Ship It
Do my Coop people remember how painful reading Matched was for me? Keep that in mind, because this book might've actually been worse.
Now that I'm done with work, my reading schedule has returned back to normal. I'm hoping to cross some ARCs off my list, but tonight I settled in with B. Lundins's Ship It. I highly suggest you look at some reviews and laugh at how terrible it is. Also, this will probably get slightly spoilery, but I don't think you'll want to read the book anyway so? Does it really matter? This is a YA book, and a very YA review. It gets a little PG 13. (If you're one of my younger Coop Kids, I'd just... skip this one maybe??)
Okay. This book is told from two perspectives, Claire, who's a friendless teen fangirl, and Forest, who's an actor on the show Claire's a fan of. I hated them both. Claire is annoying and manipulative and just a total mess. Forest is just sort of an asshole, though he redeems himself a little bit towards the end.
The book starts off with a piece of Claire's fanfiction. Specifically, a piece about the main characters of her favorite TV show, Demon Heart. (The main characters are named Smokey and Heart, which makes me want to laugh but also cry a little bit. Who let this mess be published???). It is a VERY VERY VERY NOT AT ALL PG fanfic. The entire book kinda fetishes gay men, and in every fanfic Claire writes there is some sex element, despite her being all "It's not about them having sex." Ugh. Whatever.
Claire ends up going to a comic con (I think?? Could be something else. Some con.) and does that thing where famous people talk on a stage and then you can ask questions and there's a lot of nerds?? Claire meets a girl named Tess who is very clearly the pretty love interest tm. Claire asks the actors something about "Hey so like your characters are clearly in love so um when's that happening actually in the show" and the Forest (Asshole actor dude?) is like "Um never they're not gay what you're crazy" and then Claire cries.
Then, very unrealistically, she gets chosen to go tour around with them for a bit? Which is actually cause the TV show people are like "Uh yikes we need the queer community to still like us so um lets get her back on our side". Claire decides it is up to her to get Mr Big In Charge TV Dude to make her ship canon. She also gets closer with Forest, who wants her to show him some fandom stuff, and also confides in her that his father was a big ol homophobe (IMPORTANT LATER). Claire is also sort of attracted to Tess (pretty love interest tm?) despite Claire being A Very Heterosexual Straight Teenage Girl. I also think it is funny that Claire is surprised that Tess is queer and wears dresses. WHat? No! Not a feminine queer girl... That's just unrealistic!
Then one night during the second convention, Tess and Claire go out on a date (Claire does not really know if it is actually a date?) to a gay cafe, despite Claire being A Very Straight Heterosexual Teenage Girl. They return to Claire's hotel room and make out for a while. Claire decides she is Probably Not A Very Straight Heterosexual Teenage Girl, but doesn't want to really think about it and does not like the idea of labeling herself. Gay panic happens.
The next morning Claire and Tess run into Forest, and despite Forest being a total homophobe earlier, he is now really super on board with Claire and Tess dating. Claire is very embarrassed by Tess telling Forest that she is Homoromatic Pansexual, and I think embarrassed about being kinda gay?? I REALLY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT WENT ON IN THIS PART. Tess ends up being the one to apologize later, despite really having done nothing wrong.
ALSO, Claire is still set on needing Mr Big In Charge TV Guy to make Heart and Smokey fall in love. She obnoxiously follows him around and bugs him, to the point where he bribes Forest to try to get her to go away. Oh! And somewhere around here Claire writes a fanfic about Forest and his costar Rico. It is terrible.
Claire and Tess go out for sushi and run into Tess' friends, who DO NOT know that Tess is a huge fangirl, and Tess would like to keep it that way. Despite Tess asking her not to say anything, Claire is all "Yeah actually I'm a huge nerd and I ship this very gay ship and! Claire does too! Exciting!" With the logic of "If they're her friends they wont judge her and should know". Later Tess outs Claire to Claire's mom as payback. What a cute relationship! Neither apologizes. After that they sort of don't talk for two months, but will end up getting back together because they ran into each other again. Tess pushes Claire to come out through out this entire book, which, eh. No. That's really sucky.
Forest ends up finding the fanfic that Claire wrote about him and Rico. It describes a sexual encounter between the two, and also talks about his dad beating him, because of the fact that his dad is a big ol homophobe. WHICH IS SOMETHING HE CONFIDED IN HER AND WAS VERY PRIVATE. Okay. Great. Wonderful. Forest confronts Claire about it and she's like "Um dude chill lol it's just some good ol fictional sex"
Claire ends up sort of holding Mr Big In Charge TV Guy hostage, and hacking Mr Big In Charge TV Guy's twitter and tweeting nice things about SmokeHeart fans until Mr Big In Charge TV Guy agrees to make the ship canon? He ends up leaving, which, good. It is truly terrifying and very, very, manipulative. I was sort of hoping she'd get sued.
And eventually everything wraps up and Heart and Smokey end up making out on stage at sanfran comic con, but not in the TV Show because Mr Big In Charge TV Guy is still homophobic but now probably hates lgbtq+ people even more becuase of Claire's actions.
