If you asked seventeen-year-old Cass Williams to describe herself, she’d happily tell you she’s fat, queer, and obsessed with the Tide Wars books. What she won’t tell you—or anyone in her life—is that she’s part of an online Tide Wars roleplay community. Sure, it’s nerdy as hell, but when she’s behind the screen writing scenes as Captain Aresha, she doesn’t have to think about her mother who walked out or how unexpectedly stressful it is dating resident cool girl Taylor Cooper.
But secretly retreating to her online life is starting to catch up with Cass. For one, no one in her real life knows her secret roleplay addiction is the reason her grades have taken a big hit. Also? Cass has started catching feelings for Rowan Davies, her internet bestie…and Taylor might be catching on.
As Cass’s lies continue to build, so does her anxiety. Roleplaying used to be the one place she could escape to, but this double life and offline-online love triangle have only made things worse. Cass must decide what to do—be honest and risk losing her safe space or keep it a secret and put everything else on the line.
I love that fandom is becoming more mainstream. It's been hiding away in cracks and corners for a long time, but now being a nerd is cool and fandom is much more popular than it ever was. It's great to see novels celebrating this funny, inclusive, creative space.
That said, Cass brought most of her problems on herself, IMO. Anxiety is a bitca and it can sneak up on you when you're not paying attention, but she not only didn't make things easier on herself, she actively made them harder. She had chances to get help and to untangle the cords around herself and she didn't take them.
However! It's easy for me to sit out here, outside the story, and say things like that, because I'm not in the story. It did more or less make sense for her to act as she did. And she does have very good taste in friends! Tate is the friend we absolutely all need, Rowan is amazing, and the rest of the Home Base Team are fantastic (no spoilers, but apart from one.) It's a great illustration of the fact that friends don't have to be geographically close to be close anymore.
Overall I really enjoyed this, I love the positive view of fandom, and I'm very curious what was Jenna's formative fandom!
Out of Character publishes on the 7th February, 2023 in the US and on the 16th February, 2023 in the UK, using the same cover. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment