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A review by goodverbsonly
Ship It by Britta Lundin
2.0
Hey What?
Can I say one thing before I start? I get it! I get it, I get the impulse, I get being nerdy and weird and sixteen and substituting a TV show for a personality, and I get being unsure of yourself and everything, but this book...ain’t it.
1. 2 stars for being readable and for keeping me reading even though it makes me feel like i’m losing my mind
2. If Claire can come out in front of thousands of people at SDCC, then I can preface this review by saying that I am bi, and that this story is way more about Claire coming to understand her sexuality and accept it and also learning how to stand up for something and feel confident enough for people to love her. That stuff is good even, and i definitely felt uncomfortably seen, but the rest of it...
3. i. i realized that the reason i can’t engage with “fan stories” is because there’s nothing to engage with. if this was honest and like, a memoir by the girl who caused the kerfuffle at njcon with jensen ackles in 2013 it would have been okay because i would have been engaging with her reallife story and i would have had the context about what happened but as is, i have to assume that what claire is fighting for is important and the thing she cares most about is impossible for me to care about, and so i can’t engage with her, because the thing she cares most about is knock-off supernatural a show i haven’t cared about in 5 years.
4. as mentioned the conceit of this book is insane. if you are faced with an unstable teenage girl ruining your ratings by running her mouth, HOW do you think that putting her on the front lines with easy access to creators and actors who Never Sufficiently Apologize for my taste, is a good idea. and then you have the audacity to act surprised when she makes everything worse. you made your bed! now you have to lie on it!!
5. claire is wrong. there’s really no two ways about it. she goes on a crusade to make her “ship” “canon” because she isn’t ready to accept herself as queer, and she bullies everyone around her about. the progress she makes is realizing she should...bully creators to make it diverse in other ways too, and this is where the story leaves you because jamie is such an asshole to everyone around him that you have to root against him the way forest does
6. nice making characters like claire for some reason at the very end when she has done nothing but antagonize them for 300 pages. nice to what — in a real life scenario, no in THIS real life scenario — would have amounted to a completely unnecessary validation of fan feelings. you call one fan crazy one time and then you have to kiss your costar at SDCC to validate their feelings when all you really had to do was say: sorry claire’s question took me off guard in boise, and i didn’t understand what it meant to her and i don’t think she’d crazy and i never should have called her that. i feel awful.
7. britta (she wrote this book so now i get to be on a first name basis with her because WOW) owes me a fistfight. imagine being a writer on the cw and writing some of this shit about being a writer. it’s all over the place and i don’t actually have any idea about where she expects us to land. jamie wasn’t wrong — he’s upset about the artistic integrity of his show, he’s just got the WORST attitude possible, and at times she seems to beat us over the head with the corner jamie is backed into. at other times, the message is: if the fans speak then so must the show go, if only the Creator wasn’t the Worst Person Alive! Oh how this all could have been so different if only?! Eric Kripke ? wasn’t a terrible person??
i just...don’t know...
ACTUALLY, I have something to add. I'm callilng this the Infamous Destiel Book now bc of the events of Nov 6, 2020, but I fully feel insane thinking about it and getting back into supernatural in THIS year of our lord 2021. Anyway, someone in spn sam centered fan spaces noticed that sam was completely written out of this book which i think honestly SHOULD be the first thing we notice, and should have clued me into how this wasn't worth it even though i read it (i paid MONEY for it) from mere curiostiy more than anything else. but also, a win because like...i cannot stop thinking about this book, the Destiel Book, the Infamous Destiel Book
Can I say one thing before I start? I get it! I get it, I get the impulse, I get being nerdy and weird and sixteen and substituting a TV show for a personality, and I get being unsure of yourself and everything, but this book...ain’t it.
1. 2 stars for being readable and for keeping me reading even though it makes me feel like i’m losing my mind
2. If Claire can come out in front of thousands of people at SDCC, then I can preface this review by saying that I am bi, and that this story is way more about Claire coming to understand her sexuality and accept it and also learning how to stand up for something and feel confident enough for people to love her. That stuff is good even, and i definitely felt uncomfortably seen, but the rest of it...
3. i. i realized that the reason i can’t engage with “fan stories” is because there’s nothing to engage with. if this was honest and like, a memoir by the girl who caused the kerfuffle at njcon with jensen ackles in 2013 it would have been okay because i would have been engaging with her reallife story and i would have had the context about what happened but as is, i have to assume that what claire is fighting for is important and the thing she cares most about is impossible for me to care about, and so i can’t engage with her, because the thing she cares most about is knock-off supernatural a show i haven’t cared about in 5 years.
4. as mentioned the conceit of this book is insane. if you are faced with an unstable teenage girl ruining your ratings by running her mouth, HOW do you think that putting her on the front lines with easy access to creators and actors who Never Sufficiently Apologize for my taste, is a good idea. and then you have the audacity to act surprised when she makes everything worse. you made your bed! now you have to lie on it!!
5. claire is wrong. there’s really no two ways about it. she goes on a crusade to make her “ship” “canon” because she isn’t ready to accept herself as queer, and she bullies everyone around her about. the progress she makes is realizing she should...bully creators to make it diverse in other ways too, and this is where the story leaves you because jamie is such an asshole to everyone around him that you have to root against him the way forest does
6. nice making characters like claire for some reason at the very end when she has done nothing but antagonize them for 300 pages. nice to what — in a real life scenario, no in THIS real life scenario — would have amounted to a completely unnecessary validation of fan feelings. you call one fan crazy one time and then you have to kiss your costar at SDCC to validate their feelings when all you really had to do was say: sorry claire’s question took me off guard in boise, and i didn’t understand what it meant to her and i don’t think she’d crazy and i never should have called her that. i feel awful.
7. britta (she wrote this book so now i get to be on a first name basis with her because WOW) owes me a fistfight. imagine being a writer on the cw and writing some of this shit about being a writer. it’s all over the place and i don’t actually have any idea about where she expects us to land. jamie wasn’t wrong — he’s upset about the artistic integrity of his show, he’s just got the WORST attitude possible, and at times she seems to beat us over the head with the corner jamie is backed into. at other times, the message is: if the fans speak then so must the show go, if only the Creator wasn’t the Worst Person Alive! Oh how this all could have been so different if only?! Eric Kripke ? wasn’t a terrible person??
i just...don’t know...
ACTUALLY, I have something to add. I'm callilng this the Infamous Destiel Book now bc of the events of Nov 6, 2020, but I fully feel insane thinking about it and getting back into supernatural in THIS year of our lord 2021. Anyway, someone in spn sam centered fan spaces noticed that sam was completely written out of this book which i think honestly SHOULD be the first thing we notice, and should have clued me into how this wasn't worth it even though i read it (i paid MONEY for it) from mere curiostiy more than anything else. but also, a win because like...i cannot stop thinking about this book, the Destiel Book, the Infamous Destiel Book