Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premier.
Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.
Now that they're in 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 fanfiction 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?"
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Actually, more than that. I was ecstatically surprised, if that's a thing. It's been a long time since I've read a book that was so good I couldn't put it down, and I honestly was not expecting this to be one of them. My hopes for this book were slim and none, but I decided to give it a try anyway; mostly because it seemed like everywhere I turned, there it was.
I think the title is what threw me off, because I honestly had no idea what the book was about before I read it. But the fact that it was called "Fangirl" gave me the impression that it was going to try too hard. The world of a fangirl is unjustifiably elitist and slightly hipster-ish and any book that inserts itself into this realm is going to make me nervous because odds are it's going to be cringey and awful.
My hopes were low.
Grand Canyon low
Bottom-of-the-ocean low
Dead Sea low
You get the picture. Needless to say, I was shocked when I blasted through one hundred pages in about an hour.
This story can best be described as a "coming-of-age story" as much as I hate the term (How do you come of age? Of what age are you coming? Do you just magically become an adult when you come of age?). And, aside from what the blurb on the inside flap leads you to believe, it's a story about relationships.
Cath Avery is a little bit like me. She sits in her room and writes a lot and drinks tea and owns a lot of sweaters. Unlike me, she writes a very successful fanfiction about the popular Simon Snow series (reminiscent of Harry Potter) that gets tens of thousands of hits every day. She used to write it with her twin sister, until they went to college and all Wren seemed to do was go to parties and get wasted with her roommate Courtney. And unlike what I was afraid of, she has a personality that is more than just her sweaters and nerdy-ness. She has trust issues because of her mom leaving when she was in third grade. She is fiercely protective of her father, who is never actually diagnosed in the book but is a little bit crazy and often buries himself in his work so much that he forgets to do normal things like sleep and do laundry. She is very mature, always making food for her dad and her sister and making sure they are taken care of.
Almost every other character in the book surprised me. Reagan, Cath's weird roommate, isn't exactly as she originally seems. She's big and scary and Cath thinks she hates her. And she never does get completely pleasant, but she and Cath become friends. They take care of each other even though they are so different. Reagan is still scary but she has a personality and isn't just big-scary-character who serves no purpose. Nick, a guy in Cath's fiction-writing class, surprises you in ways I won't say because that would totally spoil it. Professor Piper is someone you would expect to turn into a mother figure, but her relationship with Cath turns out to be different and nuanced. Levi is... well.. Levi is actually exactly how he seems when Cath meets him. And that's wonderful.
Also, this book is a romance. And a well written one. I was just about dancing for joy when I realized Cath getting the guy wasn't the end goal of the book. The relationship started about halfway through, and it started rocky. The relationship had its weirdness and awkwardness and I just wanted to praise the heavens for sending Rainbow Rowell to earth to demonstrate that romantic relationships take work and can still be good and lovely.(AND NO LOVE TRIANGLE!!!!!)
From a writing standpoint, this book had me happily sighing the entire time I read it. And sometimes saying "uck" because I wished I had thought of that sentence/phrase first. It is beautifully worded and completely believable. That was my favorite thing about the book. It was believeable. I could really believe that it was from the perspective of a scared college freshman. Which also resonated with me, as someone who is starting college this fall. But seriously, let's talk about the writing.
“Just … isn’t giving up allowed sometimes? Isn’t it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?”
“It sets a dangerous precedent.”
“For avoiding pain?”
“For avoiding life.”
Lastly, (well not lastly, but the last thing I'm going to talk about because this review is already too long) a thing I loved about this book was how honest it was about writing. In the beginning of the second half of the book, Cath talks to Professor Piper about a project she had trouble on.
"'When I'm writing my own stuff, it's like swimming upstream. Or... falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.'
'Yes' the professor said, reaching out and grasping the air in front of Cath, like she was catching a fly. 'That's how it's supposed to feel.'"
This book acknowledges the thing that no one ever seems to talk about; that writing is hard. It isn't all fun and games no matter how much you love it. You're going to get stuck and drop plot points and make character mistakes and get writers block and want to cry. And that's okay! That's what second drafts are for. And third and fourth and fifth. And it's never going to be perfect, and you have to accept that too, and accepting that is hard. Especially if you're a perfectionist, which I think most writers are.
Overall, I'd give this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was an easy read, a brilliant narrative, and a fantastic romance (Like. FANTASTIC.) There were a couple of weak spots, like how sometimes the Simon Snow excerpts got a little long and how she sort of dropped the ball on the exploration of letting things go. But it was beautifully written and explored all relationships, not just romantic ones.
So, I now have to get over my very large book hangover before I can move on.
Darn you Rowell and your gorgeous writing skills.
Lisa
(ppssstttt. This is my 100th post! Woah!)
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