Tag: Sam Maggs

REVIEW: Con Quest by Sam Maggs

REVIEW: Con Quest by Sam Maggs

Posted on by Jaymie

Summary

Cat – 12 years old. Daughter of 2 famous comics writers. Geekicon pro. And this year at Geekicon, she is determined to win the Quest – an unsanctioned scavenger hunt set at the con. Winners get to do charity work for a week with a major movie star.

Alex – Cat’s twin brother. Artist. Gamer. On the autism spectrum. Megafan of Epic, the comic. Alex would be happy to spend the day in Artist’s Alley talking to other creators. But at Geekicon, he can get the autograph of his favorite artist. The fact that he can use that opportunity to help his sister in the Quest is icing on the cake.

Fi – 14 years old. The twins’ older sister. Charged with watching them at the con. If she can show her responsibility here, her parents might let her go on a camping trip with the cool kids from school. But first she has to survive the wall-to-wall people at the smelly nerdfest – and not lose track of the twins.

Review

This was SO FUN! I am a huge fan of comic and fan conventions. And a huge fan of books set at conventions. This is a great addition to that book niche. The convention here is clearly a SDCC-ish event, although the description easily fit my smaller con experience, too.  Con fans will recognize the cosplay, con food, the thrill of discovering a new artist, and meeting a celebrity experiences. There’s tons to love here!

Alex, Cat and Fi take turns telling the story, which is great. There’s a lot of sibling stuff going on here. Alex wants Cat to treat him as an equal partner. Cat is so used to behavioral hiccups with Alex that she bulldozes over him a lot of the time. This dynamic between Cat and Alex was one of my favorite parts of the book. And Fi is so desperate to fit in with the popular kids, it makes her a tyrant with her younger siblings at this convention. Fi changes the most over the course of the story, but Alex and Cat get to grow as well.

At times, the Quest feels like it’s taking the fun out of the con. Cat gets so driven that she rushes Alex away from things he enjoys but aren’t achieving anything for her. Thankfully, the scavenger hunt is only during one day of the event, so there’s always hope that they will get to just enjoy themselves after it’s over. There’s a lot of push and pull here about the goals of the characters for this event.

I’m not used to middle grade books having romantic plot lines beyond crushes. I read another one this year where there was a romance between the main characters, and for me it felt like it pushed the audience up into the 10-14 range rather than the typical 8-12 for middle grade. I tend to fall on the more conservative side, though, when it comes to dating and boyfriends/girlfriends in elementary school. That said, there is a romantic element here between Fi and a girl she knows from school who is at the convention. The fact that Fi is a point of view character draws the romance a little closer to the reader. But the fact that Fi is older might also give it some distance for the typical middle grade reader. It’s something to keep in mind. Third graders reading middle grade might have a different reaction to the romantic plot than 6th graders. Personally, I would set this for the older 10-14 crowd.

Convention fans should be sure to check this one out. I enjoyed the journey with Alex, Cat and Fi, especially in 2020 when the only cons we are attending are virtual! (LGBTQ+)

Rating: ♥♥♥♥½*

*♥♥♥♥½ = Loved it! Would re-read.

SATURDAY SMORGASBORD: Fandom and Fan Convention Stories

SATURDAY SMORGASBORD: Fandom and Fan Convention Stories

Posted on by Jaymie

Our family thoroughly enjoys attending comic and fan conventions, book signings, etc.. We have been to several over the last 8 years. We love meeting stars and authors, going to panels, and picking up new artwork of our favorite characters or new books from authors we discover.

Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve only been able to do some online fan events this year. While I appreciate ALL of the work that various groups have done to make these events happen, they are still no substitute for the real thing.

So if you are missing out on your usual con events this year, too, consider reading a book or two about the experience. I find these books bring back lots of fun Con memories (although I wish there were more for middle grade and adult readers). Here are some to consider:

Books for Older Kids/Teens

Con Quest! (LGBTQ+) –  A pair of twins ditch their family at a comics convention while they try to win a huge scavenger hunt. This is the book that gave me the idea to do this post. I love books like this! This was written by Sam Maggs. ♥♥♥♥½
The Game Masters of Garden Place – A group of kids playing an RPG (role playing game, like Dungeons and Dragons) find their characters have come to life. This was SO fun! You can read my review here.
Princesses, Inc – From the MIX line by Aladdin about a group of girls who open up a service of princesses and pirates to babysit neighborhood kids. You can read my review here.
Secrets of a Fangirl – A girl trying to keep her “geek life” separate from her popular “jock life” has a chance to win a contest to go to the movie premier for her fandom. But she will have to go up against older competitors who question her fan cred, and she risks showing her peers this geeky side of herself. This one is on my TBR shelves.

