Book Review: Fangirl

This book is essentially my life and it has completed me in so many ways that my heart is just bursting as we speak. This is the first of Rowell's novels that I have read and it has really captured my heart. So I obviously had to write a blog post about it.

No-spoiler edition:

When I read this book, I found it really easy to relate to all aspects of it. It is about two twin sisters, Cath and Wren who live with their sort of messed up father. They're very close sisters and have done next to everything together up to this point. They've both just graduated and they're both going to the same university but Wren no longer wants to share a room with Cath anymore. Cath is now left alone to fend for herself and she has to try and work out this whole college life without her sister.

This book is perfect for me because I am graduating soon so this new experience and the feelings of being scared, excited and anxious is all very familiar to me. Even though Cath and Wren are twins, they are the most different sisters that can be. Wren is really loud and outgoing and confident whereas Cath is constantly swarmed with anxiety and is very shy. The classic case of extrovert/introvert. Cath finds it very hard to fit in and make friends. She misses her sister who has made new friends and has slowly started to drift away from Cath. The novel is very much about growing up, getting older, new chapters of your life opening up and how to deal with the anxiety that follows it. I really like the diversity of characters that Rowell has created. They're so different that it makes the book ten times more interesting because you get such a wide variety of characters.

The thing that drew me into this book was that Cath loves fanfiction. She loves to write fanfiction about a series called Simon Snow which has much correlation to the Harry Potter series. Not going to lie, I love fanfiction. And I love Harry Potter. You can see where this is going; I love Harry Potter therefore when I finished reading the series, I started reading Harry Potter fanfiction and you can guess that I freakin love it and I cannot stop reading it. So when I heard about this book that involved a girl around my age writing fanfiction about a series that was HIGHLY similar to Harry Potter you can imagine I nearly lost my mind. If you are a fanfiction fan or a fangirl by any means this book is meant for you! You will be able to relate to it. This book for me is a substitute for a human. I don't even need friends after this.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Spoiler Edition:

My favourite character from this book is probably Levi. Levi is perfect. He is boyfriend material. Cath suffers from a lot of anxiety and it makes doing simple things that one would do in a relationship, hard for her. He is so understandable about everything that it just makes my heart warm. There are times when she's feeling anxious and so he asks her to read some of her fanfiction aloud to him, knowing that it calms her. MAJOR SWOON. I'm sorry but if you know a guy that exist that willingly lets his girl read him fanfiction, tell him to give me a call. He's also really nice. She describes him as always smiling and is just really optimistic. You can tell he's a really good guy by the way he treats Reagan, (Cath's roommate and his ex-girlfriend/long time best friend) despite the fact that she cheated on him, he is still her best friend. That's pretty admirable, which guy still sticks around to maintain a friendship with his cheating ex-girlfriend? Levi. He reminds me a bit of a Weasley twin if I'm going to be honest in terms of the way he carries himself.

Cath and Levi's relationship is a whole other story. Their relationship before it is even a relationship is couple goals. He doesn't push her to do anything she doesn't want. It is a while before she even goes to his house. He struggles with reading so she reads him The Outsiders all night for his pop quiz on it the next day. He drives all the way back to her home town for her because something happened to her sister. You can't help but admire their relationship and how they both care for each other.

Cath has a writing problem. She is amazing at writing fanfiction. She's really well known in the fanfiction world. The Simon Snow series is about to finish, because the author is about to release the final novel and Cath alongside the author is writing her own ending to the book. Cath feels a lot of pressure to finish her fanfiction before Jemma T. Leslie releases the final one. This is because many people think that the fanfiction, Cath is writing is pretty much the real deal, despite what happens in the final book. Even though Cath is so good at writing fanfiction, she finds it really difficult to write her own stories with her own characters. When she writes a little bit of fanfiction for her college class, her professor fails her and calls it plagiarism. Cath then says she's not copying the ideas, she's just "borrowing" the characters and putting a spin on them. I laughed out loud when I read that part because it's almost the perfect description of fanfiction.

This book just warms my heart so much I love it. If you're a fangirl or you like fanfiction, I recommend this book. You'll absolutely love it!

10/10 for sure!

I'm really sorry for the lack of posts right now, I probably won't be posting for a while because I'm in the middle of my exams.

Much Love

-E