review: QUEENS OF GEEK by Jen Wilde

Title: QUEENS OF GEEK by Jen Wilde

Genre: YA contemporary

Goodreads

Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis

When BFFs Charlie, Taylor and Jamie go to SupaCon, they know it’s going to be a blast. What they don’t expect is for it to change their lives forever.

Charlie likes to stand out. SupaCon is her chance to show fans she’s over her public breakup with co-star, Reese Ryan. When Alyssa Huntington arrives as a surprise guest, it seems Charlie’s long-time crush on her isn’t as one-sided as she thought.

While Charlie dodges questions about her personal life, Taylor starts asking questions about her own.

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 Jamie—no matter how much she may secretly want it to. But when she hears about the Queen Firestone SupaFan Contest, she starts to rethink her rules on playing it safe.

Review

Oh my goodness, where do I begin? This was such a cute & fun read! I loved all of the characters, the plot, the writing. I think every booklover will relate to the fangirling and the geek culture portrayed in this book. It was heartwarming and the romance will sweep you off your feet. This far exceeded my expectations and I can’t wait to read more of Wilde’s work!

Plot

I think the plot of this book was really well done! Although it only took place over a couple days at a convention, everything was so fleshed out. I felt that the characters really carried this one most, though there was definitely a plot around the events of the convention, the competition Taylor enters and interviews, etc. that Charlie participates in! I felt that everything flowed really well and everything was just so fun to read. I don’t remember there being any plot holes or things that could have been improved regarding the plot & considering I’d say this is more character driven than plot oriented, I’ll leave it at that!

Characters

The characters were definitely what made this story great. I always get worried in multiple POV books that I’m going to like one POV more than the other and therefore it’ll affect my reading experience but I found myself equally as invested in Charlie’s story as I was Taylor’s. I loved Charlie, Taylor and Jamie’s friendship together and I loved how this portrayed a positive female friendship! As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think there are enough positive female friendships in YA contemporary so I love it when we have them portrayed!

I absolutely adored Taylor. Her fangirl heart really resonated with me and though I don’t use tumblr, her tumblr updates reminded me of how I use my twitter. I also 100% related to her feelings about potentially meeting her favourite author. Obviously books are a huge deal for me so Taylor’s feelings there really resonated with me! I also loved and appreciated the anxiety and autism rep and was so moved when Taylor got emotional about seeing an autistic person like her represented in a graphic novel. I think this book dealt really well with important conversations re: representation and how important it is for people to see themselves in the media they consume. I really admired Taylor’s strength and resilience and her determination not to let her anxiety get the best of her. I found myself rooting for Taylor throughout the entire novel and just wanted her to have all the happiness in the world. Further, I thought there were also important conversations handled really well re: fat shaming. Taylor was confident and beautiful and knew she shouldn’t let other people’s words get her down. I just really admired her character.

I also really loved Charlie and her arc! Similarly to Taylor’s character, I really related to her fangirling as well- especially in regards to meeting someone you’ve looked up to for a long time! Also it was great to see some intersectional rep and discussions about intersectional feminism. Charlie is a bisexual Chinese Australian and there were some discussions about microaggressions she receives for both her ethnicity and her sexuality. One of the things I most admired and loved about Charlie was she was not afraid to stand up to people. When we saw a flashback of her ex-boyfriend being biphobic, she put him in his place, so to speak. I’ll refer you here to Shenwei @ Reading (As)(I)an (Am)erica’s review where they discuss the race rep better than I possibly could.

Not only did I like the individual characters but I loved the interactions the characters had and their relationships as well. I was shipping Jamie and Taylor right from the beginning and their relationship arc made me so happy. Jamie is so supportive of Taylor both as his girlfriend and his best friend and he’s also supportive of Charlie as well. There is a scene where Jamie stands up to Charlie’s ex-boyfriend, calling out his sexism and toxic masculinity. I also really loved Charlie and Alyssa’s relationship. I thought there were some great conversations about being a well-known person in a relationship and how the media affects your relationships, but I loved how Alyssa and Charlie ultimately didn’t want their relationship to be about what other people thought of them. As I’ve already mentioned, I loved the positive female friendship between Charlie and Taylor. I loved how supportive they were of each other and it’s just so nice to see! I honestly think I loved pretty much all of the characters in this book, and every character was so complicated and layered and just so human!

Writing

I honestly loved the writing of this. I felt the style was perfect for the story being told and it keep my attention for long periods of time. The way the story was written absolutely makes you smile, laugh and get excited along with the characters. You fall in love with the characters so quickly and Wilde made you want to keep reading to find out what happened with them. As I mentioned before, I really appreciated the important conversations re: representation, anxiety, microaggression, sexism and sexuality that were explored throughout the book. This was a pretty layered book and a wonderful debut and I’m 100% going to be reading everything Wilde writes.

Recommendation

Well, I very highly recommend this to every fangirl or fanboy reading this review. It’s a fun, quick read about a wonderfully diverse bunch of friends at a convention that incorporates some important conversations too. I really do recommend everybody give this a read!

Discussion

Have you read QUEENS OF GEEK? If so, what did you think? Also, let me know some authors you’d love to meet at a convention!

Thanks for reading!