Review: FANGIRL by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Publication date: September 10, 2013

Publisher: St. Martin's

Source: a finished copy A HARDCOVER! provided by the publisher for an honest review.

 In Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, 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? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Review:

First line: There was a boy in her room.

How I felt about this book.

I love this book. I have written and rewritten this introduction who knows how many times because I simply cannot find the words to express how much I fell in love with this book. So I'll simply leave it at "I love this book." And, of course, you can picture me dancing along with Genie. 

We meet Cath. Unlike her twin sister Wren, she's antisocial and way nerdier. Both of them have enjoyed fanfiction—Simon Snow fanfiction to be exact—but Cath took it way farther. Her life was revolved around writing the stuff, even doing it so long that it made my butt hurt just thinking about how long she was sitting.

What I really loved about Cath is that she embraces her geeky life. Some might say that she embraces it too much, but Rowell writes her in a way that it just made me love her even more. Unless you have never been fanatical about something which is so against human nature, are you a robot?, then you can relate to Cath. While I have never associated with fanfiction (we'll get to that later), I have been so personally invested in some form of entertainment that I easily connected with her.

So there's Cath, who not only is being thrown into the scary world of college with a new roommate and  experiencing separation anxiety from her sister and her unstable father, but then you add in the potentially lethal element of boys.

...Cath kept noticing things. 

Boys. 

Guys. 

Everywhere.

She doesn't understand them (another thing we connect on) because, hey, she barely understands people. What's amazing is that even in third person, Rowell manages for me to feel what Cath is feeling and sympathize with her on a level that's hard for authors to do even in first person. She's confused. Wary. Suspicious. Vulnerable. They're a mix of emotions that I had no problem connecting with and giggling at as she tries to wade through all the situations in her life. 

"Look..." Cath said. "I can't just let strange guys into my room. I don't even know your name. This whole situation is too rapey."
"Rapey?"

"You understand," she said, "right?"

He dropped an eyebrow and shook his head, still smiling. "Not really. But now I don't want to come in with you. The word 'rapey' makes me uncomfortable."

And we meet Reagan. She was one of my favorite characters, providing humor and snark. After they ignored each other, Reagan decides to help a pathetic sister out by bringing her into the real world. 

"I feel sorry for you, and I'm going to be your friend." 

"I don't want to be your friend," Cath said as sternly as she could. "I like that we're not friends."

"Me, too," Reagan said. "I'm sorry you ruined it by being so pathetic."

Reagan was actually like Cath in the way of people. Even though Cath was socially awkward and therefore, did not want to be around people, Reagan just didn't like people. I love people, I do, but I felt like I was a mix of them both. Similar to Cath, I always/usually sometimes would rather be with my beloved fictional characters than people and like Reagan, I also just look at people and think, "Why do I have to be around you?" 

Wren was sporadically absent, but that was fine with me because less Wren meant more Reagan. And with Reagan comes the charming Levi. I have so many wonderful amazing, swoony, did I say amazing? quotes for him, but really, they're best when you read them as you're reading from the book, in context. 

I never understood fanfiction before. I always judged it as someone being lazy or even to the point of being rude. That's someone else's work, characters, and setting. Why are you messing with it? But I thank Rowell because I see the pull of fanfiction through Cath's eyes. She explained it in the book that she fully believes that they're the author's characters, she won't take credit, and she doesn't seek money from her fanfiction. Instead, it's her way to manipulate her favorite characters, to play a what-if scenario on her terms. I mean, who doesn't sometimes imagine how your favorite book should have turned out? Ahem, Mockingjay.

I really can't explain this book better than in gifs so for your gif-looking pleasure...

What Cath was like...and what I'm like

What I was like during a "revelation"

The romance

What I was like after I ended the book at an ungodly hour

Because I hated that it was over.

Verdict: An outstanding book that most definitely lives up to all the hype.