Book Rave: The Summer I Became a Nerd

First thing's first, congratulations to Emily Rachelle! who won the "Ask Me About My Novel" t-shirt prize! 

Now:

On the outside, seventeen-year-old Madelyne Summers looks like your typical blond cheerleader—perky, popular, and dating the star quarterback. But inside, Maddie spends more time agonizing over what will happen in the next issue of her favorite comic book than planning pep rallies with her squad. That she’s a nerd hiding in a popular girl's body isn’t just unknown, it's anti-known. And she needs to keep it that way.

Summer is the only time Maddie lets her real self out to play, but when she slips up and the adorkable guy behind the local comic shop’s counter uncovers her secret, she’s busted. Before she can shake a pom-pom, Maddie’s whisked into Logan’s world of comic conventions, live-action role-playing, and first-person-shooter video games. And she loves it. But the more she denies who she really is, the deeper her lies become…and the more she risks losing Logan forever.

So The Summer I Became A Nerd by Leah Rae Miller is adorable, adorkable, fun, funny, well-crafted, well-written, with an endearingly earnest male lead and a smart, strong female protagonist.  I LOVE this book, for its quick, delightful writing and for its fully realized characters and setting.

But another reason I love this book?  It's important.  It's important that Maddie discovers just how okay (and how normal) it is to love comic books and sci-fi tv shows and LARPing.  I wish I had read this book when I was seventeen so that I wouldn't have wasted so much time feeling like a weirdo because I liked Batman and Star Trek reruns.   And I hope that lots of other girls find this book, and like Maddie, fully embrace their inner nerd!

And if I haven't convinced you why the central issue of The Summer I Became a Nerd  is important, let me introduce you to The Doubleclicks.  This song maybe made me a little teary-eyed...

The Summer I Became a Nerd is one of the those rare books that's enjoyable and objectively awesome for society, so if you're looking for a book to round off your summer, this is it!