Stranger Than Fanfiction

Last updated
Stranger Than Fanfiction
Stranger Than Fanfiction (Colfer novel).jpg
Author Chris Colfer
Audio read byChris Colfer
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
Publisher Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date
February 28, 2017
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback, paperback), e-book, audiobook

Stranger Than Fanfiction is a young adult novel written by author Chris Colfer. [1] It was published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers on February 28, 2017, and is Colfer's second young adult novel. [1] [2] Stranger Than Fanfiction explores themes of race, friendship, and fame, as well as LGBT themes. [3] [4] It has received widespread press coverage and numerous reviews, and has been featured on several awards lists. [5] [6] [7]

Contents

Background

Chris Colfer, author of Stranger Than Fanfiction, notes that although the novel is not an autobiography, it is inspired by his own experience with fame; the author formerly portrayed Kurt Hummel on the television show Glee. [8] [9] At the show's peak, Colfer was a teenager; as a result, he had his coming-of-age experience in the public spotlight. [8] Recognizing the uniqueness of his adolescent experience, Chris Colfer wrote Stranger Than Fanfiction, as he felt that it would add a new and "hilarious" perspective to the world of YA literature. [8]

According to the author, each of the five protagonists in Stranger Than Fanfiction represents some aspect of his teenage experience. [8] For example, Colfer likens Cash Carter's fear of disapproval to his own fear of rejection after publicly coming out as gay on national television. [8] Consequently, Cash develops agoraphobia, an experience that mirrors the author's own agoraphobic feelings during his time on Glee. [8]

Additionally, the author includes plot lines that although aren't personal, he deems worthy of discussion. [8] Although he has stated that he has not experienced issues with gender identity himself, Colfer conducted extensive research on GLAAD websites, consulted friends, and hired sensitivity readers while writing the character Sam Gibson, a transgender protagonist in the novel. [8] The author explains that one of the central messages underlying Stranger Than Fanfiction is that “there's nothing wrong with trying to be a better, more authentic version of yourself”. [8]

Synopsis

Stranger Than Fanfiction features five main characters: Topher Collins, Joey Davis, Sam Gibson, Moriko Ishikawa, and Cash Carter. [8] The first is described as intelligent and as having a close, but stifling relationship with his mother and his brother, the latter of whom has cerebral palsy. [3] [8] Joey Davis is an African-American aspiring actor; he struggles with coming out to his homophobic dad, a prominent Catholic preacher in the town. [3] [10] [8] Sam Gibson is a closeted transgender character; his friends repeatedly misgender him through the novel. [3] Sam experiences difficulty with coming out to his mom, a beauty queen, and his friend Topher, who is in love with him. [10] Mo Ishikawa is a Japanese-American creative writer and aims to become a published author. [8] Finally, Cash Carter is described as a “rough-around-the-edges” actor who has starred on the Wiz Kids show since he was twelve years old. [11] [8] He's a good-looking celebrity who grew up in the spotlight, but yearns for autonomy. [12] [11]

All of the characters, excluding Cash Carter, are high school seniors who are united by their love for the show Wiz Kids. [11] Each dreams of escaping the small, mundane suburb of Downers Grove, Illinois, but before they head off to college, the four decide to go on a final road trip together. [8] Topher jokingly sends an invitation to their favorite actor Cash Carter. [4] The actor, wanting a little adventure in his life, takes the students by surprise and accepts their invitation. [4] The entirety of the book centers on their road-trip adventures as they drive from Illinois to California. [13] Along the way, they run into some scuffles, reveal some dark secrets, and form strong friendships. [4] [12] [13]

Analysis

LGBTQ topics are discussed at great length in Stranger Than Fanfiction. Multiple characters identify as members of the community, including Joey Davis, who is gay, and Sam Gibson, who is both gay and transgender. [3] These characters are in the closet and struggle with coming out; more so, they fear the implications of such revelations on familial and friendship dynamics. [3] [10]

