eliza and her monsters by francesca zappia

She’s shocked–shocked!–to find out that her brothers are just as interested and nuanced as she is. Which, okay, is likely largely due to some crippling social anxiety that is oh-so-conveniently fixed in the last 10% of this book by some real hallelujah type moments. For example I visit diasterisms’ tumblr page so often that it is one of my most visited sites on Chrome, but I also bristle every time someone asks her “when is the update”/”when update”/”UPDATEEEEE.” It’s a weird relationship, being an older fan, knowing that you love someone’s work and want to devour it but also they’re humans and probably have real lives and so it’s hard for them to get around to spending all their efforts on free labor/labors of love.

And while I’m very glad that people are feeling seen by this book, I have to firmly shelve it under “High School, I’m Glad This Wasn’t My.”Īs I noted when I started reading this, I got very much more into Monstrous Sea than I did in the story of Eliza…Īs I’m writing that, I’m realizing that I am falling firmly into the camp of the el terrible fans that drove Eliza to anxiety and her eventual panic attacks.īut as it were, perhaps that’s the character whom I most relate to in this novel–one in the horde of fans, but the nice kind that doesn’t heckle or troll or spew venom.

Hmm I think I’m forever chasing books about fandom to find that mythical “character like myself” who will make me feel seen the way that others have felt seen by Spoiler Alert or Geekerella. Content warning: suicide (past), suicidal ideation

Eliza and her monsters by francesca zappia