Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publish Date: September 10, 2013
Source: Owned

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "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?"

My Two Cents:

"Fangirl" is yet another great book by Rainbow Rowell. When I pick up a book by this author, I know that I'm in for a treat. She is very quickly becoming one of those authors whose future releases are instant buys for me. "Fangirl" is the story of Cath, a young woman who is going to college for the first time. In the past, she has always leaned on her more outgoing twin, Wren, to steer her through life. When The twins go to college, Wren decides to forge out on her own leaving Cath behind. This is a coming-of-age novel that I really enjoyed.

Cath is a great character. Even though her sister has grown out of it, Cath is still very much into writing and reading and being incredibly obsessed by fan fiction about one of her favorite fictional characters from the Simon Snow series (which seems to be a take on Harry Potter). To some degree, she uses this make-believe world as an escape even though others seem to think that she's a little bit too old to be doing that. Even though I have never particularly been into fan fiction, there are a couple fictional characters that I could see being obsessed with. Cath finds this make-believe world to be very comforting and she continues to looking to her fan fiction writing to carry her through college.

I'm mentioned before that this book is also really a coming-of-age book. Once Cath gets to college and doesn't have her twin to lean on she realizes that she has to meet other people... or she could just stay in her room, which she seems happy to do at first. Eventually a love interest appears and really gets Cath out of her shell. There is a love triangle in this book, which is usually something that I don't particularly care for but in this case it really worked for the story. I like that the author was able to keep me on my toes with the triangle, which does not always happen. Overall, this book was a real treat!