Reviewed by Leigha on
I should love this book. I SHOULD LOVE IT. It’s a romance, it’s nerd culture, it’s movies, it’s cons. How can I not love it? But despite all it’s many (and I do mean many) awesome call-outs, I didn’t love it. I blame it on one thing and one thing alone – the fairy tale retelling.
I’m not the biggest fan of a fairy tale retelling, especially the more popular Disney-fied stories. While ever rendition of Cinderella is a bit different, they all have the same beats – girl lives with neglectful family, girl meets boy under false pretenses, boy loses girl to curfew, boy and girl live happily ever after. I just…I’ve read it a million different times. Very rarely do I find a book that makes it interesting or new.
It’s too bad I didn’t like the structure because I really love the idea of a love story set at a convention. I actually met my husband standing in line at Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog at DragonCon in Atlanta (which is what I suspect ExcelsiCon is modeled after). Love stories can and do happen at conventions all the time. I’m looking forward to more fiction fawning over con life, but hope more of them will refrain from this structure.
If you’re not into nerd or fandom culture, this book will probably lose you. The setting isn’t explained at all. But, perhaps that’s the point? This book is not targeting the Chloe’s (or even the Cal’s) of the world, it’s targeting the Elle’s, the Sage’s, the people who voraciously (and sometimes viciously) live for their fandom.
tl;dr While a cool premise and setting, I disliked the fairy tale structure of the novel.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- Finished reading
- 29 December, 2018: Reviewed