Why Cecil Castellucci’s Don’t Cosplay With My Heart Is the Heart-Soaring, Feminist Geek Love Story we Need Right Now

With her best friend in Japan for the summer, her dad sequestered with legal trouble due to shady accounting practices, her mom’s subsequent depression, and her Grandma Jackie as a housemate, Don’t Cosplay with My Heart‘s high school heroine Edan must forge her own path as life seemingly crumbles around her. She creates a cosplay club at school (Superheroes Everywhere, or SEW), and finds herself in the epicenter of a confusing love triangle between longtime crush Yuri and new friend Kirk. But the biggest love story in the book is that between Edan and Team Tomorrow, her favorite comic book series, as she discovers how wonderful it feels to participate in its fandom. Sounds amazing, right? That’s because it is. Here are six reasons you need this book:
1. A fictional superhero team that feels so real you’ll wish it was
Team Tomorrow is an X-Men/Justice League-esque group of superheroes created in the 1950s. Much like their real-world equivalents, they’ve had several incarnations and resurgences since then, and provide a truly subversive look into superhero culture. Behind-the-scenes glimpses of the comic’s creation throughout the novel provide an intriguing backstory and struggle. The husband-and-wife creators behind Team Tomorrow had a falling out decades ago, and their schism is reflected, brilliantly, in the pages of the comic.
2. Gargantua, a female comic book character to die for
Gargantua is ten feet tall, takes up as much space as she pleases, and isn’t easily slotted into the role of hero or villain. She could go down either path at any time. Just like Edan. Just like all of us.
3. A true-to-life portrayal of sexism in the worlds of fandom, geekery, cons, and RPG games
Yuri’s smirking, skeptical friends, Tze and Phil, accuse Edan of being a “fake geek girl” who merely pretends to like Team Tomorrow to “hook boys” and “invade their space.” They grill her with obscure trivia questions to test her bona fides, and cast doubt on a (female) film director’s ability to make a worthy Team Tomorrow film. Edan’s awakening to their tactics is painful yet necessary. “I crinkle my brow, wondering if I should say something more in defense of the girl, of all girls, really.”
4. A true-to-life portray of allyship
On the flip side of Yuri’s jerk friends is Kirk Gomez, he of the Han Solo hair and dark eyes. He calls out his cousin for wolf-whistling at a girl, genuinely sympathizes with Edan’s struggle to be taken seriously, and helps her make the best Gargantua costume she can.
5. A beautiful depiction of what it means to be part of a fandom
At Edan’s first con, she experiences love at first sight: “It’s like I’ve cracked open a part of myself that has been there all along.” If you’re new to cons, Castellucci’s depiction will make you jump at the chance to attend one, and if you’re a seasoned pro, you’ll remember what it felt like to be immersed in that world for the first time.
6. The idea that a fan-related costume doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated to be perfect
It just needs to be fun, its creation an extension of its wearer. Edan and her friends in SEW aren’t wealthy or particularly skilled at sewing, but their hunt for materials and concepts for their costumes is a blast.