A Review of The Fandom

The Fandom is a debut novel by Anna Day, who brought to life an idea Angela McCann submitted to the Chicken House Big Idea Competition. Violet and her brother Nate, along with her best friend Alice, are huge fans of something called The Gallows Dance. Their other friend, Katie, is just along for the ride. However, at a convention, they find themselves sucked into the world of the story. Violet has to take the role of the protagonist and steer the story to it's pre-written conclusion.

Ah. Oh dear.

I don't enjoy disliking books. I much prefer to read a book and be able to point out things about it I liked. I think it's also nice to be able to tell others to read a book, because I enjoyed it. However, I also must be honest, and I didn't like this one.

And that's a shame, because the concept was good. I'm not saying it was original or unique, but I think it's the first time it's been done specifically based to YA dystopian fiction? This means that Day can parody the conventions of the genre. Things like the way love interests always have silly names, an unusual but pleasant scent and the way their eyes are described. I'm not sure if things I am pointing out where meant to seem overdone for that very reason, in fact.

Under a cut because it's a negative review, for spoilers, and it became long. The style of this one is different to my normal reviews, too.

The story begins using a class project on explaining favourite books to allow Violet to tell us the plot of The Gallows Dance. Keyword, tells. I did enjoy the concept of the project and think it is something that should be allowed in more schools. However, at the end of it, I was left wondering how such a convoluted story ever became popular, and how it managed to make a good movie that many people seem to like.

Oh, and during that, we get the line "Shut it, Bell, you massive ding-dong" said by Katie. This is not how teenagers talk. It would more likely have been an eight-letter word starting with F. It makes even less sense coming from Katie, who has thinking up creative insults as a character trait. In fact, if any teen would be good at coming up with creative insults, it would be one with a penchant for Shakespeare.

"When I pulled on my costume that morning, I suddenly understood how Clark Kent could fly, how Peter Parker could climb walls." I think that has more to do with inherent powers of someone from Krypton/powers obtained from the bite of a spider than their outfits. The outfits are just their disguises, but they can still use their powers when not wearing them.

Throughout this book, people and objects are compared to things in other works of fiction as a means of description. It doesn't work. I've never liked it as a literary device, as you can't bet on everyone being familiar with a work of fiction. Often, something is described as looking just like the film version of The Gallows Dance, but we've obviously not seen The Gallows Dance. "Talks like Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory" and "Think Jacob from Twilight" are two other such instances.

Also, throughout the early part of the book, Violet mentions often that she wishes she was part of the world of The Gallows Dance. This is acceptable when the world is something like Hogwarts, which would be much more exciting than our normal world, if not for the threat of Voldemort, but for a world where cities are routinely bombed and people executed by hanging for no crime at all? Where some people are trapped into areas with rampart poverty, disease and hunger? It seems callous of her. More specifically, she outright wishes she was Rose, who (we find this out in her opening narration, so I'm not counting it as a spoiler) dies at the end of the story. The reason for this is literally because Rose's love interest is attractive.

During the Con, only a few other fandoms are mentioned. Game of Thrones, Wonder Woman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Marvel, Star Trek. Some group as the Scooby Gang. All it would take is one mention of many other cosplayers whose outfits you can't identify. At a Comic-Con, there will be many obscure fandoms represented, and no-one will know them all. One that is mentioned is Avatar (the blue alien movie, not the amazing animated series) and I doubt you'd see anyone cosplaying that nowadays. Oh, and Violet compares herself to other cosplayers because they're all "thighs and cleavage and fake bake."

The queue for The Gallows Dance at the con is shorter than expected, which makes me think the series is not popular, exactly, but well-liked by certain crowds. It contains a few teenage girls scrolling through selfies on their phone. Because that's all teenage girls do. Honestly, you'd have to be really close to know what they were looking at. Maybe they were reading the news.

There is also this line, spoken by Alice. "And FYI, who'd want to be Sally King [fictional author of The Gallows Dance]? Poor cow killed herself after only one novel. I'm going to write a trilogy." Look, it's spoken dialogue, and I normally give teenagers huge leeway with spoken dialogue, because it can be more realistic. So when I say I did flinch myself at this line, that's because it does sound seriously callous. And who really says FYI out loud?

Russell Jones, the main actor, is an "arrogant-actor-tosspot who beds models and snorts cocaine" which is all the personality the actors in this book ever get. You know, it would be interesting to see him brought to the world of The Gallows Dance. I bet his reaction to seeing the world he's been acting in brought to life would be interesting.

