Publication Date: September 10th, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 433
Source: Purchased
Rating: 5/5
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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?
*Sighhhh* I just can't think of a more perfect feeling for this book.
I don't want to write to much about this book because I think everyone should just pick it up. You don't need to read a detailed review, just experience this book. Fangirl was my third Rowell book this year (and unfortunately at this point I can't get my hands on anymore because that's all that's been published), and I've loved them all. Each of them have been totally different, which made me love them for different reasons. For Fangirl it was because I related so much with Cath.
Cath is starting her first year of college and as many of us can relate, it's a nerve wracking time. Cath isn't interested in any thing college has to offer, new friends, partying, boys, drinking, etc... She leans heavily towards the introvert side. And is pretty much happy being a recluse. What's even harder for her is that she's doing this without having her twin sister, Wren, velcroed to her. Wren wants to experience everything college is going to offer her. Which basically means she wants to be drunk off her ass every weekend. So needless to say, they're not rooming together and that is leaving a scar on Cath.
I really, really loved Cath. I felt that she's comfortable in her own skin. That skin may be awkward and geeky. But she owns it.
We all have something we love that helps us escape everyday life, for me it's reading. For Cath it's writing fanfic. In that world, she's the star. Literally. She gets thousands and thousands of hits a day. It's her life. It's like getting a book published. Cath puts most of her time into it.
So we enter Simon Snow. A magical, fantasy book series, with a lot of nods to Harry Potter.
Fanfic is something I understand. I may never have written it, but I read a hell of a lot of it. So I appreciate that it was a whole separate side story. Fandoms are something a lot of us reading this book understand and participate in. There's a lot of passion there.
There is of course romance. And like Rowell's other two books, it's super cute. Levi is just a good guy. I adored him. He was there for Cath. He understood her. He supported her, helped her and pushed her to open up. Guh! You just have to experience their relationship to get it's full affect.
Then there's Wren. No feelings lost there. She just spent more of the book pissing me off and Cath for that matter. She was one of those girls that went to college to party. Just stupid and annoying.
Cath's roommate Reagan was my fave. She's the boss. Massively snarky. Which made made me LOL at 90% of her dialogue. As much as Cath needed her as a friend, Reagan equally benefited from that relationship too.
Rowell has this way of making you live the story. Like you're a ghost walking beside the characters. Not just reading it. It also can get a little pretentious, but that's what makes me love it. Her writing just flows perfectly together. Then you add in her realistic and relateable stories and it becomes glaringly obvious why she's easily becoming one of my favourite authors.
Happy reading!
Brittany
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