Take Me to Your Nerdy Leader

Bowden Anime Club

by Hailey Gonzales

Fans of Fangirl and Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda will love this book!

Paige has always been scared to be herself. The real Paige- the nerdy Paige- who just wants to have real friends, talk about anime, lose her virginity, and share her art- doesn’t exist at school or to her friends. Only quiet Paige does.

Her new school in Bowden is full of opportunity. There’s Revolution Recognition where she can share her art. There’s confident and enigmatic Shawn who she just feels drawn to. The anime club poster is only icing on the cake. She sees her chance! If only she can reach out and take it. And the cute boy she keeps running into is definitely on her radar.

Insightful, bold, relatable, and raw. This twenty-first century, coming-of-age story brilliantly explores the anxiety of standing out and the thrill of fearlessness.

Featuring an aromantic protagonist! No romance here!

Genres: Queer, Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBT, Fiction, Romance, Slice Of Life

247 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2020

About the author

Hailey Gonzales lives in a small town in California. She adores her dog, Miley, who is the cutest animal in the multiverse. Hailey enjoys writing Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, and occasionally, Contemporary. But most of all, she loves to write about found family.

Reviews

[Elinor]

ALLOARO REP ! FOUND FAMILY ! YES ! I NEED IT !

[Ashleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

love the aro rep but it was just a bit too young for me. plus there was a lot of misspells or missing words

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel. The characters were cool. My favorite was Shawn. I liked how he was both really loud, but insecure at the same time. A lot of people think that happy, bubbly people can't be depressed but this novel showed the nuance. I loved Hikaru and Jay's friendship. I thought that their dynamic was really interesting. And I loved how this was just a novel about friendship and how they helped each other. I'm looking forward to the sequel! This was a really nice read.

[gpcsia · Rating 4 out of 5]

for the rep.

[FräuleinHallo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eine schöne Mischung queerer und mental - health Themen. Irgendwie war mir dann ab der Mitte aber alles zu glatt und wunderbar in ihrem neuen tollen Leben an der neuen tollen Schule mit neuen tollen Freunden.

[Terrance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. I received an ARC. I loved all the characters and the friendship between Paige and Shawn gave me life lol. Paige was very relatable and I loved hearing from her POV, I especially liked seeing the texts that she would write, but not send. I could relate to that so hard. The novel kept me engaged the whole time and it was just nice to see Paige come into her own and gain confidence. I’m excited for book 2! Oh and it was cool to see an aromantic character! So many people confuse aromanticism with asexuality but the author knew the difference! You can have sexual attraction without romantic attraction! The cast was also very diverse. There was a bisexual character and characters of all different races. I liked that Paige was plus size too and talked about some of the ridiculous things girls had to do. My favorite part was her talking about how she wanted to eat pizza and wanted to kill the whole thing but couldn’t. It was just so relatable.

[Piper · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super cute and fun read! The characters were fun, interesting, and relatable and I enjoyed the plot! If you're looking for a fun and quick read, I would recommend this!

[Cheyenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 ⭐ CW: swearing, death of a parent, discussions of sex, anxiety, HP references

Take Me to Your Nerdy Leader by Hailey Gonzales is book 1 in the Bowden Anime Club duology. This was a nice, light, and uplifting read. Hailey sent me her book after connecting on Instagram. I was so excited to support an aromantic author!

We follow Paige Solano, a nerdy, plus sized MC with lots of social anxiety. She's just moved to Bowden and is determined to cross some things off her list, namely, making friends, telling people she likes anime, and losing her virginity. The only issue is that Paige is Aromantic and has no idea how to go about having sex without the expectation of romance. Paige is a classic over thinker.

It was great to see Paige's progression into being more confident the longer she got to know her friends in the Anime Club. She forges such genuine friendships with each member, and it's sweet to see. It was also wonderful seeing an allosexual aro person navigating things. This was just such a positive book, and I definitely related to a lot of how Paige felt about being aro, even I myself am capable of romantic attraction (sometimes). Of course I love seeing nerds represented even though, I myself am not an anime person. There are a lot of HP references, but I'm pretty sure that's because this came out before JKR made it known she's a TERF.

