Con Quest!

 Cat and Alex are love Geekicon.  They attend all the cons with their parents, frequent panelists and creators of a cult favorite animated show, but Geekicon is the biggest and the best.  This year they are determined to win the Quest, an unofficial scavenger hunt with all kinds of crazy challenges.  The winning team gets a week doing charity work with the cast of a popular tv show and a possible mentorship with the show's art department.  Cat wants to hang out with the cast (and do charity work, too), but Alex wants the mentorship for his art.

Their older sister Fi is supposed to making sure they are safe and out of trouble, but they ditch her immediately.  Fi hates cons and all things geeky.  She only agreed to chaperone them to prove she is trustworthy and ready to go on a camping trip with some older kids from her soccer team and other kids from school.  The twins know their older sister will just slow them down, and they are determined to win.

As they race around the con having fun with the quest and meeting some of their heroes, their differences begin to create cracks in the relationship.  They may be twins, but they are very different people.  Cat is a take-charge girl who likes to be part of the action.  She knows her twin brother sometimes needs a push to get going.  Alex is on the spectrum, and as much as he loves Geekicon, it still causes sensory overload sometimes.  He is getting tired of Cat always making the decisions and assuming he will just follow her lead.

Fi is desperate to find those annoying twins and prove she's trustworthy, but she's having zero luck.  When she accidentally stumbles across a girl from school, she isn't sure if it's good luck or bad.  Rowan is clearly into the whole con thing judging by her outfit, and Fi is determined to move up the social ladder, not down.  She's tired of eating lunch alone.  Most of her friends are older and on the soccer team, so they don't have classes together.  When Rowan suggests they use the Quest app to track the twins, Fi thinks she might have a winning strategy.  

It's time to conquer this Con!

Sam Magg's debut middle grade novel is a tribute to all things geeky.  No real franchises and fandoms are actually named, but fans in the know will recognize their favorites from the clues and wordplay show titles.  This book is fun but exhausting.  I needed a nap almost as much as the characters after all the running around.  Cat and Alex have a sweet and realistic relationship that develops over the course of the story.  I'm not so sure about Rowan and Fi, though.  I think most people would have given up on Fi's negative attitude long before she has time to have a change of heart.  Recommended for geeks everywhere.