Another prevailing theme is fame; Colfer describes both the good and the bad that comes with being a celebrity, mainly through the plot line of Cash Carter. In the book, Cash laments the loss of privacy as paparazzi chase him everywhere. [4] He also is caught in an identity crisis; although Cash's fans see him as his Wiz Kids character, a nerdy physicist, the actor is a completely different person in real life and struggles to convey this reality to his fans. This conflict, according to Colfer, represents the author's own issues with identity development during his time on Glee. [14]

Colfer also notes that one of the central themes of the book is that our heroes are human. [14] According to the author, fans have a tendency to idolize celebrities, but they fail to recognize that celebrities themselves are imperfect. [4] [8] In fact, they deal with many of the same struggles that everyone deals with. [4] [8]

On the other hand, the author celebrates the concept of "fandom", a term which refers to a celebrity's fanbase. [7] [14] In the book, Cash receives numerous letters from fans around the world. [14] This scene is meant to represent Colfer's own experience with his fans. [14] According to the author, he wanted to "celebrate the symbiosis between the fans and the celebrity" and to show that the fans can have just as much of a positive impact on a celebrity as a celebrity can have on his own fans. [14]

The author also briefly touches upon two additional themes: race and disability. [3] [14] Racial representation is mainly limited to two characters: Mo is Japanese-American and Joey is African-American. [3] In particular, there is one scene in the book when the teenagers have an encounter with a racist gas station owner. [3] Disability is discussed from Topher's perspective, as his brother has cerebral palsy. [3] This storyline stems from Colfer's own family: his sister, Hannah Colfer, has epilepsy. [14]

Publication history

Stranger Than Fanfiction was first published on February 28, 2017, in hardback and e-book formats by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. [15] An unabridged audiobook adaptation narrated by Colfer was also released by the publisher on the same day. The following year on May 29, 2018, a trade paperback was issued. [16]

Reception

Colfer has largely been praised for giving representation to the LGBTQ+ community, [10] and for approaching relevant topics such as gender identity, sexuality, and self-worth that are considered controversial in modern times. [11] [17]

A reviewer for Booklist wrote a favorable review, writing that "Colfer has a flair for combining poignancy and hilarity so that readers find themselves laughing even as their hearts break a little bit". [18] Melanie Ramdarshan Bold has described Stranger Than Fanfiction as part of a larger popular trend of celebrities capitalizing on the increasing popularity of YA literature in order to touch upon sensitive subjects such as race and sexuality. [19]

The book was placed on several recommended reading lists by outlets such as the Hollywood Reporter and Bustle, [20] [21] and was placed on the New York Times Bestseller List for Young Adult Hardcover Books during the week of March 19, 2017. [22]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eoin Colfer</span> Irish author of childrens books

Eoin Colfer is an Irish author of children's books. He worked as a primary school teacher before he became a full-time writer. He is best known for being the author of the Artemis Fowl series. In September 2008, Colfer was commissioned to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, titled And Another Thing ..., which was published in October 2009. In October 2016, in a contract with Marvel Comics, he released Iron Man: The Gauntlet. He served as Laureate na nÓg between 2014 and 2016.

The Chalet School is a series of 58 school story novels by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, initially published between 1925 and 1970. The fictional school was initially located in the Austrian Tyrol, before it was moved to Guernsey in 1939 following the rise to power of the Nazi Party, and again to Herefordshire following the Nazi invasion of the Channel Islands. It later moved to a fictional island off the coast of Wales, and finally to Switzerland.

Susan Eloise Hinton is an American writer best known for her young-adult novels (YA) set in Oklahoma, especially The Outsiders (1967), which she wrote during high school. Hinton is credited with introducing the YA genre.

Young adult literature (YA) is typically written for readers aged 12 to 18 and includes most of the themes found in adult fiction, such as friendship, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. It is characterized by simpler world building than adult literature as it seeks to highlight the experiences of adolescents in a variety of ways. There are various genres within young adult literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FanFiction.Net</span> US fan fiction website

FanFiction.Net is an automated fan fiction archive site. It was first launched in 1998 by software designer Xing Li, and currently has over 12 million registered users.