Books for Teens/Young Adults

 

Bookish and the Beast (LGBTQ+) – Book 3 in the Once Upon a Con series. Vance Reigns, Hollywood royalty, is hiding from a tabloid scandal in a small town. Rosie lives in that small town, and when she and Vance cross paths, and a rare book is accidentally destroyed, Rosie finds herself having to work off the debt. She also finds out that Vance is a jerk. Beauty and the Beast, anyone? I thoroughly enjoyed this one! ♥♥♥♥½
Bookishly Ever After – A book nerd tries to use the characters from her favorite books to help her negotiate a romance. You can read my review here.
Don’t Cosplay with My Heart – A struggling teen finds strength in her cosplay character and community. You can read my review here.
The Improbable Theory of Ana & Zak – An unlikely pair of teens team up to find  Ana’s younger brother at a fan convention when he sneaks away from a class trip. You can read my review here.
Eliza and Her Monsters – The anonymous creator of a popular webcomic  loses her anonymity, and everything she has built starts to fall apart. I have this one on my TBR shelves.
Fangirl (LGBTQ+) – When two sisters who grew up immersed in a magical fictional world (Harry Potter-ish) start college, one wants to keep writing her fanfiction and stay connected to that part of their childhood while the other wants to make a complete break. I read this forever ago – while at a fan convention – and it was delightful. ♥♥♥♥♥
Geekerella – Book 1 in the Once Upon a Con series. Elle wants to win a cosplay contest for a reboot of her father’s favorite scifi show. Darian wants nothing more than to be in the reboot, but the fandom seems to have written him off completely. Maybe Elle can change all that. You can read my review here.
The Geek’s Guide to Unrequited Love – A guy plans how to tell his best friend he loves her – at New York Comic Con. I haven’t read this one yet.
Now a Major Motion Picture – When their grandmother’s famous book series is being turned into a movie, a teen and her younger brother are on set to watch the magic happen. Until things start to fall apart which puts the whole movie in jeopardy. You can read my review here.
The Princess and the Fangirl (LGBTQ+) – Book 2 in the Once Upon a Con series. In this Prince and the Pauper-like tale, a Starfield fan and the actress who is absolutely over the series must team up to find out who is causing trouble for the franchise. ♥♥♥♥½
The Pros of Cons (LGBTQ+) – A mix-up at a hotel hosting 3 different groups – a percussion convention, a fan convention, and a taxidermy convention – brings three teens together in an unexpected friendship. You can read my review here.
Queens of Geek (LGBTQ+) – Three teens at a convention find unexpected chances at love. I haven’t read this one yet.
Verona Comics (LGBTQ+) – Two teens who meet at a comic convention prom wrestle with personal issues and their feuding families (rival comics shop owners) as they grow closer together.

 

Books for Adults

Battle at the Comic Expo – A comics creator and a con security chief team up when a fan goes rogue and comes after the creator for revenge. This is a new title to me. I only heard about this one when I was doing research for this post.
Broken Genius –  Book 1 in the new Will Parker Thriller series. In 2011, a coding error by young revolutionary CEO Will Parker cost a college student her life. His self-directed penance was joining the FBI Cyber Division. Years later, Will is on a case at a Midwest comic convention when he discovers the case involves tech from his pre-FBI life. You can read my review here.
The Con Artist – An illustrated mystery that takes place at San Diego Comic Con. I haven’t read this one.
Loathe at First Sight – As a joke, Melody shares an idea for an app starring male strippers in a survival game, but it quickly becomes her company’s hottest new project, and she’s running the whole thing. There’s a portion of this book that takes place at a gaming convention, some of my favorite scenes in the book. I just posted a full review for this here.
Pros and (Comic) Cons – An anthology of comics and prose focused on comic conventions. I haven’t read this one.

