Author: Rainbow Rowell
Year of publication: 2013
Summary: 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?
Review: Reading Fangirl was like peeking into an alternate universe of my life where I lived in Nebraska and had a twin sister. It was like staring in the mirror for too long. It was like being forced underwater mid-breath.
Did I cry? You betcha I did. I cried a lot, probably more than I have in any other book, and I didn’t even like Fangirl at the start. I thought Cather was too like me in all the boring ways and the plot didn’t move fast enough. But that all changed at the halfway point.
Rowell does a fantastic job weaving stories together. She uses foreshadowing just right – in the sort of way that you kind of want to smack yourself in the face with your e-reader because how did you miss that?
The characters were well fleshed out, and so were the relationships between them. Nothing felt contrived there. I liked Levi immediately, with all his smiles and friendliness. I don’t know how anybody could have not.
This book really hit all of my buttons. I worried for Wren, and Cath’s dad. I loathed Laura in the sort of way that hurt a lot, because she reminded me of my own mother. I loved Levi, and the sunshine that radiated off of his character.
This book deserves nothing less than four-and-a-half stars, rounding to five for good measure.
Rating: 5/5 stars
★★★★★
