Perhaps this book would be more interesting if I'd never participated in online fandom. It sounds like the author had some interesting experiences to share, and had this been my first exposure to fannish communities, maybe the positive notes would have made more of an impression than the stories of trolls, the hammering upon the potentially fraught relationship between fans and producers, and the entire essay about her fear of being seen as a name-dropping impostor. By the end, though, I was tired of her world-weary tone and her tendency to knock fandom/fannishness before the outsider-reader can.

I've read more interesting LJ entries about fandom friendships, and I have a friend who tells more interesting stories about getting to know the producers (even if those producers aren't Whedon and company--get on that, you!).

Then again, slamming Firefly doesn't tend to endear people to me. So. Your mileage may vary. ( )

This book forced me to confront some assumptions I make about what books should be. If I shared a fandom with Beatrice, a major Whedon fan, I’d probably be pleased to read her journal. But what is reasonably well-written snark and inside baseball gossip read for free on the internet turned fairly annoying on the printed page, even though Beatrice was forthright about her desire to be seen as important by fellow fans and to convince us that she really was friends with David Fury. I just wasn’t sure what the book’s target audience was supposed to be: I either already knew this stuff (fandom is full of wonderful people and the occasional person disconnected from reality who perpetuates bad stereotypes and then some) or didn’t want to (details of how well she really did know the people from Mutant Enemy and was good at organizing promotional events, though Joss never recognizes her at parties). ( )

I put this on my tbr list on the strength of the title alone, I think. This book is a look at how fandom - specifically online Buffy/Angel fandom - changed one woman's life.

I haven't been deeply involved in a fandom since I was in high school, but I was deeply involved for several years and it has effected my life in some ways similarly to Allyson's - the threads of that involvement linger in old friendships and in-jokes and fond memories. It was fun to read about a fandom that was as close and intense as the one I was involved in, but because it was filled with adults rather than teens, the members could do things like travel across the country (or in some cases, across the globe) to gather and meet, contact the actors and other people involved in the shows and actually have them respond and occasionally get involved, and so on.

Overall it was a very enjoyable book, often laugh-out-loud funny and at times poignant (the story near the end about everyone donating money to bring their friend from Israel to the US for two weeks almost brought me to tears). It was a fairly easy read, too, especially for non-fiction, written in a conversational tone, perhaps similar to blog or forum posts. ( )

A collection of essays about fandom.

I'm never too sure how I feel about fandom. I have a few things I'm particularly interested in (Buffy and Angel among them), but I don't think I'm really comfortable engaging in any hardcore fandomy activities.

I am interested in what others do, though, and on that level I found this book just fascinating. Allyson has hardly a word to say about Buffy itself; instead, she focuses on the friendships and connections she's made through her fandom. This isn't a book about the shows themselves. It's about the people who connected over them, and who have formed lasting bonds because of a shared interest.

The essays are quick and entertaining; I found it easy to whip on through 'em. Even though I've never really been involved in fandom, I have been involved in a few different internet communities. (Y'all might have heard of one of them? LibraryThing?) I found that I could relate as Allyson discussed forum liars, random acts of PayPal, and the stigma attached to "internet crazies." It made for an enjoyable read that I'd certainly recommend to anyone interested in reading about fandom from the inside. ( )

I checked this book out of the library thinking I was getting a book about Buffy fandom. Instead, it's a book about Allyson Beatrice and what fandom has meant to her, how she's engaged it, what sorts of experiences she's had because of it, and so on. Name-dropping litters the first half of the essays, and there's no sense of coherence or continuity to the stories -- they read like blog entries polished up and shoved at a publisher in hopes of looking important on the Internet. Some of the experiences in fandom were totally familiar, even though I've never been a part of Buffy fandom; some of it was stuff I'm completely happy to have missed out on. All in all, this was not the book I was looking for, but it was very interesting to see someone's perspective on fandom in a printed format -- usually when I hear fen talking about fandom, it's on the screen to an audience of other fen. ( )