The Geek's Guide to Unrequited Love

The title of this book had me wary from the start, but I'd heard good things about it, and the author is a woman, so I hoped it wouldn't be what it sounded like. Because seriously. We don't need more books about angsty white guys complaining about the girl they love not liking them back.

Unfortunately that's exactly what I got in this book.

First, the good points. The author has a very immersive writing style, and she captured the feeling of a Comic Con VERY impressively. I haven't been to NYCC, but I've been to other nerdy cons, and the hectic pace of panels, and getting tickets, and standing in lines, but nerding out over ALL THE GEEKY STUFF - yeah, that was perfectly written. I really enjoyed that. The other characters - Casey and Felicia, specifically, and Samira, and the rest of Roxy and Graham's families - those were also well done. The brief scene with Roxy's Iranian family was especially nice, which is to be expected from an Iranian-American author!

But Graham irritated me. Roxy wasn't well explored because we only saw things from Graham's point of view, and her love interest Devin's appeal wasn't shown very well at ALL.

I spent most of the book wanting to yell at Graham to just TALK TO HER ALREADY. He's all miffed that his plans aren't going right and the obnoxious Brit is stealing his girl but he won't. Just. TALK. To her.

I think the only reason I actually finished the book was because it was short. And for the description of Comic Con, that was actually really good. But the main character was just frustrating. I should have spent this time on another book.

You can find all my reviews and more at Goddess in the Stacks.

Cute romance! Good nerd references; appreciated the brief discussion of the “friend zone” and how being friends with someone is really valuable.

Cute, funny, nerdy - I really liked this story! :)