{"id":5597,"date":"2015-05-19T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=5597"},"modified":"2015-05-14T10:19:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T15:19:12","slug":"improbable-theory-of-ana-and-zak-by-brian-katcher-book-review-comics-quizzes-and-captures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=5597","title":{"rendered":"Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak, by Brian Katcher (book review) – comics, quizzes, and captures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"book<\/a>At a comic-con<\/a>, he’ll be happy.
\nFinally away at college, she’ll be overjoyed.
\nTrouble… who wants that?<\/p>\n

When 13-year-old Clayton slips out of the QuizBowl <\/a>team hotel for his first comic-con, Ana is terrified – if she loses track of him, their hyper-protective parents will disown her like they did when big sister stepped out of line.<\/p>\n

And when things go sour during their search for Clayton at WashingCon, Zak boggles at constants that could end and possibilities that arise- without cons in his life, what else would a certified geek do?<\/p>\n

Happy book birthday to The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak<\/em>,\u00a0 your invitation to explore the world of comic-conventions, gaming, and love among geeks. For some how-to from the female perspective, try The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em> recommended here<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

So, be honest – Star Wars<\/em> or Star Trek<\/em>?
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/strong>: The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak \/ Brian Katcher. Katherine Tegen Books, 2015.\u00a0 [author site<\/a>]\u00a0 [publisher site<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n

My book talk<\/strong>: Chasing her little brother through a comic-con wasn’t on Ana’s list of ways to stay perfect, but with the help of cute slacker Zak, she may get the QuizBowl team back together before curfew… or maybe not.<\/p>\n

If no-effort Zak wants to graduate, he must serve as QuizBowl alternate during weekend of Seattle’s biggest comic convention, even though he’d already planned out every moment in geek paradise.<\/p>\n

If super-achiever Ana wants to please her parents and not get thrown out of the house like her big sister, she’s got to win this QuizBowl tournament, even though it’s no fun anymore.<\/p>\n

If her whiz-kid little brother Clayton wants to check out WashingCon because Zak said it was cool, he’s gonna go, because why not?<\/p>\n

The search for Clayton jumps from Ana’s world of well-rounded student activities to Zak’s universes of cosplay and card games to the death, as t-shirt slogans, a backpack mixup with deadly consequences, and the clock ticking down to QuizBowl curfew send them all racing through the night.<\/p>\n

Zak’s old friends, Ana’s new enemies, and a cross-cultural wedding (Trek or Wars, the eternal con question) punctuate the pair’s growing appreciation for one another’s strengths and charms, as they chart their progress (or lack thereof) in alternating chapters.\u00a0 (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a comic-con, he’ll be happy. Finally away at college, she’ll be overjoyed. Trouble… who wants that? When 13-year-old Clayton slips out of the QuizBowl team hotel for his first comic-con, Ana is terrified – if she loses track of him, their hyper-protective parents will disown her like they did when big sister stepped out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[22,7,4,75,11,45,20,5,70,16,18,44,46,13,116,43,71,39,49,15,9,21,57,35,58,3,6,8,28,84],"class_list":["post-5597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-behavior","tag-beliefs","tag-belonging","tag-brothers","tag-communication","tag-competition","tag-conflict","tag-coping","tag-crime","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-funny","tag-games","tag-gaming","tag-growing-up","tag-kidnapping","tag-love","tag-memories","tag-relationships","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-sisters","tag-surprises","tag-technology","tag-teens","tag-travel","tag-us-author","tag-villains","tag-washington"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5597"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5945,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5597\/revisions\/5945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}