The Fandom Book Review

The Fandom by Anna Day is about a teenage girl named Violet, her two friends, Katie and Alice, and her little brother, Nate, who all go to a comic-con convention and something goes wrong. As they were about to meet one of the stars in the movie adaption of the book they all love called “The Gallows Dance”, an earthquake happens. A lot of things came crashing down on them and it knocked them all unconscious. When Violet, Katie, Alice, and Nate woke up, they are somehow in the world of “The Gallows Dance”, right at a pivotal moment. Rose, the main character of the book, is trying to cause a distraction to save some imps from being hanged and prove her loyalty to the rebels.

In “The Gallows Dance” world people are classified as either Imp or Gem. Gems are people who are genetically modified to be perfect, no flaws or crooks in the way they look. Imps are the opposite, they are not genetically modified and they don’t look like Gems, and because of that they are treated very poorly. As Rose is completing her mission, Violet and the others draw attention to her and it gets Rose killed. But without Rose, the story can’t be completed, and in order for Violet, Katie, Alice, and Nate to get back home they need to find a way to complete the story and not get caught or killed in the process.

Some of the things I liked about the book was, the beginning of the story. The author got right into the story and sending the four of them into the world of “The Gallows Dance”. I liked Katie and Nate, Katie is a very spunky, sassy, headstrong, smart girl from Liverpool that is funny and doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do. Nate is very mature and smart for his age, even though he is younger than Violet, sometimes it seems like he’s the older one. I like Ash, who is an Imp who works the night shift at the orchard where the royal-like Gems live. He is nice, and hard-working, not too quick to judge. I also like how they kind of gave subtle hints as to what was going on and how the book was going to end. I noticed some of them, but they may be hard to catch if you aren’t looking for them. As well as liking Katie, Nate, and Ash, I also liked Matthew, who is part of the Imp Rebels, he is nice and wants to help Violet, Nate, Katie, and Alice.

Some of the things that I did not like about the book was, most of the book actually. The first quarter of the book I did enjoy, however the rest of it started to get slow and slower and wasn’t very entertaining anymore. I didn’t like the whole idea of recreating the story using Violet in Rose’s place. I got annoyed with how Violet kept repeating the amount of days until she was going to hang to complete the story. It was very repetitive and unnecessary in my opinion. I hated how they divided people based on their looks, especially because the Gem’s looks weren’t natural and because the Imps weren’t perfect they were treated terribly and used as slaves. I didn’t like the genetic modification, I thought it was stupid and ridiculous. I did not like some of the things that happened in the end of the book. I also thought the idea of trying to play the story out, quote by quote, line by line, was unoriginal. I did not like Violet or Alice, Violet is very naïve, and is always following behind Alice thinking she is like a goddess. Alice is really full of herself , she is rude, and thinks to highly of herself. I also didn’t like Saskia, who is another Imp rebel, she is back stabbing and only cares about saving herself and getting what she wants.

Overall, I didn’t really enjoy the book and would not recommend it. Although, this is my opinion and my preferences of what I like and you can by all means make your own decision about the book and what you like.