Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde

Pages: 288
Publish date: 26 April 2017
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9781250111395
Purchase: Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – QBD

Queens of Geek:

I received an arc of Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde from Pan Macmillian in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book. 

As soon as I read the synopsis for this one, I knew needed to get my hands on it. Queens of Geek is right up my alley. It’s geeky, nerdy and pop cultural to the max. It incorporates so much that I love into one book – and it was pretty great. 

Queens of Geek follows protagonists Charlie and Taylor along with Jamie as they explore SupaCon. Best friends that seem different, but just click so well. 

Charlie stands out in the crowd, YouTuber turned movie star, she adores doing what she loves. And her mission for SupaCon – to show her fans that she is over her ex-Reese. Then Alyssa Huntington shows up and everything is thrown out the window. 

Taylor likes to blend in, she likes to move with the crowd. But SupaCon is ready to bust the bubble that Taylor has built around her. With her feelings for Jamie coming to the surface and a contest that she desperately wants to enter – Taylor’s life is about to change. 

I loved reading Queens of Geek. It hit all the right places; it was full of romance, friendship and believing in yourself. It’s diverse and puts a very normal pop cultural aspects into a book and it was great. 

I really enjoyed Charlie overall as a protagonist. She was strong, but she had her flaws that made her such an easy character to get along with. I loved that she not only stood up for herself but her friends as well. Throughout Queens of Geek the reader is able to see Charlie grow as a person and believe in herself even more. We see her struggle with past relationships and the pressure of being in front of a camera, with your whole life on display. 

I feel like Taylor. I could connect with her on so many different levels it was crazy, but I loved it so much. Her passion for everything that she loved, including her friends was so great to see. I adored that she wasn’t ashamed to share her love for books, TV shows, movies. She is that fandom queen and it worked so well. 

Another thing that hit the right spot for me was the diversity elements in Queens of Geek. Espiecally with anxiety and panic attacks. I connected on so many levels with Taylor because of this. With my experience, the representation of anxiety and panic attacks was so well done. I also like how it was normalized and how everyone around them didn’t hate it, or put the characters down for it. 

Now the romance elements. One of my favourite tropes is ‘Friends to Lovers’, so you have no idea how excited I was about Taylor and Jamie. They were adorable together. I was squealing and couldn’t keep myself contained. I loved how much Jamie understood Taylor and knew when to step back. But he also knew when to push her and try and get her out of her bubble. 

Charlie and Alyssa, while I really did enjoy it, a lot. It felt to insta-lovey for me.  I really wanted to love it so much, because they were very cute together. But, it was hard getting passed that it had only been a few days. In saying that, I did like how Jen Wilde did portray them and how they connected over things in such ways. 

Overall, I loved Queens of Geek. It’s a fun but emotional read that is for every pop cultural fan. It explores the notion of friendship and relationships. It’s about falling in love and letting yourself love. It’s about stepping out of that bubble and letting yourself be free. With beautiful friendships and romance, this book is one for everyone. 

Have you read Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde? What did you think of it? Are you planning on reading it? Let’s Chat!