Fangirl in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Nov 30, 2013 Molly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: kindle, recommended, realistic-fiction, ya-lit, on-the-classroom-shelf, 4-and-a-half-stars, read-in-2013

This was, in a word, delightful. Twin sisters Cather and Wren Avery (seriously) are about to start their freshman year of college. Although they’ve been joined at the hip since birth, Wren is ready to branch out, and for the first time in 18 years, Cath finds herself living with someone other than her twin sister. The girls’ mother left when they were eight, so they’ve been raised by their single father. He’s basically a creative genius, but suffers from some pretty serious highs and lows (manic This was, in a word, delightful. Twin sisters Cather and Wren Avery (seriously) are about to start their freshman year of college. Although they’ve been joined at the hip since birth, Wren is ready to branch out, and for the first time in 18 years, Cath finds herself living with someone other than her twin sister. The girls’ mother left when they were eight, so they’ve been raised by their single father. He’s basically a creative genius, but suffers from some pretty serious highs and lows (manic depression, it would seem, although Rowell never gives it a name), so it’s understandable that Cath would have a lot to be worried about when leaving home for the first time. She’s always been the more reserved twin, but having Wren around allowed Cath to be outgoing...without actually having to be outgoing. People in high school accepted the two as a package deal, and Cath was happy to tag along. She and Wren also wrote fan fiction stories about Simon Snow, who is basically off-brand Harry Potter. The twins wrote together for most of their teen years, as the Simon Snow book series wore on, with the 8th and final volume scheduled to be released in the spring of 2012, the end of the girls’ freshman year. Although Wren loses interest as college approaches, Cath only becomes more wrapped up in the world of Simon, where she is a pretty big deal. She’s in the midst of a novel-length work called Carry On, Simon Snow, which is meant to cover Cath’s version of Simon’s 8th and final year of wizarding school. She has thousands of readers (and is apparently “weirdly huge” in Japan, which cracks me up for some reason), and more fan mail and positive commentary than she can keep up with. Yet Cath begins her freshman year with a surly roommate and a pathological fear of speaking to strangers. She actually spends the first few weeks living off of protein bars (though she does meet Wren for lunch a few times a week) because she’s afraid to go to the cafeteria by herself. Eventually, her roommate Reagan steps in and gives her some tough love, but it takes a while for Cath to come out of her shell.

The one class Cath is actually looking forward to, and the one time she isn’t painfully shy, is Fiction Writing, a class for upper-classmen that required special permission to take. Seeing as she’s written thousands upon thousands of words of fanfiction, Cath is pretty certain she’ll excel here, and things look up even more when she meets Nick, the cute hipster who happens to sit in front of her. Nick is struggling a bit and seems intimidated by Cath’s writing ability, so the two agree to team up and be partners on any future writing assignments. Meanwhile, they meet every Tuesday and Thursday to work on a shared story. Cath can’t decide if these meetings are dates or not, but she enjoys working with Nick, even if it does take time away from writing about Simon. However, when she’s asked to hand in her first solo short story, Cath decides to write a new fic about Simon and Baz (the Draco Malfoy of the Simon Snow universe), and is shocked when her professor gives her an F -- for plagiarism. This brings up an interesting academic point...in creative writing, can we consider fanfiction plagiarized? I mean, from a publishing standpoint it’s absolutely clear, but it’s an academic gray area. As Cath herself says, she’s not claiming to have created the characters or the world, she’s just “borrowing” them and moving them around. It also hits on some of Cath’s deeper fears about her own writing -- she feels stymied when trying to create something outside of Simon’s universe. Even working with Nick on “their” story, Cath is more of an editor or “story stylist” than co-author. Cath has always been a writer and always identified herself as a writer, but she’s faced with a terrifying prospect -- what if she isn’t actually creative? (view spoiler) I loved the pacing up until the last few chapters, and then I sort of felt like...well, Cath and Wren’s father in a manic episode, actually! I mean, there is something sort of inherently...lazy? about fanfiction in that so much of the work has been done for you. Say the word “Hogwarts” and you’ve already set the scene -- no need to go into detail describing the castle because JKR did that for you. Mention the name Draco Malfoy and a dozen adjectives spring to mind. No need to develop him as a pretentious prick, because again, JKR did that for you. But at the same time, the best pieces of fanfiction read like they could take place in that world, so it does require a certain amount of talent and ability to ape the author’s writing style (that’s why I’m not sure “lazy” is really the proper word!).

