I've been looking forward to this book's release since I heard a podcast interview with the author all the way back in 2015! The author examines the roles of black female characters in several of the biggest fantasy franchises of the past decade: Rue from The Hunger Games, Gwen from the BBC show Merlin, Bonnie Bennett from The Vampire Diaries and Angelina Johnson from Harry Potter. The author is incredible well researched and draws on a wide variety of sources and quotes, both in the academic realm and the fandom realm. In each chapter she also recounts her personal experiences with these stories, and how her view on them has changed over time. The final chapter also dives into the popular fan reading of Hermione as a black character, and the author's perspective of one of the first outspoken black HP fans in the early days of HP fan groups online. I rarely count nonfiction books as guilty pleasure reading, but this was such a delight. I loved all of Thomas' insights into these characters and the ways black characters in the hands of white writers can fall into a predictable cycle of tropes: seen as spectacles, meet with hesitation, faced with violence and leaving a presence which haunts the rest of the text. I can't recommend this highly enough, especially if you enjoy thoughtful critique of literature and pop culture!