Sunday, December 22, 2013

Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Book: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Rating: 5/5 stars- going to be fangirling about Fangirl for a long time

Synopsis (as found on Goodreads):

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Eleanor & Park.

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?


Review:

Sorry about the hiatus! Again. Teachers apparently think it's possible to squeeze in one more assignment right before the break and assign about 4 projects during the break.

*Carmen not amused

Never the less, I will be in a reading storm now that I finally have some time on my hands and first up was Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. (I'm currently on a contemporary streak.)

Rainbow Rowell took the reading world by storm with Eleanor and Park, which was released in early 2013.

AND ELEANOR AND PARK DESTROYED EVERY HEARTSTRING I HAD.

In which then Rainbow Rowell joined up into my set of contemporary writing gods, and when you're one of my contemporary writing gods (or goddesses too to be technical I guess), I basically read almost everything you write.

And plus, who couldn't resist a title called FANGIRL. Not this fangirl.

And I diiiiiiiiied.

This book was bubbly, cute, fun, and it tugs at the heartstrings a little. Rainbow totally understood the feelings of being in a fandom and represented it so accurately in the novel, how much you love the characters and how you live in their world... I felt like I was at home with this book.

I like how we touch on a lot of aspects of Cath's life in this novel, although I almost wish we did a little less of the writing and more of the family life.

I said almost.

The romance was adorable, it was cute, I wanted to punch both of them for the mistakes and then bake them rainbow cupcakes and give them hugs after it was all over. It was awkward-ish cute, but like the loveable kind of awkward that makes you secretly smile.

The snippets of Simon Snow through this book was... oh my. I love how it's almost a play on Harry Potter and the just some of the things made me LAUGH. And then Cath's fanfiction was so perfect. I love the fact she wrote that Simon and Baz were into each other. I was dying from laughter, but I was actually also utterly in love. THE CONFLICTIONS.

Everything about this book is an amazing combination of funny, awkward, romantic, cute, awesomeness, sweet, and self-discovery. It has that Rainbow Rowell kick and style in it, but it's a happier atmosphere than Eleanor and Park.

Personally, I kind of prefer Fangirl over Eleanor and Park... just because I like happy stories a little more than soul crushing devastating the reader and killing them tragic with heartbreak stories, (I mean I love those too, but the heart can only take so much), and Fangirl was just everything I loved, and I walked away with one word in mind: PERFECTION.

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