I’ve read a few reviews complaining that Cath is so meek and frustrating as a character, but I could completely relate to her because I basically was that person my freshman year of college. Not quite to the same extreme (although I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have braved the cafeteria by myself in the first few months either!), and I was a reader rather than writer of fanfiction, but I can understand being so terrified of everyone that you just want to curl into a ball on your bunk bed and cry. I spent many nights that first year sitting in my room, hearing all of the people in my residence hall being all cheery and friendly and being absolutely petrified to go out there and join in. There was something comforting about the world of Harry Potter (this was when only the first...4? books had been released, so the possibilities were endless!), so I feel like I kind of sank into that world a lot my first year of college, via oh so much fanfic. Granted, I never wrote any of my own (negative criticism is tough to take, and people on the Internet are bitches, did you know?), but trust me when I say I read A LOT of the stuff. So yes, I can relate to Cath here, and to me her situation rang true. I was lucky enough to fall into a wonderful and loving group of friends, and by the end of the year I had my shit together -- as does Cath! Thanks to tough love from Reagan, and a burgeoning relationship with Levi (she spends the first few months thinking he’s Reagan’s boyfriend, and I think it’s a mark of how much like Cath I am that it never occurred to me that we were all supposed to realize they were “just friends.”), Cath eventually figures out how to manage freshman year. Her ending to me felt realistic, not idealized (even if it is happy!).

I loved how Rowell created her characters here -- there are just these tiny little details that tell you so much about a person. For instance, Cath and Wren’s mother chose their names because she didn’t realize she was carrying twins and had only chosen one name: Catherine. Cath’s story to Levi about how her mom “didn’t feel like” coming up with a second name pretty much says everything you need to know about Mama Avery. I also like that Cath and Wren are sort of like the two different versions of a college freshman (perhaps more extreme) -- you have the quiet one who wants to study and keep her nose clean, and then the one who’s ready to paaaar-tay! Granted, there are degrees of both, and some people vacillate from one extreme to the other. I actually found myself more annoyed with Wren than Cath most of the time -- it’s pretty shitty that she all but drops her sister once school starts to hang out with her “cooler” roommate. I kind of wanted to shake her and tell her to go be nice to her sister, because she was having a hard time. But at the same time, Rowell lets us see that maybe Wren just needs a break -- having spent most of her life making sure her sister was included, maybe Wren just needs to look out for Wren for a while. (view spoiler)

Minus my one tiny quibble about pacing towards the end, there is nothing I did not adore about this book. Every chapter begins with a piece of a Simon Snow story -- either the “original” or a piece of fanfic written by Cath. Rowell gives us just enough detail about Simon’s world without it completely derailing her true narrative, which I appreciated (Douglas Coupland could take a lesson from that...I’m still pissed off about the hot mess that was The Gum Thief). It allowed us to learn about the books (I’m sure for legal reasons she couldn’t use actual Harry Potter, I bet that shit’s expensive!) without just having Cath or someone else recite an awkward monologue about the wonders of Simon. It was a very elegant way of including the information and paralleling the events of the chapter, without beating you over the head with it. I’m pretty sure I want to read everything Rowell has ever written, and also give this book to every awkward teenaged girl I know!

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Aug 30, 2015 Kristen rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, contemporary-lit

Once in a while, I encounter a book that seems to have been written just for me. Fangirl is one of those books. It had been on my radar for quite some time and I’d just not gotten around to reading it. One of my colleagues is moving house and very kindly gave me her extra copy, and I am very glad she did!

Fangirl opens with Cath and her twin sister Wren starting their first day in their college dorms. Wren is the more adventuresome of the two, and had previously insisted on the two of them not s
Once in a while, I encounter a book that seems to have been written just for me. Fangirl is one of those books. It had been on my radar for quite some time and I’d just not gotten around to reading it. One of my colleagues is moving house and very kindly gave me her extra copy, and I am very glad she did!

Fangirl opens with Cath and her twin sister Wren starting their first day in their college dorms. Wren is the more adventuresome of the two, and had previously insisted on the two of them not sharing a dorm room. Cath, entirely introverted and socially awkward, is naturally horrified by the very thought of living with a perfect stranger, and vows to become as reclusive as possible so she doesn’t have to interact with anyone. Pain avoidance. I totally get that. Cath is a talented writer and has chosen creative writing as her major. The problem is that Cath lives in fandom, and only wants to write fanfiction. While she has written tens of thousands of words and has a huge internet following, that won’t cut it in her creative writing courses, and Cath has a long way to go to prove herself to her professor. Interspersed with class drama and roommate drama is, of course, the requisite boy drama. It does not read like a high school, young adult, emo fic at all, for which I am excessively grateful. It is a nicely written coming of age novel, featuring a young woman I readily identify with. Maybe I never emotionally evolved past college. It’s entirely possible. Whatever.

