Tag: essays

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you’ve finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same. In this way, we’ll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers. Please join us below.

Title: Faith & Fandom Volume 2: The Obligatory Sequel
Author: Hector Miray
Genre: Christian Nonfiction, Geek Culture
Pages: 95
Reading Level: Teen
Content: PG (reference to books, movies, and video games targeted to teen and adult audiences, religious principles)

I’ll admit that it took me some time to get into this book, but I’m glad I stuck with it. I enjoyed this book so much that I immediately shared it with a family member after finishing it. With that said, I did have a few issues concerning my reading experience and would like to explain what I liked and didn’t like, thus keeping this wonderful book from receiving a 5 star rating.

First, I loved the cover. It pulled me in from across the alley at the local Comic Con where I received it. The images and the title immediately had me curious about the content within, so imagine my disappointment with there were no images inside, at all. I’m no fool to the issue of copyright infringement, but for some reason, I at least expected to see some vague and rough sketches to accompany some of the featured stories, but there were none.

Second, I enjoyed the personal and carefree tone of the essays. Many of them include personal life experiences and moments of pure geekdom that I could totally relate to. Then when the author began to transition into making biblical connections, it didn’t feel forced or preachy. He was simply offering his opinions based on his personal faith-walk and experience as a geek and fanboy. However, there were times when comprehending the message was a little difficult. There was no stylized formatting to clearly separate what was personal opinion, media quotes, or scripture. Yes, Miray, used all correct punctuation, but since the essays are written in a conversational way, it was sometimes difficult to determine which part of the one-sided conversation you were reading. Plus, it bothered me that none of the paragraphs were indented, though, I got over it quickly by pretending I was reading blog posts, which are often times not indented.

Lastly, I liked that this was a short read that packed a lot of punch. Miray covers so many different fandoms in this volume, it makes me want to go back to see what he talked about in the first one. Since I acquired my copy at a live event, I got to speak with Miray who suggested that I start with whichever volume seemed to have more of the geek stuff I liked in it, thus I started with volume two.

Even though this was a short read, it did take me a while to get into it because of all the forwards. I’m used to reading one or two pages of forwards and I think this book had four pages of them. Also, I was a little annoyed that there were no page numbers to reference. Sometimes I like to gauge my progress as I’m reading to motivate myself to finish a book, but I couldn’t do that this time.

Overall, I really felt like this book was wonderful for those who love geek culture and who might be curious about Christian faith. Other books that claim to connect faith to pop culture in a fun and interesting way, to me, have fallen short, but this book does it right. Recommended to, as the description states “geek curious believer[s and] a faith curious fanboy[s and girls]” of all ages, though younger children may not get all the references.

I give this book a 4.

This review has been posted to GoodReads.

If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book or others in the series, try this link: Amazon

If you have a moment, I’d love for you to visit my CURIOUS QUESTIONS page and offer your two cents on the question being asked. Thanks bunches.

Please stop by and see what others have read. 😀

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords