Attack of the Fanfic

Down with this Ship by Katie Kingman

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Kole Miller spends every possible minute writing for her fan fiction blog, Spacer - aka fixing the mistakes made by the writers of her fave show The Space Game. But then, to her horror, other students in her Creative Writing class find out that she's the one behind the blog. They threaten to reveal her identity unless she does several things for them - and that includes writing a ship she doesn't love into her story.

I really thought I would love this. I am a real fiend for books about fandom and fanfic. I've read a lot of them - which is probably why I was disappointed with this one. Much of what happens in Down with this Ship has been done before and done better. It also reminded me quite strongly of the stories I've read on Wattpad - sooo many boys wanting to go to the dance with the lead, too many "and then they all clapped" moments, cardboard cutouts instead of characters (also what happened to the Journalism teacher?? She just disappeared??), and really squiffy logic.

I know I'm from an older fanfic era, but I still dabble in fandom (as a lurker only these days!). A lot of things just didn't match my experiences. And that was very jarring. Posting fanfic on a blog was a really odd choice for Kole (something like AO3 is more likely). But the one thing that really stuck out - show (and book) writers do NOT read fan fiction (for legal reasons).

Ugh. I don't know. Maybe these things don't or shouldn't matter. But they do to me. This all said, I think quite a few Wattpadders would enjoy it.

If you liked the premise of this book, here are my top 3 recs:
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James
Geekerella by Ashley Poston

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