THE PRINCESS AND THE FANGIRL by Ashley Poston

Rating: A rare figurine of a galactic superheroine and a lanyard full of con badges.

Highlight of note: The LGBTQ geek rep in this book is both abundant and highly positive.

Will you read more by this author? Absolutely!


The cover of this book says it's a Geekerella Fairy Tale whereas Goodreads lists is as Once Upon a Con book two. This leaves me unsure what the series title is but certain it's a fun universe worth reading. In Geekerella, we were treated to a loose retelling of Cinderella with elements of Little Shop on the Corner. Now we get the Prince and Pauper as a hollywood starlet finds a double amongst the fandom of her new sci-fi film. Honestly, the reasons for switching seemed a little dubious to me. Something need investigating, but the starlet never does anything the fangirl couldn't have done for her if fangirl hadn't been busy pretending to be a movie star. (Other than fall in love with her opposite's friend...) Nevertheless, the tale was funny and cute and uplifting, so it's easy to forgive a questionable premise, shrug, and maintain that even if it was a silly thing to do, it was what they thought of doing.

Like Geekerella, this book is told by alternating first person narration. However as the two narrators are not love-interests in this novel and the books are of comparable length, each romantic arc receives less pagetime. I think this made it more difficult for me to feel as invested in them as I wanted. It was nice to see both arcs, one a boy-girl pairing and the other girl-girl, be treated in exactly the same manner though. Both girls found their love interests attractive, both had good conversations, and both felt sparks. It truly lives up the "love is love" motto that I fully believe in.

The narrators' characters are both well defined and vibrant. The male love interest was a little more filled-out than the female one due to him having pagetime with both narrators, but the female love interest showed some hints of complexity. The fangirl is the more likable narrator, at least if one assumes the target audience is those of us who embrace being geeks. The starlit spends a lot of time being dismissively confused by people's passions for their fandoms and the con, and I certainly found it hard to root too hard for someone who feels loving sci-fi and fantasy franchises is silly. She does come around, but I think a lot of people would be fed up with her by the time she did.

I continue to be sad Starfield isn't a real show. Maybe one day we'll get lucky and Poston will write a novel in that universe.

Overall, I didn't love The Princess and the Fangirl as much as Geekerella, but I still enjoyed it and look forward to other books from Poston. I can think of at least one co-star who could easily be the focus of their own book.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers.

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Notes
13% I am officially jealous that this convention has a venue that allows unaffiliated food venders. That stains my suspension of disbelief far more than random girl passing as a famous actress.

14% Why is she so uncurious about the envelope? Even if it's contracts (and not the script as the cover material has me assuming), shouldn't she want to see what the studio is trying to get her to do?

15% What Jess wants in a make is incredibly different from what I want... Also, I can't help but compare her to Dare, who is SO much more likable. We saw him briefly and it made me want more of him.

21% Why did Jess just refer to her chai as coffee? I've never heard of chai coffee before. The spices don't seem like they'd go well. (Note: someone responded to a beta read for me by saying "Isn't he allergic to coffee?" when a character ordered a chai latte and I realized not everyone knows a chai latte is tea. So I guess I shouldn't be amazed this got it wrong, but that's at minimum an author and an editor who lack this basic piece of information that my son could have provided by age six.)

28% "She really does detest him." And yet it's pretty obvious they'll be smooching by the end of the book. I'm assuming Jess will hookup with the boothmate, although I guess it could be the ex. Or possibly nobody if the cover material was misleading.

30% Imogen just said contacts are like condoms for her eyeballs. I had rather pegged her as someone inexperienced with condoms...

32% At this point, I'm surprised Jess can identify a sailor scout uniform.

35% "Clearly Ethan is cosplaying as a douche with a giant stick up his butt." The line is funny primarily because that's exactly what he's doing: cosplaying a professional assistant. I'm wondering what will tip Imogen off that this isn't the real him.

36% I question whether Dare is being nice because he's Jess's friend. He is. But I think he's caught on that this is the same imposter from before.

37% I'm actually wondering if the director is the leak. The last page of the script introduced the bad guy but didn't say who he was. At the same time he's being revealed at a panel. That seems a big coincidence.

38% Yeah, Dare knew she wasn't Jess.

40% Imogen's impressed Ethan caught a Hamilton reference. Her bar for being impressed is pretty low.

42% Pretzel Man is wise. He totally abides! (He just informed Jess she's too young to be comfortable enough with herself to truly love a scifi franchise.)

43% I'm hazy on the timeline, but it looks like the director was in the area the last leaked tweet came from. So he's either the leak or a deliberate red herring. Runner up in my mind for likely culprit is the actress who originally played Amara, who is also in the right place.

44% Okay, Jess telling people she's cosplaying Jessica Stone on Vacation was cute.

48% Yep, Jess is totally bi and into the boothmate chick.

49% Oh, no, Imogen. Do not go out with the skeezy actor. That will not go well. Ethan will wind up having to punch him like a Nazi or something. (And, really, she noticed how Ethan was looking at her but thought he forgot she wasn't Jess? How clueless can a girl be?)

55% Actor guy didn't call. Or called Jess maybe. Either way, Imogen dodged a bullet there, I'm thinking.

67% Another script leak during a panel. It's really suspicious timing. But now the lead is dying? That's... An odd direction for a series to take.

67% And director guy is late for the panel, so he wasn't in sight when the leak posted.  So, yeah, it's either him or we're supposed to think it's him.

73% And now Imogen's going out with skeezy actor. Who also missed the panel where the last leak was, but who wasn't mentioned as being near the scene of the one by the dress. Also not there was the guy who plays their version of Spock, who is also an asshole and who would be petty if people were getting copies of the script and he wasn't one of them. But my money is still on Director Guy.

77% Yep, skeezy actor turned out to be a skeeze.

86% Wise Old Pretzel Man is the guy who originally played Dare's character! I did NOT predict that.

88% And the leak is... The director. Do I win a prize?

90% That speech was a lovely end to Jess's redemptive arc.

90% Imogen just asked if "that old guy from Star Wars" sounds like the Joker to anyone else. I really hope that was tongue in cheek and she recognizes that Mark Hammil voiced the Joker. Otherwise she just lost a lot of geek cred.

92% Taking a megaphobe to the top of a food truck to blare your apology to your love interest is an excellent grand gesture.

97% And the stair thing was cute. Kinda predictable, but cute.

98% And Jess will be there for filming the next movie, which will now be directed by the woman who originally played her role! Happy ending!

The End