This is a self -published book, but I think it could have used another pass over from an editor, since there were quite a few typos. If you're looking for an uplifting, lighthearted, and nerdy queer read, this is it. We also have bi male rep, Latinx/mixed rep, and Japanese-American rep.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

ahhhh I really loved this book, it was a really cute story! Paige was so me lol I loved her as a protagonist. The story had a nice pacing and really reminded me of a slice of life anime. I loved how Paige learned to embrace her nerdiness and Shawn was adorable.

[Shelby]

I know a ton of teens will be super into this, specifically the socially awkward anime loving nerd culture type kids, but this just isn’t for me. I picked this up because it was on kindle unlimited and on a couple goodreads lists for aro representation. I don’t read much YA anymore, but I do occasionally enjoy a good coming of age story. Ultimately, the writing just isn’t my cup of tea; it reads like a teen wrote this (I don’t know if the author is). That’s not bad, it’s actually probably good and relatable for a YA such as this, but not for me. It’s just personal taste thing. I dnf’d this because I knew I would have rated this low, and that wouldn’t be cool. I think a lot people will feel seen by this book and that’s important.

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

https://aspeccharactersoftheday.tumbl...

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this book!! i loved the found family and all of the platonic relationships and the fact that there was no romance. i rlly related to paige and i rlly enjoyed this book!

[Martina Weiß · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been thinking about how to review this book for a while now, and while I'm writing this, I'm still not sure, if I can really put into words how this book made me feel.
There were a lot of reasons as to why I bought it, but the main one was: The Aro rep.
I'm ace myself and therefore know how hard it is to come across not only rep, but also good rep. I kinda felt like aro people have it even harder in regards to rep, because the most aro rep I know of is aro ace rep. So to see a heterosexual aromantic in a book , was both amazing but also scary.
I was afraid, that this would be an excuse to write smutty stuff. I was afraid, I would walk away from this book and hate it.
And to tell the truth? I don't. I don't hate it. Not at all.
So why do I still struggle with this review? Well, that's difficult.
OK, let's start with the stuff I liked:

- The characters. Just amazing
- The Conversations. Believable
- The relationships. Just heartwarming
- The. Nerd. Talk. Oh yeah.
- The way rep was thrown in there in such a natural way. I NEVER felt like it was forced. I never felt like the author was trying to make me feel things. I never felt like we were only reading about this certain topic at this certain part of the book, because the author felt the need to educate me. The book felt absolutly natural, it felt autentic.
- Everyone was a real person, someone with their own needs and desires. Someone with struggles and flaws. Someone I could relate to and someone I could (platonically) fall in love with.
- AND THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Fade to Black. I was so scared I'd be unconfortable but no! We concentrate on the people, on the emotions. Not on the d. And I liked that.

However. And here's my problem with the book, everything was almost too perfect. I feel like we're missing an antagonist. One could argue that MC is her own antagonist. She is scared, she is insecure and she has all these things she never dared to do. She has to learn to be herself. She has to learn, that being herself is enough and amazing.
But ... She kinda reaches that goal somewhere around 30% in. 40%, if I'm stretching it. And after that, it's just happy feel good stuff. Which ... is nice? But I was craving something ... more.
Let her fail at art, let her mother not accept her aroness, let her have a real fight with a friend that leads her to question herself again. Let her fail, let her struggle. I don't feel like, she did that a lot.

People talk about racism in the book, but ... they just "Talk". I'm told to accept that those people dealed with assholes. I never once see someone being an ass to any of our cast.
Noone is being mean to MC for being chubby , which - as a chubby person - is not how teenagers work. They are assholes. Noone is being mean to her for being a nerd, noone for being mixed race. Noone.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good story. However, I think it had the potentionl to be not only good, but amazing.

[Blue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but that's not to say I don't also have some gripes about it. It was really nice to see a character who is aromantic but identify with a sexuality (in this case, heterosexual). I haven't read any other books (yet) with a solely aromantic character, meaning they are just aromantic and not aromantic and asexual.
~
The characters were really good, and I liked that Paige managed to fit in and find her people and become a little more comfortable in herself and her interests, and be able to show off her nerdy side a little more.
~
However, with those things being said, one frustration I had was the fact that, despite actively looking and searching for any potential trigger warnings and content warnings for this book, I found nothing. Which, for me personally, led to an instance of having to put the book down and stop reading because a scene was a trigger for me and I couldn't prepare myself for it to come up because I had no prior warning for it at all.
~
The only other kinda big issue I had throughout (and it isn't only me who has pointed these things out) is the spelling and grammar. There were a lot of instances where words were either misspelt, or words were missed out of sentences which made them not quite make sense. and yes it's a small thing, but surely it was edited and those things picked up and altered before publication. (Perhaps it's just my copy of it, but either way it's an issue for me).
~
Despite those things, yes I liked it but there were some things that didn't sit right with me.

