When you graduate from high school (if you haven't already, that is), how do you think you want to celebrate? A graduation party? BORING! How about a road trip? Yeah, that sounds nice. Invite a famous actor to tag along? Well, that'll be really difficult to pull o- WAIT, HE'S ACTUALLY COMING?! How the heck could this be?! Is this reality just a book I happened to pick up at my school's library and read over the course of two days?! In the midst of all of the craziness, I have to ask the real question here; exactly what did I think of the young adult novel in question?
Ladies and gentlemen, here is my review for Stranger Than Fanfiction, written by Chris Savino.
Within the world of Stranger Than Fanfiction exists a television show called "Wiz Kids", which focuses on a trio of geniuses who travel through time and space in a port-a-potty; although it was panned by critics to a competitive degree, the nine-season-long series ended up gaining a rather large and dedicated fanbase, even to the point of a convention just for the series taking place once every year! This brings us to Christopher "Topher" Collins, Joseph "Joey" Davis, Samantha "Sam" Gibson, and Moriko "Mo" Ishikawa - four friends initially brought together by the show - as they plan a road trip as a final hurrah before they separate for college. The night before the trip starts, Topher jokingly sends the star of Wiz Kids, Cash Carter, an e-mail inviting him on the trip....and to the surprise of him and his friends, he actually shows up the next day! Although it quickly becomes clear to the group that the Cash they're getting to know is nothing like the Cash they see on TV, the overall trip certainly will be an unforgettable experiences, thanks to him.
Now, let's make one thing very clear; this novel is absolutely not the first to have a plot focused on a road trip. No matter the motivation behind it, the "road trip plot" is a trope (even having a page on TV Tropes) that has been and will be used over and over again, with no signs of a finishing destination. One thing about road trips, both fictional and in real-life, is that they sometimes allow people to learn about their companions' true selves - even beyond what they already knew - and possibly form closer bonds as a result. This is a classic road trip situation that Chris Colfer takes full advantage of in a positive way; although the main quartet (although Cash makes it a quintet, I'm not talking about him right now) already had a close bond thanks to Wiz Kids, they're an even more tightly bounded group connected by more than just the show by the end of the novel, and it's something even the reader can see.
Topher, Joey, Sam, and Mo all have depth to them, and even though I can't truly relate because none of their respective dilemmas apply to me, I can understand what direction they're coming from. That is because all of their problems - both the personal and the more societal ones - are things that can apply to real people in real life, and people who fit into the aforementioned category will easily be able to relate to one of them. Even with this being the case, I personally connected to Mo because of her hidden aspirations being similar to my own; I also really liked Joey because I felt like he was having the hardest time of them all, with the consequences of his secret being revealed to his family and all. With that being said, however, it's difficult for me to dive into any kind of likability for the shallow supporting cast in comparison to the deep main cast. A case in point for this statement would be Kylie Trig, a YouTuber whose channel revolves around Wiz Kids and the gossip surrounding it; with the amount of disrespect she gives the show's stars and fans (even calling her own subscribers "Wizzer sluts" and other names in the same category), it's easy to question exactly how much she actually likes the series. (The story tries to explain this by the fame of Wiz Kids and her channel going to her head, but at the end of the day, it still doesn't make her likable.)
Among the shallow pools and deep seas, however, is an entire ocean of depth that takes the form of Cash Carter. From the very beginning, we know that he is hiding some kind of secret from his castmates, his crewmates, and even his beloved fans; although it isn't revealed immediately what this secret is, just the wording of the fact that there is a secret of all implies that it is something more devastating than any other revelation there would be. The rather immature and risk-taking personality he exhibits to the quartet of fans (and later friends) is actually just one of the many hints that foreshadows the secret's reveal, leaving the reader to try to put the pieces together. Regardless of whether or not the reader is able to accurately solve the mystery on their own, the climax of the story - where the truth of the matter is revealed - still leaves an emotional impact that ultimately makes Cash a sympathetic and all around likable character by the time the time the story wraps up. All in all, Cash is depicted as a human being with struggles emerging from being the idol people think he is as a famous actor. The way he is depicted is actually guilt-inducing, in a way, because let's be honest; we've all been guilty of forgetting that celebrities are people, too.
Overall, Stranger Than Fanfiction is definitely a good book. If you're in the mood for a cross-country trip with a cast of likable and deep characters, this is the book for you. Will there ever be any fanfictions for this book, though? Well, probably not as many as there are fanfictions of Wiz Kids, but who knows?
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