 

REVIEW: The Unstoppable Wasp: Built on Hope by Sam Maggs

REVIEW: The Unstoppable Wasp: Built on Hope by Sam Maggs

Posted on by Jaymie

[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Marvel Press in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]

Summary

Nadia Van Dyne – the Unstoppable Wasp – was stolen from her father, Hank Pym, before she was born. Her mother was kidnapped while pregnant and killed, and Nadia was raised in the Red Room. But now she’s free. She’s with her step-mother, Janet Van Dyne, and she runs a science lab called G.I.R.L. – Genius In action Research Labs. Nadia runs the lab out of Pym Laboratories and hopes it will convince SHIELD to recognize and encourage more female scientists.

Nadia’s training, her personality, and her bipolar disorder make her pretty driven. And when she’s struggling, she can take on too many things at once and become a workaholic. To help, she takes her meds, goes to therapy, and her friends keep an eye on her. Also to help, Janet gives her a virtual assistant – VERA.

VERA reminds Nadia to get enough sleep and take her meds. It also helps her do research and track her projects. She even gets to meet VERA’s creator, Margaret Hoff. But despite all of her productivity, Nadia is soon feeling estranged from all of her friends and lost in projects that the others don’t think she should be working on. Nadia’s family is concerned about her, but she doesn’t seem to recognize that she might be in trouble.

Review

I have mixed feelings on this one. There are things I loved and others things I struggled with. My only connection to Wasp before this was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is not the same timeline/universe, so I had a lot of catching up to do when I started reading this. That added to the lag I felt early on as I tried to find the rhythm of this. Other readers more familiar with Nadia won’t have that issue.

Other places I struggled:

  • VERA, the crux of the plot, was barely present in the first third of the story. While this made for some great character development time, I kept wondering where the plot was.
  • There’s some name dropping early on that didn’t feel essential to the narrative. I get anchoring the book in the larger universe – and characters like Janet and Bobbie and a fun surprise at the end do that. It makes sense that a Marvel author would want to play with the larger palette of Marvel characters, but when a name seems to be there just to be there, I was distracted.
  • I was also distracted by the use of the words “boys” and “girls” when talking about adults in the story. For example, there was one scene in my review copy where Nadia and Margaret are together doing something and the book refers to them together as the “girls.” Nadia is 16; Margaret is at least 23 or 24. I couldn’t find her exact age, but she started her company at 22, and it’s been doing business for at least a little while.  In a story about empowering women and girls, it was jarring to see this pair referred to as “girls” when one of them is an adult.
  • The previous things probably sound minor in the scheme of things, but the one piece that almost drove me to giving up on the book was the intrusive inclusion of “Nadia’s Neat Science Facts” throughout the story.  These are not footnotes (which the book also has, but uses pretty well), but instead they are first person interludes of science information. I found that they interrupted the flow of the story almost every time they were used. And some didn’t even seem necessary at all to explain the science going on in the story. I wish they had been included at the beginning or end of chapters instead, where there’s a natural break, rather then interrupt the narrative of the book.

But it wasn’t not all a struggle. There were also things I loved:

  • I thoroughly enjoy found family stories, and this is a great one.
  • Nadia’s squad has some diversity in race, in sexual orientation (two of the girls are dating), and one team member has cerebral palsy.
  • The action descriptions, especially in the fight scenes, are outstanding. I read a lot of superhero stories, and often the fight scenes lose me, and I skim past them. They get wordy and drag down the story. This was NOT the case in this book. I could actually visualize the scene from the writing. The author did an exceptionally good job with this in my opinion.
  • The mental health and therapy pieces are woven in naturally. Medication and education about her bipolar disorder are normalized, everyday parts of Nadia’s life.
  • Once the VERA story takes off, I enjoyed the book. I didn’t click readily with the team in this because of some of the dynamics in play because of the story, but I did enjoy seeing Nadia and her crew working together.

I might check out a sequel if the storyline sounds compelling. Sadly, I didn’t really click with any of the characters enough here for them to draw me back no matter what, so the plot will be a big factor.

If you enjoy the Unstoppable Wasp already, or if you like superhero stories or STEM stories featuring young women, consider giving this one a go.

Rating: ♥♥♥½