Book Review: One Con Glory

Book: One Con Glory by Sarah Kuhn

Cover by Chris Stewart

Edition: Digital

Description:

Diehard fangirl Julie loves Buffy marathons, fighting about comic book continuity, and being left alone. But more than anything, Julie loves Glory Gilmore, a mostly-forgotten C-List superheroine from the world of '80s comics.

For years, she's longed to reclaim the precious Glory action figure that's eluded her grasp so many times before. And one fateful weekend, she has the chance to do just that. Of course, no great quest is ever simple. Before she can triumph over the forces of loudmouth nerds and clueless Mundanes everywhere, Julie will have to deal with an avalanche of unexpected obstacles.

In the midst of battles for videogame supremacy and frustrating encounters with a supremely irritating TV pretty boy, she'll be forced to reconsider her fandom and reevaluate her life. She might even have to talk to people.



Rating: 4 stars

Review:

One Con Glory is a short story that centers around geek and Mammoth Media entertainment reporter Julie who is attending the GinormoCon in Los Angeles to write about the event and to interview actor Jack Camden. She's not exactly thrilled to be interviewing Camden who she thinks is a subpar actor who is more known for his good looks than his acting. She also doesn't think he does justice to the character Travis Trent from the Periodic Seven TV series which by the way is a successful adaptation of her favorite (albeit short lived) comic book series that features her favorite character, Glory Gilmore.

Joining her at GinormoCon are her two fellow geeks, reporters and friends Mitch Caplan (who is her best friend) and Braidbeard, (someone she tolerates but mostly considers to be an annoyance). Mitch and Braidbeard work at the entertainment website Cine Planet and she met them a few years ago while they were freshly minted reporters all working through the con circuit.

After a day of conducting interviews and attending panels, it was time for her big interview with Jack Camden. She figured this would be a predictable yet quick interview where she could get a worthy quote or two from the vapid actor and then leave. But a strange thing happened, there was a moment when Julie and Jack actually connected over the Periodic Seven comic books. At first she thought he was pretending to be a fan of the PS comics and that he was just tossing that out there as a way to connect with fans. However, his answers about the comics were pretty in depth which caught her by surprise and soon the duo were engaged in an easy conversation.

Things went from good to awkward in a split second when Julie quickly diverted back to the interview and resumed her standard questioning. It was as if getting to see another side to Jack (or perhaps seeing the real him) changed her impression which was not something she probably wanted to do especially since she didn't like him.

Back at her hotel, she tried to forget about the strange moment during the interview so she could get ready to join her friends at a Periodic Seven fan party. Julie has an important reason for wanting to go to this party and that's to bid on a Glory Gilmore action figure.

At the beginning of the story, Julie described the misfortune she had with her past four Glory Gilmore action figures and this auction was a chance to finally get back a cherished possession she lost.

Things were certainly not going her way at the auction because just when she thought she had won the action figure, a challenging bid was issued by Jack Camden. And even with Mitch and Braidbeard chipping in their money, she didn't have enough to outbid Jack.

Feeling dejected and perhaps drinking a little too much had Julie doing something completely impulsive but the interesting thing is it resulted in her and Jack getting to know each other better. However, romance was the last thing Julie was looking for but sometimes what you're not looking for turns out to be exactly what you need.

Julie is a geek but she's prickly and standoffish with a huge chip on her shoulder which makes it easy for her to avoid getting too close to others. Meanwhile, for Jack it's easier for him to pretend to be a confident star than showing his true (geeky) self especially factoring in his shyness. But these two meeting, really changed things for them with Julie experiencing a much needed breakthrough and growth while Jack found someone he could really be himself with.

This was a good read with a lot of funny moments. I thought it had an interesting story and characters as this offbeat romantic comedy finds two geeks falling in love.