Web fiction is written works of literature available primarily or solely on the Internet. A common type of web fiction is the web serial. The term comes from old serial stories that were once published regularly in newspapers and magazines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naomi Novik</span> American author (born 1973)

Naomi Novik is an American author of speculative fiction. She is known for the Temeraire series (2006–2016), an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars involving dragons, and her Scholomance fantasy series (2020–2022). Her standalone fantasy novels Uprooted (2015) and Spinning Silver (2018) were inspired by Polish folklore and the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale respectively. Novik has won many awards for her work, including the Alex, Audie, British Fantasy, Locus, Mythopoeic and Nebula Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal issues with fan fiction</span>

Fanfiction has encountered problems with intellectual property law due to usage of copyrighted characters without the original creator or copyright owner's consent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fictional location</span> Place that exists only in fiction and not in reality

Fictional locations are places that exist only in fiction and not in reality, such as the Negaverse or Planet X. Writers may create and describe such places to serve as a backdrop for their fictional works. Fictional locations are also created for use as settings in role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fan fiction</span> Type of fiction created by fans of the original subject

Fan fiction or fanfiction, also known as fan fic, fanfic, fic or FF, is fiction typically written in an amateur capacity by fans as a form of fan labor, unauthorized by, but based on, an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing and can retain the original characters and settings, add their own, or both. Fan fiction ranges in length from a few sentences to novel-length and can be based on fictional and non-fictional media, including novels, movies, comics, television shows, musical groups, cartoons, anime and manga, and video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Colfer</span> American actor, singer, and author (born 1990)

Christopher Paul Colfer is an American actor, singer, and author. He gained international recognition for his portrayal of Kurt Hummel on the television musical Glee (2009–2015). Colfer's portrayal of Kurt received critical praise for which he has been the recipient of several awards, including the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film, three consecutive People's Choice Awards for Favorite Comedic TV Actor from 2013 to 2015, two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series nominations and one Grammy Award nomination. In April 2011, Colfer was named one of the Time 100, Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

My Immortal is a Harry Potter-based fan fiction serially published on FanFiction.net between 2006 and 2007. Though notable for its convoluted narrative and constant digressions, the story largely centers on a non-canonical female vampire character named "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" and her relationships with the characters of the Harry Potter series, particularly her romantic relationship with Draco Malfoy, culminating in her travelling back in time to defeat the main antagonist of the series, Lord Voldemort. The work takes its name from the song "My Immortal" by Evanescence.

<i>Gabriels Inferno</i> Novel by Sylvain Reynard

Gabriel's Inferno is an erotic romance novel by an anonymous Canadian author under the pen name Sylvain Reynard. The story was first published in novel format in 2011 by Omnific Publishing, with further publishing rights to the series being purchased by Berkley Books. The work was first published on 4 September 2012, along with the second book in the series, Gabriel's Rapture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malinda Lo</span> American writer

Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels including Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, Inheritance,A Line in the Dark, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. She also does research on diversity in young adult literature and publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainbow Rowell</span> American writer

Rainbow Rowell is an American author known for young adult and adult contemporary novels. Her young adult novels Eleanor & Park (2012), Fangirl (2013), and Carry On (2015) have been subjects of critical acclaim.

<i>Star Trek Lives!</i>

Star Trek Lives! is a 1975 book, co-written by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston, which explored the relationship between the Star Trek television series and the fandom that emerged following the series' cancellation. It was published by Bantam Books.

Bisexual literature is a subgenre of LGBTQ literature that includes literary works and authors that address the topic of bisexuality or biromanticism. This includes characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying bisexual behavior in both men and women.

