Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Series: None
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: ★★★★
Pages: 438
Published by St. Martin's Press on September 10, 2013

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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?

Wow. Wow. Wow. This book was just magical and amazing and I honestly only have one bad thing to say about it. One. Only one. That's amazing, to say the least. And the only bad thing that I have to say is the Simon Snow aspect of the whole book.

I get that this entire novel was based on Simon Snow, but Simon Snow is basically the equivalent to Harry Potter, and no offense to you Potterheads, but Harry Potter is just not for me. So naturally, Simon Snow was just not for me. Eventually, I got past all the Simon Snow and thought about Levi and Reagan, and everything was great again. Rainbow Rowell has a way of creating such realistic characters that I can relate to and understand on a deeper level. My all-time favorite character in this book that wasn't Levi was Reagan. She's exactly what I would want for a college roommate. As for the twins, I thought that the whole Cather/Wren thing was pretty genius (Catherine), but Wren seemed pretty flaky to me. And I understand that Cather used Wren as a crutch her entire life, hiding behind her sister while she quietly wrote fanfiction about Simon Snow. So when Wren and Cath started drifting apart, it naturally took a toll on Cath. Personally, I felt that Cath leaned a bit too much on her twin, but I think that was the point of the book.

As for plotting and writing, Rainbow Rowell can do no wrong in my eyes. Her prose is so majestic (yes, I just said majestic), and it was easy to just read. Sometimes, I just want an easy read where I can fly through the pages without difficulty, and Fangirl is definitely one of those books. It's going to be a longtime favorite; I can see it. And the ending was good. Really good. It didn't give that much closure for the characters, but I don't think these specific characters really needed any. The final book in the Simon Snow series was released and yay! The end.

In conclusion, I honestly would've never read this book if it hadn't gone on sale on Amazon for $1.70 for the eBook version. I hate to admit that since I loved it so much, but I honestly just wouldn't have had the time or money to buy it and read it. I was okay with Attachments, and I loved Eleanor & Park. So I had no idea how I was going to feel about this book. And the fanfiction part turned me off even more. I write on Wattpad, and literally in the past year the fanfiction section of Wattpad has spiked so much just because of One freaking Direction. Fanfiction is just not for me, so I was surprised that I loved this book.