Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
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?

I really expected to love Fangirl. I liked it, but I feel like it didn't resonate with me as deeply as it could have.

I really liked Cath as a character, but I just couldn't relate to the fandom. I did relate to almost everything else about her, though. Nerdy, socially retarded, and not leaving her room ever...that's me completely. She was so weird that it was endearing. I really liked that about her-- I liked her hesitance towards new situations, and just really enjoyed her as a character.

But as much as I liked Cath, I feel like the secondary characters lacked a bit. I enjoyed Levi and Reagan, but I don't feel like I really got to know them throughout the book. I mean, I can't even tell you where Reagan worked, and she does work somewhere. We get to see Levi a lot more, but I can tell you very little about him too-- it's like we got a quick school on them, and it didn't ever go any deeper than that. I can't very well tell you some of the most basic things about them.

Going past that though, I did enjoy Cath and Levi's relationship. They were very cute together, and they balanced each other out pretty well. I loved the scenes between them-- I don't think they could have been any cuter. It actually reminds me of a John Green quote, which is crazy.

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly at first, then all at once."

I liked that the situations seemed very realistic-- I could imagine them all happening, which was great. But back to the fandom-- I loved how it was like this alternate of Harry Potter-- it made it so much easier to believe, because you could compare it to the HP fandom, and it all made sense.

The only thing that really disappointed me to speak up was the ending-- I feel like not everything was resolved. We kind of end up with an open type ending, which isn't really my thing, you know?

All in all, Fangirl was a good read, and I'm not disappointed, but I feel like it could have been better. I don't know why.