Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?

As one Amazon reviewer put it, "I had a very complex reaction to this book." Allyson Beatrice, the author, is a fangirl. The gist of this book is that she is a Very Important Fangirl who knows a lot of Very Important People. Oh, and she has lots of friends she met on the Internet, and she writes like this is shocking to a lot of people. If you don't know what a fangirl or a fandom is, this book might help you figure that out; if you think it's weird that people meet other people on the Internet, you might gain an understanding of why it's not really weird. If you're already familiar with these concepts, though, I'm not sure if it's worth reading. Beatrice's essays are fun and sarcastic, but any blogger could have written them.

Also, Beatrice's first essay alienated me from the beginning, because right off the bat, she dismisses those who are interested in picking apart the very show she is a fan of (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I love reading literary critcism, and I think of television as another form of literature. I love to read essays that pick apart the show--and that's part of my fandom. I don't know how she can still consider herself a fan when she admits she doesn't even really watch the show anymore. Granted, she explains the reason that she still posts on the fan boards: it's because she likes all the people she met there. I can certainly understand that. There's a very touching essay where she explains how the fan community banded together to bring a fan over from Israel to the United States. I did like that particular essay (even though much of it was a copy-and-paste from the actual fan boards themselves). But I can relate to it, since I do have many friends I have met over the Internet.

To be honest, I don't know if I'd recommend this book. It made me laugh, but it also made me angry. In the first chapter, Beatrice explains how she got her book deal. I feel that if the author has to explain how she got her book deal, then she's not really sure herself if the book was worth publishing.