The book Ship It by Britta Lundin is about a high school girl named Claire, who is a big fan of a show called Demon Heart. Demon Heart is a show about a hunter named Smokey who hunts demons and another demon who tries to help Smokey kill all of the other demons because he isn’t quite like other demons that Smokey has fought against. Claire writes fanfiction about the show Demon Heart and has a decent amount of followers on Tumblr who like to read her work and follows it. Claire has always wanted to meet the two main actors, Forest Reed, who play Smokey, and Rico Quiroz, who plays Heart the demon that helps Smokey. So, when Claire learns that the show is going on tour doing conventions and one of them is in her town, she leaps at the chance to go see them.
The fanfiction that Claire writes is about Smokey and Heart being together. During the Q and A at the panel for the convention, they let the audience asks questions to the actors and the show’s executive producer, Jamie Davies. Claire was hesitant to ask them a question about SmokeHeart, which is the fans ship name for Smokey and Heart, but she decided to do it last minute. When she asked the Forest and Rico about it, Forest laughed at the thought of the character being gay and the two being a couple. A lot of people recorded Claire asking the question and Forest’s outburst reaction at it and it put them and the show in bad view, publicity wise and in the eyes of the LGBTQ+ community. So in order to look good again and not hateful towards LGBTQ+ people, they brought Claire along with them to the rest of the convention tour stops and did press, and interviews with fix things with everyone.
Some of the things that I liked about Ship It is the different chapters, switching between the different point of views of Claire and Forest because it lets you see what each are doing and thinking instead of one point of view or third person. However, I felt as though there was more chapters that were done in Claire’s perspective compared to them being in Forest’s perspective. I wish there had been more chapters from his perspective because I thought they were a bit more interesting and intriguing then Claire’s. I didn’t particularly like Forest in the beginning of the book, I thought that he was a bit too caught up in becoming famous and getting big time movie roles in Hollywood and trying to prove himself and his career choices to his father. As I continued to read more of the book, he got better, wasn’t so focused on getting new roles but instead started to learn more about fandom and the Demon Heart fans.
Another thing that I liked about Ship It is the representation of fandoms and the LGBTQ+ community. There isn’t a lot of books that I know about that has their main characters being bisexual or gay and having other characters in the book who are also part of the LGBTQ+ community, and have fandoms and conventions being one of the main topics throughout the book. That’s something I really liked because it wasn’t like the other things that I’ve read and it was interesting and new and very fun to read.
Some of the other things that I like about the book is the character Trudi, Claire’s mother, and also how supportive Claire’s mom and dad were about everything. Claire’s interest in Demon Heart, and going to all of the conventions, and finding herself and who she likes. I liked how nice all of the fans are in the Demon Heart fandom, especially the time when the girls at the Demon Heart finale showing were being kind to Claire when she was all alone, because it reminded me of the kindness that is shown in the fandoms that I’m in. I also liked how Claire was pointing out all of the people’s cosplay characters that she saw as she was going to the San Diego Comic-Con, like Castiel from “Supernatural”, and Waverly Earp and Nicole Haught from “Wynonna Earp”. The last thing that I liked about the book was that Tess’s friends didn’t shut her out for liking Demon Heart and drawing fan art about it. Also, that Claire and Tess made up and started to date and see each other more. Although, I did not like how Claire told Tess’s friends about her love of Demon Heart and how in retaliation Tess told Claire’s mom that she was gay.
Some of the things that I did not like was the character Claire, I don’t like her attitude and the actions she made, like trying to trap Jamie in a room, and posting fanfiction about Forest’s life. I don’t like how she treated Forest, Tess, or her mother, all of them were nice to her and gave her support and she treated them poorly in return most of the time. I did not like how Claire joined the tour and rode on the bus with them and had so much access to everything. It was not realistic, that wouldn’t be a possibility in real life between fans and actors. I also did not like how Jamie handle some of the situations with the idea of Smokey and Heart being together as a gay couple, he was very aggressive and one minded towards it. I felt as though he could have handle the situations better and tried to see it from the fans perspective, like Forest did.
Some of the other things that I like about the book is the character Trudi, Claire’s mother, and also how supportive Claire’s mom and dad were about everything. Claire’s interest in Demon Heart, and going to all of the conventions, and finding herself and who she likes. I liked how nice all of the fans are in the Demon Heart fandom, especially the time when the girls at the Demon Heart finale showing were being kind to Claire when she was all alone, because it reminded me of the kindness that is shown in the fandoms that I’m in. I also liked how Claire was pointing out all of the people’s cosplay characters that she saw as she was going to the San Diego Comic-Con, like Castiel from “Supernatural”, and Waverly Earp and Nicole Haught from “Wynonna Earp”. The last thing that I liked about the book was that Tess’s friends didn’t shut her out for liking Demon Heart and drawing fan art about it. Also, that Claire and Tess made up and started to date and see each other more. Although, I did not like how Claire told Tess’s friends about her love of Demon Heart and how in retaliation Tess told Claire’s mom that she was gay.
Some of the things that I did not like was the character Claire, I don’t like her attitude and the actions she made, like trying to trap Jamie in a room, and posting fanfiction about Forest’s life. I don’t like how she treated Forest, Tess, or her mother, all of them were nice to her and gave her support and she treated them poorly in return most of the time. I did not like how Claire joined the tour and rode on the bus with them and had so much access to everything. It was not realistic, that wouldn’t be a possibility in real life between fans and actors. I also did not like how Jamie handle some of the situations with the idea of Smokey and Heart being together as a gay couple, he was very aggressive and one minded towards it. I felt as though he could have handle the situations better and tried to see it from the fans perspective, like Forest did.
One of the things that I wish the book had more of was more conventions. They had three Demon Heart conventions and then the San Diego Comic-Con and I was hoping for some more of them to see more con events like panels, or vendors booths, stuff like that. I also really liked the character Caity, I liked how she was bisexual, it added another LGBTQ+ character to the story. I loved her bright, bold sense of fashion and her strong, fierce personality. She kind of came into the story around the middle of the book, and there wasn’t a lot of chapters with her in it. I would have liked to see more of Caity in the story, along with Tess, and Claire’s parents, who also weren’t in the story very much. I would have wanted see more of them as well.
The last thing that I want to touch on in Ship it is Forest’s speech during the Demon Heart panel at Comic-Con. I really appreciated the message behind it and how he stood up for the fans and didn’t care about what Jon Reynolds said about staying quiet for the Red Zone role. I liked how he went into the audience looking for Smokey and Heart cosplays for him and Rico to use and how he was admiring the detail of them. This was one of my favourite parts in the book, I felt as though it was very powerful and inspiring and well written by Britta Lundin.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes all things fan and fandom related and things about conventions and t.v show loving. It is a very cute and interesting story, Britta did a good job getting into the mind of being a fan and what interests and thoughts they have about things. I enjoyed reading it and I hope you will to.