Young adult fiction and children's literature in general have historically shown a lack of diversity, that is, a lack of books with a main character who is, for example, a person of color, from the LGBTQIA+ community, or disabled. The numbers of children's book authors have shown a similar lack of diversity. In the mid-2010s, more attention was drawn to this problem from various quarters. In the several years following, diversity numbers seem to have improved: One survey showed that in 2017, a quarter of children's books were about minority protagonists, almost a 10 percent increase from 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TJ Klune</span> Queer romantic fiction and fantasy writer (born 1982)

Travis John Klune is an American author of fantasy and romantic fiction featuring gay and LGBTQ+ characters. His fantasy novel The House in the Cerulean Sea is a New York Times best seller and winner of the 2021 Alex and Mythopoeic Awards. Klune has spoken about how his asexuality influences his writing. His novel Into This River I Drown won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Romance in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesca Coppa</span> American scholar of literature

Francesca Coppa is an American scholar whose research has encompassed British drama, performance studies and fan studies. In English literature, she is known for her work on the British writer Joe Orton; she edited several of his early novels and plays for their first publication in 1998–99, more than thirty years after his murder, and compiled an essay collection, Joe Orton: A Casebook (2003). She has also published on Oscar Wilde. In the fan-studies field, Coppa is known for documenting the history of media fandom and, in particular, of fanvids, a type of fan-made video. She co-founded the Organization for Transformative Works in 2007, originated the idea of interpreting fan fiction as performance, and in 2017, published the first collection of fan fiction designed for teaching purposes. As of 2021, Coppa is a professor of English at Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania.

References

  1. 1 2 "STRANGER THAN FANFICTION". Kirkus.
  2. ↑ Raynor, Madeline (October 17, 2016). "Chris Colfer debuts Stranger Than Fanfiction cover". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Queer Books for Teens". Queer Books for Teens. 2017-12-07. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Rought, Karen (March 9, 2017). "'Stranger Than Fanfiction' by Chris Colfer is a lesson in compassion (+ giveaway)". Hypable. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  5. ↑ "Young Adult Hardcover". The New York Times. March 18, 2017. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  6. ↑ Lewis, Andy (January 11, 2017). "27 Books to Watch For in 2017". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  7. 1 2 Corbett, Sue (May 5, 2017). "In the Age of Conventions, YA Fans Rule". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Jones, Jaleesa M. "Chris Colfer's new teen novel stars a bad-boy actor". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  9. ↑ "Fans, Fiction, And Fan Fiction". NPR.org. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Penn, Farrah (19 June 2018). "25 LGBT YA Books You've Got To Get Your Hands On". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  11. 1 2 3 4 B., Emma (May 29, 2018). "Stranger than Fanfiction". teenreads. Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  12. 1 2 "'Stranger Than Fanfiction' by Chris Colfer book review and giveaway". Hypable. 2017-03-09. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  13. 1 2 Eisenhart, Mary (2017). "Stranger Than Fanfiction". Common Sense Media. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Chris Colfer Discusses His Book, "Stranger Than Fanfiction"". BUILD Series (via YouTube).
  15. ↑ Colfer, Chris (2017). Stranger Than Fanfiction (First ed.). New York: Little, Brown. ISBN   978-0-316-38344-8. OCLC   959879452.
  16. ↑ Stranger Than Fanfiction. Little, Brown Young Readers. 2017-06-27. Archived from the original on 2019-12-05. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  17. ↑ "Review: Stranger Than Fanfiction". Publishers Weekly. February 20, 2017.
  18. ↑ Stranger than Fanfiction (review) – via Booklist.
  19. ↑ Ramdarshan Bold, Melanie (2019). "A Brief History of Young Adult Fiction". Inclusive young adult fiction : authors of colour in the United Kingdom. Cham: Palgrave Pilot. pp. 21–44. ISBN   978-3-030-10522-8. OCLC   1081038179.
  20. ↑ "9 New Celebrity Books You Should Definitely Move To The Top Of Your TBR List". Bustle. 31 October 2017. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  21. ↑ "27 Books to Watch For in 2017". The Hollywood Reporter. 11 January 2017. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  22. ↑ "Young Adult Hardcover Books - Best Sellers". The New York Times. March 19, 2017. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-12-05.
    This page is based on this Wikipedia article
    Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
    Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.