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A review by romancelibrarian
Geek Girls Don't Cry: Real-Life Lessons from Fictional Female Characters by Andrea Towers
4.0
ARC provided by Edelweiss and the Publisher.
So I don't know on what planet I was on when I thought that this was going to be YA leaning self-help/personal growth book ... maybe it was the cover (because this cover would sell SO HARD to teenage girls - especially the fangirls and the cosplayers)? Maybe it was the use of the word "girls" in the title? Maybe it is because micro-biographies are having a moment in YA non-fiction and a book set up as a fan-girl index/guide to life would have CIRC'ed SO HARD? My expectations were dashed when I discovered that this was not YA at all.
Content-wise, this is really aimed at adult female readers (I'd put my use of "adult" here aged at College+ with interest leaning towards the older/oldest teen readers) who are clearly familiar with both the characters mentioned and their cannon. Towers does a pretty great job of explaining why the character was selected for inclusion in the book but general character/cannon knowledge is still kind of needed to understand the gravity of all of it.
I also think that the title may be a little misleading. This book has a heavy mental illness/psychology lean which makes it more of an "acknowledgement of the importance of self-care" book than anything else. Each character is diagnosed with something and then the meaning of that diagnosis to their character arc/storylines are discussed followed by discussions about how each character deals with their mental illness within cannon and/or therapy. From a library/circulation perspective, I think Geek Girls Don't Cry: Lessons about Mental Illness and Self Care from Fictional Female Characters, may have overall served this title better.
While this was a short read that was overall interesting and well researched, I am afraid that it won't find a readership at the library because it appears to be one type of title masquerading as another. The older reader might pass it by because it appears to be "young" and the younger reader might pick it up due to interest and find that the content may be aged above them. I obviously really wanted this to be a YA-NF #missedopportunity
So I don't know on what planet I was on when I thought that this was going to be YA leaning self-help/personal growth book ... maybe it was the cover (because this cover would sell SO HARD to teenage girls - especially the fangirls and the cosplayers)? Maybe it was the use of the word "girls" in the title? Maybe it is because micro-biographies are having a moment in YA non-fiction and a book set up as a fan-girl index/guide to life would have CIRC'ed SO HARD? My expectations were dashed when I discovered that this was not YA at all.
Spoiler
Content-wise, this is really aimed at adult female readers (I'd put my use of "adult" here aged at College+ with interest leaning towards the older/oldest teen readers) who are clearly familiar with both the characters mentioned and their cannon. Towers does a pretty great job of explaining why the character was selected for inclusion in the book but general character/cannon knowledge is still kind of needed to understand the gravity of all of it.
I also think that the title may be a little misleading. This book has a heavy mental illness/psychology lean which makes it more of an "acknowledgement of the importance of self-care" book than anything else. Each character is diagnosed with something and then the meaning of that diagnosis to their character arc/storylines are discussed followed by discussions about how each character deals with their mental illness within cannon and/or therapy. From a library/circulation perspective, I think Geek Girls Don't Cry: Lessons about Mental Illness and Self Care from Fictional Female Characters, may have overall served this title better.
While this was a short read that was overall interesting and well researched, I am afraid that it won't find a readership at the library because it appears to be one type of title masquerading as another. The older reader might pass it by because it appears to be "young" and the younger reader might pick it up due to interest and find that the content may be aged above them. I obviously really wanted this to be a YA-NF #missedopportunity