Also, Alice's fanfiction is so allegedly popular that the main actor himself has heard of them? Give me a break, I wish authors understood how hard it is to be popular online. Once you find out what the plot of them is, it's seriously hard to believe. They all contain a character who looks like Alice with a name starting with A in a relationship with one of the main characters.

It was around here, where they were brought into the world of the book, that I started coming up with a theory. Because getting pulled into a fictional world is totally illogical, but head trauma induced time travel makes total sense. So, if they've time-travelled one way, why could the author not have come from the future? Perhaps Sally King travelled to write the book as a warning to humanity about what the future looks like if they use genetic enhancement, and her suicide was faked so she could go back, and they would meet her at the end of the book? It would also explain why so much from the film was just like the real life counterpart - Sally King had been there, and could take the production team to the exact location and describe it. Oh, and Violet was probably an ancestor of Rose. However, the actual explanation leads a lot to be desired. I will put this one in white, because it is a pretty significant spoiler: it's a coma dream! It's literally all a dang dream. There's implications that it might be more than just a dream, but since that happened in a dream, who can say? Also, this becomes obvious at the rough halfway point of the book, making anything that happens after it feel pointless. /spoiler

The book does pick up somewhat once they enter the world of The Gallows Dance, despite still reading like a self-insert fanfiction. The fandom aspects, for a book called "The Fandom" really aren't that huge of a deal. It does take on a bigger meaning inside the book, but the meaning is... really stupid.

"'But if you take her place...' his features twist in alarm as he follows the concept to it's natural end point. It amazes me how smart he is sometimes.'
He's fourteen. This is a perfectly reasonable leap of logic for a fourteen-year-old to make! Obviously, if Violet takes Rose's place, there's a chance she'll end up dying in the same way. One doesn't need to be particularly clever to work this out, and most fourteen-year-olds would have the same train of thought.

"'Jesus, Alice, the butterfly effect,' Nate says. 'You know, a butterfly flaps it's wings in Mexico and it causes a hurricane halfway around the world.'
Alice looks a little confused. 'It's a film, yeah? My Mum likes it. It's got Ashton Kutcher in it.'
I nod and smile to offer encouragement. It's hard when a fourteen-year-old knows more than you."
Until this exact point, Alice has never been shown to be stupid. Insensitive, yes, but never stupid. She's actually gone against the dumb beauty stereotype. If anything, she's devious.

There's a good bit in the book where Violet and Katie are perfectly willing to instantly mistrust Alice and believe the worst possible thing about her. I don't know about you, but I'm always more likely to stand up for my friends and tell others that they must have the wrong impression. At one point, Katie starts insulting Alice instantly knowing only half the story, and at a later point defends her when the evidence looks bigger against her.

"But imagine if this Alice returned to your world and wrote a sequel, a published story that reached a whole new audience. We would have a Fandom powerful enough to break the loop. We would have a future."
The entire plot of the book is because the Fandom collectively believed so strongly in The Gallows Dance that they bought it to life, but the characters can only repeat the events of the book on loop. So the President's idea is for Alice to go back to their world and write a sequel, using her following to make it popular. The President brought them all into their world. Several things wrong with this idea. For one, all of Alice's fanfics are self-inserts of her dating Willow, so I just cannot believe she'd build the following she claims to have. For another, plagiarism much? It's not stated how long ago this book was written, but it feels fairly recent. Her work would not be public domain. I'm quite sure the estate of Sally King and the company that made the film would have something to say about this idea.

"She means Russell Jones. After he posted that photo back in May, Alice's popularity as a fanfic writer soared. Getting a book deal, even with her unknown bestie as co-author, was pretty easy." Well, it would be one thing if they put the sequel online as fanfic. It would be another if they self-published. You expect me to believe that a publishing house gave her a book deal to write a sequel to an already published book based on her following from writing self-insert fanfics? (I know Fifty Shades of Grey, but this one is explicitly based in the same world). Now, there are a few series which have been finished after their author died by someone else. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Wheel of Time are some, but both were written by already published authors, and both were based on notes from the original author for a planned continuation. Not believable.

I can't honestly recommend this one. If you want to read a good dystopia, reread The Hunger Games or branch out into non-YA The Handmaids Tale or 1984. If you want a book with a good look at Fandom and conventions, try Geekerella.