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A review by half_book_and_co
The Secret Loves of Geek Girls by Hope Nicholson, Marjorie Liu, Margaret Atwood
3.0
"The Secret Loves of Geek Girls" edited by Hope Nicholson is a non-fiction anthology bringing together more than 50 geeky women writing and drawing about love.
Love stories are usually not the first thing I go for, but this collection has a lot going for it: Most of these stories are no straight (pun intended) (geeky) girl - meets - boy narratives, but instead, this anthology offers a variety of experiences, approaches and little pearls of wisdom. Gita Jackson explains in "URL > IRL" how "meeting new people is often a lesson for them on race and there is just not enough time in [her] life to continue delivering that lecture". Diana McCallum ("There's Nothing Wrong, It Must Be Love") assures her readers it is okay to break up - even if the relationship is not horrible. Fionna Adams remarks upon her love for cultural metaphors and how they fail her: "I lack a pop culture metaphor for the type of relationship I want to be in, though. I'm a poly queer intersex trans girl with little interest in sex, but I enjoy being touched and loved." Brandy Dawley pens an ode to the grapevine aka "gossip" women share about problematic dudes, supporting each other instead of engaging in girl-on-girl hate as promoted through popular media tropes.
The contributors write about their lives as WoC, as lesbian, queer, bi, asexual women, as trans women, as poly women, as women who have experienced abuse. They write about what they learned from reading, gaming and writing fan fiction, the ways they connect with other people who share their interests (and that sometimes sharing interests is not enough for a functioning relationship). With so many contributions there have to be some misses and there certainly are. Especially some of the prose felt unpolished (not in a good way). Some stories bored me or felt uninspired (I do no care much about entire praise texts about some guy). But all in all the collection manages to offer a sweet, very geeky collection of narratives showing the complexity of love, relationships, desire and hope (in a world structured by racism and hetero_cis_sexism).
Love stories are usually not the first thing I go for, but this collection has a lot going for it: Most of these stories are no straight (pun intended) (geeky) girl - meets - boy narratives, but instead, this anthology offers a variety of experiences, approaches and little pearls of wisdom. Gita Jackson explains in "URL > IRL" how "meeting new people is often a lesson for them on race and there is just not enough time in [her] life to continue delivering that lecture". Diana McCallum ("There's Nothing Wrong, It Must Be Love") assures her readers it is okay to break up - even if the relationship is not horrible. Fionna Adams remarks upon her love for cultural metaphors and how they fail her: "I lack a pop culture metaphor for the type of relationship I want to be in, though. I'm a poly queer intersex trans girl with little interest in sex, but I enjoy being touched and loved." Brandy Dawley pens an ode to the grapevine aka "gossip" women share about problematic dudes, supporting each other instead of engaging in girl-on-girl hate as promoted through popular media tropes.
The contributors write about their lives as WoC, as lesbian, queer, bi, asexual women, as trans women, as poly women, as women who have experienced abuse. They write about what they learned from reading, gaming and writing fan fiction, the ways they connect with other people who share their interests (and that sometimes sharing interests is not enough for a functioning relationship). With so many contributions there have to be some misses and there certainly are. Especially some of the prose felt unpolished (not in a good way). Some stories bored me or felt uninspired (I do no care much about entire praise texts about some guy). But all in all the collection manages to offer a sweet, very geeky collection of narratives showing the complexity of love, relationships, desire and hope (in a world structured by racism and hetero_cis_sexism).