Foes and Cons

Eliza Gellar has been a fan of Vampire Falls for many years. She knows every script in every episode in every series. Charlie Chamberlain and Eliza used to be friends. About a year ago, they fell out. Now Charlie and Eliza, along with Charlie’s eleven-year-old sister, Sadie, and Eliza’s best friend, Roxy, are at a fan weekend convention for Vampire Falls.

There is going to be a competition to find the biggest super-fans of the series, the ultimate prize being tickets to the San Francisco Comic-Con and to meet the lead female actor of Vampire Falls.

Who will get chosen to compete and who will win? What will Eliza and Charlie learn about themselves in the process?

This book is a love letter to belonging to a fandom and to the profound ability any fandom has to bring people together. The skill in Bowers’ book is the fact that she has created a TV series within the narrative with scripts, lore and fan fiction. The level of plotting required for this is impressive.

As many readers will suspect, there is a rekindling of the past romance between Eliza and Charlie. The scene where Charlie honours Eliza’s fan fiction is hugely romantic and will appeal to both romance readers and budding writers.

Eliza learns to value her own interests and preferences over those of her parents who would prefer that she apply to university rather than go straight for a creative career. It is unusual in YA for writers to show that there is an alternative viable path other than university and Bowers is to be commended for this. Bowers chooses to explore Eliza’s reasoning for this more thoroughly than most authors.