It was an absolute joy to read and dive into Maya Phillips' Nerd, jumping back to the beginnings of fandom and examining how it has evolved throughout modern history. I loved this book!

I like how she gives a backstory about herself and how she carefully weaves pop culture references sprinkled throughout the book with references almost on every page. I like how we can all relate some type of pop culture throughout our lives since there’s always a comic, anime,manga, etc… to pique our interest and we can put ourselves in the characters’ shoes. Some of the anime pop culture I’ve heard but haven’t really gotten into;now makes me want to check it out.

As a self named "nerd" myself, this book really resonated with me. I enjoyed every fandom essay. Even the fandoms that I am not a part of, I enjoyed reading. The author did a fantastic job bringing all of our likes, interests and opinions together. I highly recommend this one!

This is an excellent read! As someone who’s engaged with and studied a fandom not covered extensively in this book (the Jane Austen fandom), I was fascinated to read about other fan worlds & phenomena, and see how they intersect or overlap with my experience of the Austen world. Overall, I found this insightful and fun!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This is a book of essays about what it means to be part of a fandom. I loved how well the author captured the feeling of being in a fandom, particularly how we turn to fandom during dark times in our own life (it reminded me of the song “Netflix trip” by AJR) and find ourselves in the characters and plot of our favorite media. I loved the chapter where she talked about how we tend to “sort” ourselves into their worlds based on personality aspects (I’m a type 2, INFP, earth kingdom, hufflpuff Uf you were wondering). Even when the essays were discussing fandoms I am not in, I found them interesting and engaging. The only critiques I have are that the individual essays were a little too long for my taste and my ADHD brain was struggling. The book was also pretty anime heavy, so for someone that’s never seen an anime before, it was a little too much. If you’re not an anime viewer like me, you will still enjoy the book, and if you are an anime connoisseur, you’ll love it even more! The one think I will say is BEWARE OF SPOILERS!! if she starts talking about a media you want to see but haven’t yet, skip that part, because she dissects the entire plot of many of the shows she brings up. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. And would rate it a 3.5/5 stars.