridicule.

Marcus Caster-Rupp is the actor who plays Aeneas. Often named one of the sexiest men alive, he knows he’s lucky to have this job. But sometimes he’s tremendously frustrated with the direction in which the show is going, so he secretly writes fanfiction as a stress release. Of course, no one knows it’s him, because he could lose his job.

When April posts a picture of herself on Twitter wearing a Lavinia costume she made, the internet goes wild, and she gets more than her share of criticism for her plus-size figure. The trolling of the show's fans gets so ugly that Marcus steps in and asks her on a date, just to spite the internet.

While their first date was a publicity stunt, by the third date both are somewhat smitten. But when Marcus finds out that April is actually his best friend on the fanfiction server, he has to hide that side of him.

Can a relationship survive if one person is hiding a secret? What if both people have major issues with trust and family and fear? Spoiler Alert is light-hearted but deals with body shaming, parental issues, and keeping your private self private.

I thought this was a cute read that moved a lot slower than I expected it to, and there was a lot of drama amidst the romance. It is steamy, though, and the characters were fun. Definitely an enjoyable concept.

Avon Books provided me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "Ship It" by Britta Lundin

Sometimes a book has the best of intentions but loses its way trying to get there.

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...