[Lynds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Objectively speaking, this book is not great. The writing is clunky at times, there are some spelling mistakes and missing words, the MC Paige is just so awkward that at times it was hard to read, and the overall plot was sometimes inconsistent, but despite all this, I enjoyed this book. There is just something wholesome about watching this awkward teen make true friends for the first time in her life. While the characters could have definitely been flushed out more, the individual friendships and relationships between them were super cute. It was also particularly refreshing to read about the Paige being so explicitly aromatic but not asexual. The vast majority of aromantic representation in literature is of aroace characters, so it was so nice to see an aro character who has to deal with her own unique challenges be excepted by those around her and enter into a healthy friends-with-benefits relationship.

I did however feel like some of the other aspects of the book including discussions surrounding the death of a parent, Page being half Mexican and feeling disconnected from her culture, and mentions of self-harm/suicide could have been explored more instead of being sort of glossed over. One other this is this book had an excessive amount of HP references which was jarring at times (although I acknowledge this book was written a couple of years ago).

Ultimately this book definitely wasn't perfect but was still an easy and fun read with some much-needed allo-aro representation and I will probably be checking out the sequel in the near future.

[Zombi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty cute, although it was a tad repetitive. We get it Paige, youre an awkward af nerd who has never had friends before. There were a few errors in the ebook text and some, i guess, continuity errors? (The anime club being tuesday/friday only to later in the book happening mondays instead?) and some of the “conflict”, to me, was seemingly out of nowhere. I wish the characters were fleshed out a bit more and that maybe we spent more time with Miles. I did love Shawn a lot and was glad for his and Paiges friendship and that he was bi. All in all, a fun read with minor personal problems.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolute adored this book! The characters are so well rounded and relatable and realistic. I loved Paige and related a lot to her. The internal conflict really propelled the plot and I never felt bored once. I could never put it down! It was absolutely amazing to see alloaro rep. This representation made me feel so seen. I loved the emotions in this book and how Paige slowly got more confident.

[Brittany M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super cute and loved the Aro character

Such a cute story and loved the aro character. I felt so seen lol. If I could give this 3.5 stars I would. I’m not generally a huge fan of YA books but the plot intrigued me because of the protagonist having an interesting in anime, fanfiction, and she’s aromantic (which you don’t come by often).

[Meredith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I sincerely hope the paperback edition of this was edited better than the Kindle version. The editing was awful. Poor grammar; poor everything really. There really wasn't a conflict in the story. I read this book because it fit a challenge I'm doing but otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished it.

[Elisa👹 · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was super cute and enjoyable! the characters were great, the way every subject was brought up was done very well! it has great aro rep and is truly heartwarming! i went into this knowing nothing other than the aro rep and it did not disappoint. i had a great time reading this book and i highly recommend it! overall a super fun read, exited to see where this series next goes:)

[Elin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved that this book had a main character who’s aromantic and not asexual because there need to be more of that kind of representation. Otherwise it wasn’t a book for me. The story didn’t really interest me at all and it might be because I’m not a teenager myself 😌 and I’m not into anime either.

The best part was when the main character came out as aromantic to her friend.

[Lexy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent story, pity about the proofreading

Brilliant story, but there were lots of basic spelling errors and typos in the book, as well as acknowledgments randomly in the middle of the book. It's a pity because it detracts from the flo when you have to work out what they mean rather than what they say.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than a lot of HP references and a lot of typos/spelling errors/missing words etc Take Me to Your Nerdy Leader was great.
It was low angst without third act drama and all about growing as a person and overcoming your fears.
I loved the portrayal of an allsosexual aromantic MC.

[Kevinsunreyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it!

[☼ anne ☼ · Rating 3 out of 5]

give me all those aspec main characters, pls

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Lennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was super fun to read about a proudly aromantic character

[Jackie]

Looking for aro rep, but found the writing here painfully immature DNF at 20%

[sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐
good rep, bad writing

[Annemarie Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

cute little book about friendship, trying to figure out who you are socially, physically, mentally, and sexually. Love the relationship and the making of new friends.