This is exactly the book it was advertised to be -- that is, an in-joky story about a nerd girl and the tv star she thinks she hates, and the action figure that brings them together.I enjoyed the pacing, the mild but engaging plotline, the extremely nerdy verisimilitude of the characters arguing about Starbuck and Team Edward and Marvel plotlines. And I liked the romance. It was not completely improbable, and the meet-cute is pretty adorable, really. Julie is guarded and suspicious and authentic feeling, but I suspect that would be less true if you were not in tune with the analogies she uses to describe her life. There's an original Star Trek episode about that..... anyway.Read if: This book seems like it's talking about Your People. You enjoy female characters who stay snarky even when their hearts are melting.Skip if: You find nerd culture more annoying than endearing.Also read: Princess Ben. Not at all the same genre, but the women reminded me of each other. I had a really fun time with this book. It is obviously written to a specific audience (re: nerds, particularly of the comic variety). I'd like to say that a non-comic book nerd would like the book, but to be honest, there are so many in-jokes that many of the references would be lost. However, there were a few sprinkled in there that I didn't know, and it didn't bother me, though having cursory knowledge of whatever series they were talking about helped.Moving on...No need for plot summary. It's not that complicated.Like most reviews pointed out, it's very short. It took me about an hour-fifteen, and I'm convinced that's because I don't know how to read PDFs on Kindle so I kept zooming in when I meant to turn the page. So... novella-length. I liked the protagonist, Julie, a lot. She's not a "likable" character in the classic sense (i.e. awesome in every way), but seemed very real to me. If anything, she's not-so-real because she's able to label and identify her fears so accurately. :) (But hey... that's character development for you.) I would also peg her as an archetype, which is appropriate considering the book deals with superhero comics.I also liked the structure of the novel(la), which had a blog post from the protagonist at the beginning of each section. It was illustrative of character, and presented a structure for each section without being too obvious. (Well, okay, the last section's blog post was obvious. But the first one was subtle.) But relating to the world through a favorite comic/story... that's what people do, so seeing a character doing that is very telling of character itself.If you read the plot summary, you know what's going to happen. There are no twists in this story. It does read a little fan-ficcy, but the whole book is about fandom. Subject matter dictating structure and style is cool to me. The joy in reading this came from little surprises, such as character choices. Also the jokes. I laughed aloud a lot.At biggest criticism, I'd say the novel(la) is a kind of nerd self-indulgence, but the author just seems to love the culture and subject so darn much, I can't even criticize it as that.The biggest con for me was not enough time to develop the other characters, including the love interest. The love interest gets the most development out of the others, but I wanted more. I esp. wanted more out of Julie's relationship with her "best friend," Mitch. They seemed like friends, but not best friends. More specifics and more development probably would've helped that.Short and enjoyable, not too deep, perfect for a nerdy Sunday morning.Now, one teeny-tiny sidebar, because I can't let it go: Why'd the author have to go and diss Capt. Janeway like that? Janeway is so underrated.
What do You think about One Con Glory (2010)?
Read this just after Fangirl and it was everything Fangirl should have been. Short but Fun!
—Katie
A fantastic read for those of a nerdy romantic nature that will make Sarah famous one day.
—veromontes
I NEED THIS ONE TOO. OMG. NERD ROMANCES, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?
—peterhurst
A cute romantic comedy about a prickly genre journalist attending a con.
—sweetthing76
