Accurate and Nostalgic: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Thursday, December 05, 2013
FangirlAuthor's website | Goodreads
by Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Published: September 10th 2013 by St. Martin's Press
Source: Bought/Own copy
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Eleanor & Park.
A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love.
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?
You know what? I kinda feel sorry for the next books I’ll be seeing after this. I’ve just been constantly reading amazing and excellently-written novels and I’m constantly expecting more and more from each one. Good thing, though. Fangirl did live up to those high expectations!
She truly is magic. Like rainbows. Rainbow Rowell, I mean. I
loved her writing style. It was plain-spoken, candid, and uncomplicated. It
struck me in the most unfamiliarly familiar ways. Her words were too close to
home and it was hard—no, impossible—to
not feel for the characters. She wrote so personally that you’d think the book
was speaking to you as if it knew you. I can’t wait to get my hands on her
other works!
Cather, “Cath”, is a huge Simon Snow (sort of Harry
Potter—has its similarities and differences) fan. Possibly the biggest. And
the most famous Simon Snow fanfiction
writer as well. She and her twin sister, Wren, have been obsessing over the
series since they were young, until, enter college life, Wren chose to drift
away. Now, left to her own grounds, overly introvert Cath must figure out how
to do things—that is, fixate as much time as possible over Simon Snow—alone without her other half.
I was in a pursuit of good
romance, but what I got was more—a great
character. I honestly didn’t know people like Cath exist. Those who don’t want
to meet new friends, those who’d prefer to eat protein bars for days in their
room because they didn’t know where to sit at their new school’s dining hall, those who’d rather live in a fictional
world, those who love fictional characters over real ones. (Uhh.. maybe I believe the last one. I prefer fictional characters over
actual humans.)
I sort of understand where Cath was coming from. She was
afraid to step out of her comfort zone. To be the vampire who dared see the
sun. I get her—of not wanting to let go, of wanting to stay the same because
it's all she knew and it was safe. I liked how she was distinguished from Wren
who was anything but her. Wren was carefree, social, bold. Cath was awkward,
inept, isolated. And that was what’s remarkable! She changed realistically.
Inch by inch, she started to see the world for what it is, to notice the people
that are neither Simon nor Baz.
Levi could only be described as perfectly imperfect. Even
though he had his flaws, he always still made it up to Cath. He was super
sweet, caring, thoughtful, smart, and funny. He has great hair, a killer
widow’s peak, a more killer smile, and he was tall—a “leaner”. He was perfect
for her.
Widow’s peaks and killer smiles aside, it was good that the
focus of Fangirl was in Cath’s
relationships with the people around her, and not just the romance. Her relationship with her fiction-writing
professor, writing partner, roommate, twin sister, mother, father, and Levi,
especially.
The book’s format was nice—in between chapters, there were
excerpts from Gemma T. Leslie’s fantasy series or Cath/Wren’s fanfiction entries.
It’s easy to say that in one book, I got lost in three stories—in Fangirl’s,
the real Simon Snow stories, and the
fanfictions of Cath and Wren. Rainbow Rowell was brilliant like that.
This one-of-a-kind masterpiece from Rainbow Rowell that is a
late-coming-of-age novel with an accurate portrayal of college romance is just
beautiful. Moving, relatable and nostalgic, this one is a must-see for
fangirls, fanboys, and, well, everyone.
THE NUB AND GIST: 5 STARS
Buy the book from: Amazon / The Book Depository
1 comments
I seriously can't wait to read this! I LOVE Rainbow Rowell books - have you looked into her new book for 2014 Landline? It sounds so cool.
ReplyDeleteI agree she has such a way with words and the way she crafts her stories and characters is pure magic :D