Review: Fangirl

                                          
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 433
Rating: 4 stars
Goodreads summary: A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love. 

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 thoughts: Oh, Fangirl, how I adore thee. I don’t know how to put my love for this book into words because it was so touching for me. I don’t read much contemporary novels, I’ve actually so far only read like two. But reading this book made me realize I need to be reading some more contemporary’s especially some by Rainbow Rowell. Trust me, I already added Attachments and Eleanor & Park to my TBR list.

Everybody, this is Cather: 

“In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can’t google.) Like, where does the line start? What food can you take? Where are you supposed to stand then where are you supposed to sit? Where do you go when you’re done, why is everyone watching you? …Bah.”

“I’m scared of everything. And I’m crazy. Like maybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster.”

“I don’t trust anybody. Not anybody. And the more that I care about someone, the more sure I am they’re going to get tired of me and take off.”

She sounds so...real. Don't you think? I have never related so much to a main character in a book than I did with Cath. She was just fantastic. It was so weirdly cool how I found a lot of myself in Cath.

I loved watching her grow throughout this book and see how she formed relationships with new people. Going into this book, I thought she was going to lose interest of her fan fiction world and delve into her college life, but she didn't. It was nice to see her still have her friends, fall in love, find herself, and still be in her world of Simon Snow.

Oh, and that scene when they’re at the release of the last Simon Snow book, and Cath and Wren are holding each other and crying...

Cath freed an arm to wrap around her sister. “I can’t believe it’s really over,” she whispered.

"Don't be so melodramatic, Cath,"  Wren laughed hoarsely. "It's never over...It's Simon."

 ...yeah that sure made my eyes tear up a bit.

And we can't forget about Levi, who is funny, has great hair, is always smiling, and knows the right things to say:

“Cather, Wren…” Levi looked like he’d just now discovered sliced bread. “Catherine.”

 “You’re not the ugly one…You’re just the Clark Kent.”

I found myself not really caring to read the fan fiction. I did read some of it, but for the most part I just kind of skimmed them or didn't even bother reading them, the same goes for the Simon Snow excerpts. They were a nice touch, but just not for me.

Something that confused me was the mentioning of Harry Potter because I thought Simon Snow was the Harry Potter of that world and when it got mentioned, I was just thrown off a bit.
I would have given this book a 5 star rating, but the profanity did bother me a bit. There's not a lot of it, but when there is, it seems pointless {at least to me}. 

This story had me laughing from the start {like literally the first two pages}, it had me feeling anxious, it had me mad at a few points, it had me all giddy, and by the end it just had me happy.
I definitely recommend this book!
Favorite Quote:

“Ready or not, here I come. Here I come, ready or not.”