Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
This book has become my heart and soul. I devoured it, loved it, wanted to immerse myself into it; Fangirl was a brilliant read.
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 anymore – she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It’s not so easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there’s romance far more intense than anythings 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 realising that there’s more to learn about love than she ever thought possible…
After reading the blurb whilst I was in Waterstones, I was thinking to myself: ‘great, not another teen fiction book about romance.’ But, oh how wrong was I?
This book has some romance in – obviously. And the book portrays how it feels to have your first love, but Fangirl is so much more than that. What I loved the most about this book was the portrayal of going to university. Of having to pack up your things from home and move to a strange place with weird people. I could relate so much and it made me feel all nostalgic of when I first moved into my new flat at Staffordshire University.
It’s obvious that Cath suffers from social anxiety as she doesn’t leave her room for weeks and tried to live off protein bars and a tub of peanut butter – she’s too scared to find the cafeteria. Even though she attends all of her lessons, the thought of going through the whole ‘new school, new cafeteria, new cliques = time to sit on my own and not socialise because no one wants me.’ She also has major anxiety about the way she looks, she sees herself as the ugly twin, the one that no one will love and the one that everyone will find boring because she loves fanfiction so much.
“In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can’t Google.)”
– Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
I found Fangirl so much better than Eleanor & Park and Rowell’s style of writing seemed so much more concise in Fangirl. I found the characters to be more real (can we just talk about Reagan for about 100000 years please?!) and Cath was the most relatable character in the novel. Even though I can relate to Cath and Wren’s experiences of university, I’m more like Cath and that’s why I fell 100% in love with this book.
Even though Wren made me angry a few times with how oblivious she was to how bad her sister was coping with uni life, her character development towards the end of the book was extraordinary, it was so quick it nearly gave me whiplash. It wasn’t quick – however – in the sense that you had no idea what just happened, there is something that happens to Wren in the book and she suddenly realises she needs to change her ways.
There was also major character development for the Dad. I found him so cute and adorable and after the ‘thing’ that happens with Wren, he also figures it’s time for him to change his ways and start managing himself a bit better.
This book is a romance book, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a book about growing up, about finding your feet at university and about learning to do what you love. This book has become one of my favourites and is one that I would read over and over again.
Fangirl is perfection.