Goodreads Synopsis:
"Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life.
Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible ...
A tale of fanfiction, family, and first love."
5*****
Hi Elementareaders!
‘Fangirl’ by Rainbow Rowell is a young adult contemporary novel following a girl named Cath on her first year at college. I’m a bit late on the bandwagon with this book (I’ve seen people talking about it online for years!) but I finally grabbed a copy to read, and I freaking loved it!
Cather and Wren are twin sisters from Nebraska. Their whole lives they have done everything together, including going to the same college, but Wren wants to branch out an make new friends meaning that she doesn’t want to share a room with Cath. ‘Fangirl’ follows Cath as she makes her way through her first year of college without being beside her sister. Cath is shy and socially awkward, and would rather spend her evenings in her room writing fanfiction than out partying. Cath is a huge fan of ‘Simon Snow’, a series of books about a young magician, and she writes a very popular fanfiction that has thousands of readers. She aspires to be a writer and is studying English Lit and Fiction Writing.
Cath’s roommate Reagan is her opposite. She doesn’t spend much time in their room and is always out with her boyfriend, which suits Cath just fine, but she also gets the feeling that Reagan doesn’t like her. Reagan’s boyfriend Levi, on the other hand, won’t leave Cath alone and keeps finding excuses to hang out with her. He particularly enjoys when she reads her Simon Snow fanfiction to him.
Cath faces countless teen troubles throughout her year; being apart from her sister, being accused a plagiarism in her Fiction Writing class only to get a story that she has worked on stolen, and her ever increasing feelings for Levi.
This was such a fantastic book! I loved the plot and the writing style was so easy to read that I read the whole book in a couple of days. The characters are fantastic, especially Cath and Levi.
I see a lot of myself in Cath and find her very relatable. She has social anxiety (like me) and she is quite shy and withdrawn. In fact, she spent the first month of college living off protein bars because she didn’t know where the dining hall was and was too anxious to ask anyone. One of my favourite quotes from the book is “I'm the kind of girl who fantasizes about being trapped in a library overnight.” That just pretty much sums up the life of every book nerd. In fact, there are so many FANTASTIC quotes from this book that it’d take an entire blog post for me to list them all.
Rainbow really gets what it’s like to be part of a fandom and that comes across so strongly in the writing. She understand that fanfiction isn’t just a silly hobby undertaken by crazy fans, but is in fact a form of literature and a great creative outlet for fans. I don’t write fanfiction myself but I have read some, and some of the things you can find online are amazing works of literature.
I had a major book hangover after finishing ‘Fangirl’. It was so incredible that I just want to read more. I want to hear about Cath’s second year in college. Her third. And what she does after. In fact, if Rainbow were to write about the rest of her life in epic detail I would lap up the whole thing. I would also LOVE to read more about Simon Snow. The excerpts at the end of each chapter really made me want to read more about the World of Mages.
This really was a fantastic book and I’ll definitely be reading more by this author in the future! I would recommend to any book nerd (teen or adult) who loves a good story with fantastic characters.
I would give this book 5 stars :)
Places to buy:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide!)
Audible.com
Follow Rainbow Rowell on:
rainbowrowell.com
Goodreads
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