I was going to start this review the way I normally do, with a few paragraphs trying to sum up the story of the book. But having written nearly two whole paragraphs, I went back and deleted them, because I don’t really want to say too much about the plot of the book. I didn’t know a whole lot going into the book, and I think my reading experience was better for it.
Very short summary: Eliza Mirk is a teenager soon to graduate high school. Hardly anyone knows that she is the beloved creator of wildly popular web comic Monstrous Sea, which has millions of fans. One day, a new kid transfers to her school, and she discovers he is a fan of her work. They become friends, and Eliza struggles with keeping her true identity from him.
There were a lot of thing that reminded me of Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl in this book, except Eliza isn’t actually writing fan fiction, but creating her own unique and extremely popular web comic. Nevertheless, the explorations of creativity and fandom, the pressure to perform, the anxiety about not being good enough, what it’s like to truly love and identify with something – be it a book series, a web comic (or it could be movies or a TV show) are themes that run through both books.
Full review on my blog.
YAY! I love this book.