Fangirl in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Sep 23, 2013 Nic rated it it was ok

Shelves: romance, z-what-the-fuck, read-2018, ya, reviewed, z-surprise-its-queerphobia-again, z-dishonor-on-your-cow, format-audiobook, read-2014, read-reread

I'm really struggling with deciding on a rating for this one. While I really liked a lot of the story and writing, as a queer person, I felt a lot of the references to gay people/characters were kind of...terrible. A lot of them were very othering and, honestly, willfully ignorant as it made me feel like queer people were just serving as tokens--as if gay people aren't real people. Also the repeated (and unchallenged) implications by multiple characters that being queer is ~weird.

It'd be one thi I'm really struggling with deciding on a rating for this one. While I really liked a lot of the story and writing, as a queer person, I felt a lot of the references to gay people/characters were kind of...terrible. A lot of them were very othering and, honestly, willfully ignorant as it made me feel like queer people were just serving as tokens--as if gay people aren't real people. Also the repeated (and unchallenged) implications by multiple characters that being queer is ~weird.

It'd be one thing if it was the characters who were saying those things and then learned the error of their ways or were challenged by someone or something, but there was no progression at all. It made me really uncomfortable and totally took me out of the story because I'm fairly certain the author didn't think what was being said was problematic or othering, particularly after seeing her handling of race in Eleanor & Park. It was clear she was trying to be inclusive, but it failed miserably.

So without these aspects this would be a solid 4 stars for me, but with them, I'm wavering between a 2 and a 3 because it bothered me so much and because I'm honestly so fucking tired of seeing this in fiction, particularly from YA authors. For now, I think I'm going to default to 2 stars.

Some passages that bothered me:

The reason most of these bother me is because, as mentioned above, they are all unchallenged. Furthermore, they can nearly all fall into the microaggression category of little dehumanizing/othering/aggressive things queer people get to hear on a daily basis. On their own, they're on the lower scale of the totem pole. But when you add them all together and compound them over a lifetime, they're pretty damaging. Plus, the continual insinuation throughout the book is that there's something weird or undesired about being gay. It's referred to a lot as "the gay thing". Even Cath, who writes Simon/Baz slash fanfiction, does quite a bit of othering herself. Or honestly, maybe especially Cath. Gay men are her pawns, not people.

(view spoiler)

For the record, those passages? Literally every mention of the word 'gay' in the entire book. Every single time the word gay is used there is a connotation of otherness or weirdness. In this book, gay people aren't people. They're pawns or tokens or weird abstract ideas. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Jan 14, 2014 Jenny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is another solid YA novel by Rainbow Rowell. There are no vampires here or dystopian futures but there is a young woman named Cath, who is struggling to find her way. Cath is a huge fan of Simon Snow, a Harry Potter-esque hero featured in seven books (soon to be eight) that Cath and her twin sister Wren devoured from the time they were little. The series has helped them both deal with the realities of their life—that their mother has abandoned them and that their ad-exec father struggles wi ...more

Like · see review

Sep 11, 2013 Christian rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult, fiction, humorous, bildungsroman

As with all Rainbow Rowell novels, I did enjoy this story. Her character development, attention to detail and general storytelling are always good. The trouble is, having read Eleanor and Park (which is awesome) first, all other of her novels seem to fall short of this mark. When you enjoy an author at her best, anything less than that seem a bit of a disappointment. Unfair, I know. Really, I only have one minor complaint. I liked the fact that Cath is a budding author struggling to transition f ...more

Like · see review

Nov 17, 2013 Janel rated it it was amazing

Such an amazing book. I just walked right into this world and wanted to stay for awhile. Probably didn't hurt that Rainbow Rowell set in in my ACTUAL dorm room my sophomore year at University of Nebraska--Pound 913. I love Rowell writing style. I have enjoyed following her career since she wrote a column for the Daily Nebraskan and we took some of the same English classes. She really draws her characters well. I highly recommend this book and her other titles, too. ...more

Like · see review

Feb 03, 2014 Maya rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2014

This book was entertaining and I enjoyed it. My issues were cath bugged me and Levi reminded me too much of an ex-boyfriend of mine (in a neutral way, but it was kind of creepy for me). Oh, and the fan fic. i just didn't care about that story line and didn't get why it was supposedly SO great. t think Rowell is a fantastic story teller, though, and I will continue to read her. ...more

Like · see review

Aug 30, 2014 Elizabeth rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: youngadult, audio, would-recommend, more-than-32-pages, cd

Longer than it probably needed to be, and Cath was exasperating and frustrating, but I enjoyed the story, and the narrator was good.

Also, and this is clearly worth updating my review: I only just now realized that one of the narrators is Rex Manning!

Like · see review

Dec 02, 2013 Ashley Holstrom rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, fiction, audiobook, re-reads, print, romance, new-adult

Cath is what I was like as a freshman in college: a girl wearing her fandom's T-shirts every single day and refusing to leave her room. Reading her story while I'm in my final week of college was special. Thanks, Rainbow. ...more

Like · see review