Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication Date: September 10th 2013

Part of A Series?: No

I Got A Copy Through: I bought it! 

Blurb Description: 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?

**MY REVIEW**

If there is one emotion that Fangirl left me with, I would have to pinpoint it as confusion. Pure, and utter emotional turmoil- with the afterthoughts of (after pondering over how one single book, with a few hundred pages of black and white text, could leave me in such a state of bewilderment, for only about the hundredth time) nothing but the characters and what their lives would turn out to be.

Cath is shy, socially awkward- an introvert with a passion. Fanfiction. Wren is her twin- outgoing, friendly, wild. Reagan is Cath's roommate, Levi is her ex- boyfriend, and Nick is her writing partner. Her father is a workaholic, with well, let's call them issues, just to not be too descriptive.

And this is their story. Well, Cath's mostly but theirs as well.

Cath is in college- and is extremely nervous to be there. How in the world was this going to be easy for her, she wasn’t boisterous like Wren, nor did she make friends easily. Or at all. How was she supposed to navigate through the huge campus, to the cafeteria, and around all these new people and parties? Even her own twin doesn’t want to have anything to do with her.

But, with Rainbow Rowell’s exceptional writing, we see the real Cath. The Cath that slowly comes out of her shell. With Nick, her writing buddy and all the evenings and nights they spend writing in a notebook, because computers lose the purity of actually writing. With Reagan, who realises that Cath has no friends, and decides to take her under her wing. And then there’s Levi.

Sweet, Perfect Levi.

And Fangirl is also and fangirling. Fanfiction, over the Simon Snow series. And how Cath lives for writing her version of the story. How is becomes more important that writing her own stories, and how she must learn to change that.

"You don't push through every moment. You pay attention. You take everything in. I like that about you- I like that better. I like your glasses," he said. "I like your Simon Snow t-Shirts. I like that you don't smile at everyone, because then, when you smile at me..."

Fangirl was the first book of Rainbow Rowell’s that I've read- and I definitely want more. I loved the way she made Cath grow her relationships, intensify them and create problems within them; how not once did the characters do something that you couldn't imagine they would do, but still leaving one those cute moments where you could smile and others when you'd be shocked at the turn of events. 

A book that you will devour in one sitting- because leaving this world will simply be impossible- READ IT! - 4 stars.