Name: Fan Art
ISBN: 9780062243157

Sarah Tregay

A sweet contemporary romance about a boy who falls in love with his best friend, and the girls who help them get together. Jamie Peterson has a problem: Even though he tries to keep his feelings to himself, everyone seems to know how he feels about Mason, and the girls in his art class are determined to help them get together. Telling the truth could ruin Jamie and Mason's friendship, but it could also mean a chance at happiness. Falling in love is easy, except when it's not, and Jamie must decide if coming clean to Mason is worth facing his worst fear. In Fan Art, Sarah Tregay, the author of the romantic Love and Leftovers, explores the joys and pains of friendship, of pressing boundaries, and how facing our fears can sometimes lead us to what we want most. Fan Art is perfect for fans of contemporary romances as well as novels like Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan and Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg.

Fan Art

jess

Started out as your run of the mill coming out story and turned into a pretty cute romance. Unfortunately? The plot was MASSIVELY predictable. I guessed pretty much everything that was going to happen. (Then again, I've read a boatload of coming out stories over the years.) It wasn't much of a surprise.

Things I liked: even though this was primarily gay, the two other major characters were both lesbians and got together in the end - usually in coming out stories there's just the main character and the love interest. 

I didn't like how the girls were generally portrayed, though. They seemed shallow, which was disappointing.

Missy Zuber 

Reyna Wren

This kind of felt like an overly lengthy piece of poorly written, fluffy/angst-y fan fiction (not to bad mouth fan fiction in general, which I've discussed with more depth later in this post). I guess I should have surmised that from the title.
I mean, it's kind of cute and endearing, but it really has hardly any plot.



There are many thing that disappointed me about this novel. First off, Jamie. He is lucky enough to have genuinely happy and supportive parents, and he acts like that's a bad thing. He has friends at school that are also gay, and are still accepted, and yet he's still too scared to come out, mostly because of how it will affect his relationship with Mason. However, Mason has never shown any signs of not being accepting of the LGBT community. I was frustrated with Jamie for not telling any of his friends, but also upset that the author noted that his mother lost her pride in him when she found out that he wasn't out at school, as if she didn't have anything else to be proud of him for. And really, even though he is in an amazingly supportive environment, it's his choice whether he wants to tell people or not. But, on the flip side of that, (view spoiler)[it was quite frustrating that Jamie was so upset about Mason going to prom with a girl and kissing her. Like, seriously, Jamie, you never told him you were gay, or that you liked him. And even if you did, he is allowed to be straight or bi. And even if he does like guys, he might still only like Jamie as a friend, and there's nothing wrong with that. (hide spoiler)] Also, what was up with Jamie's whole "ew, girls have cooties," thing? He doesn't even want to hug them, as if they might infect him. Somebody needs to tell Jamie that being gay doesn't mean he can't be friends with girls.
On the subject of girls, they are pretty much all just built on the idea that they exist solely to ship Jamie and Mason. I get that we're supposed to find this strange but endearing and truthful, but it just came off as creepy. I also felt like it gave fan fiction writers a bad rep. When people write fan fiction, it's often because they have a different perspective on the story and how it should have ended or continued on. Writing fan fiction and drawing fan art is not exclusively a pursuit that young girls take up to draw cute boys together. And they should all know better than to do it for real people, especially if it seems to bother the people. (view spoiler)[Also, we're all supposed to be upset when a picture of Jamie and Mason is drawn, but before that a comic is published that basically tells their story, and really, I mostly felt bad for the "art-geek girls". I've seen first hand how people are pushed to create ships of their friends, and/or divulge personal details to their friends. It's not a fun process, and the girls'/guys' peers will often harshly pressure girls/guys into doing it. (hide spoiler)]
And why does Jamie think that he has athority over the entire magazine? They voted on the piece, and while they were being stupid about the LGBT elements, they were kind of right about it not having much plot. If the two main characters weren't gay, it wouldn't have hardly any conflict. In fact, that pretty much goes for the entire book. Maybe it's just me, since one of my biggest writing pet peeves is when the conflict is completely romance, and granted there was some other conflict with the "art-geek girls" and the magazine, Jamie spent almost the entire book pinning and being angst-y about Mason.
(view spoiler)[And even when it was revealed that Mason liked him back, it felt really weird. Mason acted as if they had decided together that they wanted to come out in public a long time ago. It felt abrupt and almost rude, considering they hadn't ever really been a couple. And really, who wants to kiss someone for the first time in a huge crowd of people at graduation? (hide spoiler)]
And also, they have underage drinking in the novel, and never even question if it's a bad idea. One character does puke, but they don't really connect that to "hey, maybe he should stop drinking".
And it was frustrating how Mason kept being compared to Darren Criss, to the point where a lot of his characterization was not created by the author, but rather by this comparison. 
And lastly, judging from the title and cover, I was expecting something similar to Fangirl, and I was quite disappointed that it never lived up to that. If you're thinking of reading this book, I suggest you read Fangirl instead.

Addison Degginger

Tiffany Robinson

This was a fun book to read and I got through it pretty fast. I would like to know what happens next in the story.

A sweet contemporary romance about a boy who falls in love with his best friend and the girls who help them get together. Jamie Peterson has a problem: Even though he tries to keep his feelings to himself, everyone seems to know how he feels about Mason, and the girls in his art class are determined to help them get together. Telling the truth could ruin Jamie and Mason’s friendship, but it could also mean a chance at happiness. Falling in love is easy, except when it’s not, and Jamie must decide if coming clean to Mason is worth facing his worst fear. In Fan Art, Sarah Tregay, the author of the romantic Love and Leftovers, explores the joys and pains of friendship, of pressing boundaries, and how facing our fears can sometimes lead us to what we want most. Fan Art is perfect for fans of contemporary romances as well as novels like Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan and Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg.

Taylor 

Okay so I absolutely LOVED this book. However, I would have liked more on their relationship and felt that the ending was quite rushed.

Okay so I absolutely LOVED this book. However, I would have liked more on their relationship and feel that the ending was quite rushed.

adria

This is the definition of "slow burn", but it's so worth it. All around fluffy cuteness.