I get Cath. I know what it’s like not to want to interact with other humans, or only those humans who understand your fandom. I know what it’s like to be so into a fandom that nothing else seems all that interesting, including real life, because fandom is real. And that is what people who don’t dig fandom don’t understand. As Cath states, “They were just stories, but stories weren’t just anything” (p. 122). If you are into Star Trek, for example, you understand that those people are real; how else can Captain Picard stand toe to toe with the Borg or the Romulans or any other scary as shit Bad Guy and not flinch, and yet want to run screaming from a little kid? That right there is a real, human reaction, because he’s real. Simon Snow is real to Cath, and to the fan base in the book.

I also understand her because I know what it’s like to want to hole up within your fandom because it’s easier than going to a party where you know you’ll just be socially awkward, even if you know people there. People, beer, party, boy, party, beer, people, shut down! Or if you do go, you just end up being quiet because that’s safer than talking, just in case you say or do something totally weird, only you don’t know it’s weird because you are socially awkward! Trust me. It’s a lot less painful just to avoid that altogether. The only time human interaction is not entirely painful is when you are immersed in fandom, or are at a fan-based convention of some kind. Why? Because geeks are tolerant and inclusive. There might be some major nerdrage over who is a better captain – Kirk or Picard – or fist fights over the last special edition Tardis replica. But no one would ever mock you for having the argument in the first place, or wanting the Tardis replica. Rather, once the nerdrage cools, friendships will be forged over steins of Romulan ale and all shall be well. Geeks are just better at accepting the quirks, and being tolerant.

I loved the way Rowell wove in bits of Cath’s “fanfic” into the actual novel, as well as bits of the Simon Snow novels upon which Cath’s fandom was based. It was so fun to see the differences in Rowell’s “real” story, in the “canon” Simon Snow story, and the fandom stories that Cath penned herself. It was a lovely tribute to the authors of fanfiction, which is so often overlooked or mocked as not real writing.

The overarching yet subtle theme of writing and authorship throughout the novel gave many actually gorgeous elements to the story. One of my favorite moments of the book was near the beginning, the first day of Cath’s creative writing class. Her professor asked why do we write, and the students were firing off their responses. Cath’s responses were thought silently to herself, and they are all thoughts I’ve had myself as I try to write. To disappear. Yes. To be someone else, someone who no one knows. Yes. This. So much this. And the fear of the writing process. There was a lovely discussion Cath and her professor had about the writing process and how it is frightening, a battle for every word to create something out of nothing.

One final moment that really connected with me was the midnight release party of the final book in the Simon Snow series. Of course I don’t care of Simon Snow per se. He’s made up just for Fangirl. But he is representative of Harry Potter, of the Dragonriders of Pern, of Star Trek, of Battlestar Galactica, of Dr Who, of all the fandoms we create for ourselves. Cath and Wren cried when they received their copies of the final book in the series. They couldn’t do anything else, because there would be no more for them. Certainly, other fandoms would come. Their Simon Snow fandom would keep going. But it would fundamentally change. Once they cracked the pages of that final novel, once they came to the end, of the last chapter, there would be no more new canon material. It was over. Fin. And that always hurts, in a visceral way that only a true fangirl (or fanboy) can understand.

Favorite lines and parts:
p. 21-23: class discussion on why we write fiction. Cath's thought - to disappear.
p. 73: regarding the power of words
p. 122: They *were* just stories, but stories weren't *just* anything.
p. 191: party anxiety
p. 234: doing weird things she doesn't even know are weird.
p. 261: creating something out of nothing, and being afraid during the creative process
p. 386: the stupid roommate as symbolic of general population
p. 427: crying over the release of the final book in the series. ...more

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Oct 03, 2013 pianogal rated it really liked it

Shelves: pop-culture, z2013-reads

Had to check it out twice, but I finally finished. And while I really enjoyed reading this one, the ending frustrated me. It was one of those where we work so hard and travel with these characters and them poof! the story is over and everything is resolved. Yeah! *sticks tongue out* I wanted more details about how Professor Piper felt about Cath's real story. I wanted to read more of the plot. I hate when authors cut us off like this. Sigh.

But the rest of the book was good. It was easy to relate ...more

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Dec 30, 2013 Allison rated it it was amazing

I just love Rainbow Rowell. Loved this story. Excellent ending to my 2013 reading.

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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

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Oct 14, 2013 Melissa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

So very enjoyable. I know that we shelve this in ya but definitely a book that could also go New Adult. Not as insane life-in-danger-to-the-main-character dramatic as Eleanor and Park (thank god, I don't think I could have taken that again). Definitely reminded me of college in many ways.

And Cath is right - kisses mean something. Always. ...more

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Apr 28, 2014 Cathy rated it really liked it

great glimpse at early college life of an introvert who lives mostly through her obsession with someone else's story (hellooooo, Twilight series) and the people she's forced to deal with and love. I really liked it. The end in particular was worth waiting for. ...more

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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!

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