Book Review | Fangirl | Rainbow Rowell

Title: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell (web | twitter)
Genre: Contemporary YA
Amazon | Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release date: September 10, 2013
Source: ARC from the publisher via NetGalley (Thanks, St. Martin’s Press!)

Summary: Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . .

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Without a doubt, Rainbow Rowell is one of my must-read authors. It’s impressive that she’s managed to attain this status (not like my reading preferences are SO IMPORTANT to the rest of the world,  but you know what I mean) in basically less than a year. But what a year it was, no? First, ELEANOR & PARK, which was amazing, and now FANGIRL. Very different books, but the same in that they are both CRAZY GOOD and emotional and nearly too many other incredible things to name. FANGIRL spoke to me in so many ways that ELEANOR & PARK did not, and while I LOOOOOOVED it, if I had to choose–like life or death–I’d say E&P is a eensy-weensy bit better. But honestly. You can’t go wrong with FANGIRL. No, ma’am.

FANGIRL is about a college freshman named Cath. She writes fanfics of a Harry Potter-esque world inhabited by Simon Snow–resident good wizard–and his arch nemesis/true love, Baz. Not only does Cath take her fic super seriously, she’s also SUPER good at it. Like, she has mad fans. Before she left for college with her twin sister, Wren, they kind of wrote the fic together. But now that the girls are off at school, making their own paths and whatnot, Wren seems to be growing out of it, and out of her closeness with Cath. Sad face. Don’t despair, though. Because Cath is determined to finish her EPIC last fic about Simon and Baz before the last ACTUAL book in the REAL series comes out. What gets in her way, you might ask? Well, COLLEGE. It’s pesky with the classes and stuff. Also, boys. Specifically, one young charmer named Levi, who is friends with Cath’s new roomie. Lots of drama and feelings and questions about perseverance and growing up and not letting your childhood shell keep all of the awesome things out.

The star of FANGIRL is without a doubt Cath (short for Cather). Do you guys ever read books that have characters that remind you SO MUCH of yourself that it’s freaky and weird and then you get kind of overprotective of them in your mind and hypersensitive to criticism about them because your weirdo brain has you thinking  “OMG WE ARE TWINS” so it’s like an insult to the character is an insult to you personally? *crickets* No then. Ok. So forget I said all of that because OBVS not true AT ALL….Except that it kind of is. I never wrote fanfic and I don’t have a twin, but all of Cath’s fears about taking risks and the grudges she holds sometimes and the way she hides behind things–ME to infinity and beyond. ESPECIALLY when I was in college. I understood her so well. It was like Rainbow Rowell got in a time machine, visited and observed me at school, changed my name and some of my hobbies, and then wrote a book about it. Weird and awesome all at once. So the bottom line is, Cath is imperfect. She can be frustrating, so I understand people who didn’t love her to death and thought she was a wuss. But reading about her struggles and fears was so much like looking in a mirror that I couldn’t not love her.

As FANGIRL progresses, we see Cath dealing with lots of things. Levi is a pretty legit THING, and I liked their relationship. I liked him. He’s one of those guys that has some mystery and some charm and that confidence that isn’t cockiness. I really enjoyed the way they bonded over Cath’s writing and the way she shared with him. He was supportive and funny and I loved the way Rainbow Rowell wrote him. (Her writing is excellent all the time in FANGIRL, as always.) He’s ADORABLE and wonderful and I’m a BIG FAN.

But Cath’s relationship with Levi isn’t the only one, nor is it the most important. She actually has lots of relationships in FANGIRL: With Levi; with her roommate, Reagan; with her twin sister, Wren; with her dad; with her writing professor. And of course, her relationship with her writing itself. Out of all of those, it’s probably her relationship with her family that has the deepest effect on her, and that creates some of the slightly more melodramatic aspects of FANGIRL that weren’t my faves. I liked her dad a lot, and his issues were real and I could understand why Cath worried about him. Her relationship with her sister is a little more dramatic, especially at the end. There was a lot of drama, friends, and sometimes it felt like a pile-on, but in the end Rainbow Rowell‘s writing and Cath herself just won the day for me.

Friends, between FANGIRL and ELEANOR & PARK, Rainbow Rowell has established and solidified herself as one of my favorite authors. There was so much about Cath that made me remember myself when I was in college, and so I almost instantly was in her corner. The actual fanfic parts were good too, but I wasn’t nearly as moved by them as I was by Cath and Levi and the Avery family. I know I already mentioned that FANGIRL is a completely different book from ELEANOR & PARK, but if you loved the latter, you’ll like the former.

Check out some other reviews of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell!

Angie @ Angieville: “I fell on page one. It was laughable how fast I fell. And I’m not even a little bit hesitant to admit it, because I laughed and giggled and gasped my way through this absolutely delightful book.”

Brittany @ The Book Addict’s Guide: “Cath was so sweet and I felt for her in so many ways, but because she was so closed off to the world, I felt like she was closed off to me as the reader.”

Elena @ Novel Sounds: “It’s like excuse you, Rowell, how dare you tap into human emotions like this and make me feel like such a wreck in the best ways.”