Claire does not ever learn from her actions. I'm going to bed now.
Now that I'm done with work, my reading schedule has returned back to normal. I'm hoping to cross some ARCs off my list, but tonight I settled in with B. Lundins's Ship It. I highly suggest you look at some reviews and laugh at how terrible it is. Also, this will probably get slightly spoilery, but I don't think you'll want to read the book anyway so? Does it really matter? This is a YA book, and a very YA review. It gets a little PG 13. (If you're one of my younger Coop Kids, I'd just... skip this one maybe??)
Okay. This book is told from two perspectives, Claire, who's a friendless teen fangirl, and Forest, who's an actor on the show Claire's a fan of. I hated them both. Claire is annoying and manipulative and just a total mess. Forest is just sort of an asshole, though he redeems himself a little bit towards the end.
The book starts off with a piece of Claire's fanfiction. Specifically, a piece about the main characters of her favorite TV show, Demon Heart. (The main characters are named Smokey and Heart, which makes me want to laugh but also cry a little bit. Who let this mess be published???). It is a VERY VERY VERY NOT AT ALL PG fanfic. The entire book kinda fetishes gay men, and in every fanfic Claire writes there is some sex element, despite her being all "It's not about them having sex." Ugh. Whatever.
Claire ends up going to a comic con (I think?? Could be something else. Some con.) and does that thing where famous people talk on a stage and then you can ask questions and there's a lot of nerds?? Claire meets a girl named Tess who is very clearly the pretty love interest tm. Claire asks the actors something about "Hey so like your characters are clearly in love so um when's that happening actually in the show" and the Forest (Asshole actor dude?) is like "Um never they're not gay what you're crazy" and then Claire cries.
Then, very unrealistically, she gets chosen to go tour around with them for a bit? Which is actually cause the TV show people are like "Uh yikes we need the queer community to still like us so um lets get her back on our side". Claire decides it is up to her to get Mr Big In Charge TV Dude to make her ship canon. She also gets closer with Forest, who wants her to show him some fandom stuff, and also confides in her that his father was a big ol homophobe (IMPORTANT LATER). Claire is also sort of attracted to Tess (pretty love interest tm?) despite Claire being A Very Heterosexual Straight Teenage Girl. I also think it is funny that Claire is surprised that Tess is queer and wears dresses. WHat? No! Not a feminine queer girl... That's just unrealistic!
Then one night during the second convention, Tess and Claire go out on a date (Claire does not really know if it is actually a date?) to a gay cafe, despite Claire being A Very Straight Heterosexual Teenage Girl. They return to Claire's hotel room and make out for a while. Claire decides she is Probably Not A Very Straight Heterosexual Teenage Girl, but doesn't want to really think about it and does not like the idea of labeling herself. Gay panic happens.
The next morning Claire and Tess run into Forest, and despite Forest being a total homophobe earlier, he is now really super on board with Claire and Tess dating. Claire is very embarrassed by Tess telling Forest that she is Homoromatic Pansexual, and I think embarrassed about being kinda gay?? I REALLY HAVE NO CLUE WHAT WENT ON IN THIS PART. Tess ends up being the one to apologize later, despite really having done nothing wrong.
ALSO, Claire is still set on needing Mr Big In Charge TV Guy to make Heart and Smokey fall in love. She obnoxiously follows him around and bugs him, to the point where he bribes Forest to try to get her to go away. Oh! And somewhere around here Claire writes a fanfic about Forest and his costar Rico. It is terrible.
Claire and Tess go out for sushi and run into Tess' friends, who DO NOT know that Tess is a huge fangirl, and Tess would like to keep it that way. Despite Tess asking her not to say anything, Claire is all "Yeah actually I'm a huge nerd and I ship this very gay ship and! Claire does too! Exciting!" With the logic of "If they're her friends they wont judge her and should know". Later Tess outs Claire to Claire's mom as payback. What a cute relationship! Neither apologizes. After that they sort of don't talk for two months, but will end up getting back together because they ran into each other again. Tess pushes Claire to come out through out this entire book, which, eh. No. That's really sucky.
Forest ends up finding the fanfic that Claire wrote about him and Rico. It describes a sexual encounter between the two, and also talks about his dad beating him, because of the fact that his dad is a big ol homophobe. WHICH IS SOMETHING HE CONFIDED IN HER AND WAS VERY PRIVATE. Okay. Great. Wonderful. Forest confronts Claire about it and she's like "Um dude chill lol it's just some good ol fictional sex"
Claire ends up sort of holding Mr Big In Charge TV Guy hostage, and hacking Mr Big In Charge TV Guy's twitter and tweeting nice things about SmokeHeart fans until Mr Big In Charge TV Guy agrees to make the ship canon? He ends up leaving, which, good. It is truly terrifying and very, very, manipulative. I was sort of hoping she'd get sued.
And eventually everything wraps up and Heart and Smokey end up making out on stage at sanfran comic con, but not in the TV Show because Mr Big In Charge TV Guy is still homophobic but now probably hates lgbtq+ people even more becuase of Claire's actions.
Claire does not ever learn from her actions. I'm going to bed now.
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