Non-Fiction Book Review - 'The Secret Loves of Geeks' by Hope Nicholson (Editor), Various

A worthy sequel to 'The Secret Loves of Geek Girls'.

A geeky anthology, collected and published in 2018, 'The Secret Loves of Geeks' gives voice to geek women/fangirls and queer geek guys, and nonbinary and gender-nonconforming geeks (a lot of the geek creators are LBGTQA+, as well as POC - good).

These nonfiction stories, whether told in prose or comics, are so important. I didn't like all of them, of course, and some even left me seriously concerned, but they are raw, honest, personal and universal truths that need to be let out there, without anyone's permission but their own.

The writers of 'The Secret Loves of Geeks', the marginalised "minorities", definitely need an outlet; they need to be heard, now. Their very existence is constantly in danger of being erased - silenced, forced back into the shadows and into the closet - by bigoted, hateful and fearful political systems. The cishet-normative, white supremacist patriarchy is and always has been about looking out only for themselves - ensuring the wealth, privilege and pardoned crimes of the 1% - for their own benefit, comfort and entitlement. They are legitimately, knowingly evil people, and we cannot keep letting them get away with it. We have to keep resisting, and fighting back.

Never lose hope.

I love the foreword of 'The Secret Loves of Geeks' by Chris Roberson - everybody needs to read that - and Patrick Rothfuss's 'The Multifarious Monolith of Love'. My other favourites are 'The Horror, the Horror' by Margaret Atwood, 'Smudged' by Letty Wilson, 'Women Love Jerks' by Cara Ellison, 'The Walter Mercado Effect' by Ivan Salazar, 'Deceptively Normal' by Dana Simpson, 'Wife' by H-P Lehkonen, 'Our Story' by Shauna J. Grant, 'Them Struggles' by Christina "Peaches" Cortes, 'So Say We All' by Levi Hastings', 'Bear With' by Terry Blas, 'Josei' by Priya Huq, 'Trolling For Lesbos' by Gabby Rivera, 'Tell Me About Your Trans Headcanons' by Sfé R. Monster, and 'What Girls Want' by Speranza.

So while I didn't love 'The Secret Loves of Geeks' as much as 'The Secret Loves of Geek Girls', I still recommend it, despite some dated content that has not aged well, in terms of pop culture and politics.

Wonderful, vital, needed stuff.

No one is truly weird. You are never alone. There is nothing wrong or broken about you. You are fine. You are wonderful. You are beautiful. There is a community for you out there, waiting. There are people you can honestly open up to, and connect to, emotionally, not just romantically or sexually. These human connections can last a lifetime.

Heart and brains win out every time.

I would love another sequel, with modern geeks' stories that reflect our current times. Or would that be too depressing? And hopeless?

My review (or multiple rereviews, more like) of 'The Secret Loves of Geek Girls' can be read here.

Final Score: 3.5/5