A good fluffy read if you want to explore how the character experiences their first year of university and how they navigate the new and changing dynamics in their life. 

Rainbow Rowell books have an irresistible charm to them - they romanticise the little things in life. The books tell us of familiar things - rebellious eyeliner, rural landscapes, a shared obsession with a loved one, horrible food habits at university - and makes it feel new and worth paying attention to. I think this ability of hers is most obvious in 'Fangirl'.

This is an intensely relatable book and made me cry. Cath is not like me at all, but she goes through coming-of-age stages that are timeless. The way her family is written is especially heartbreaking - there comes a stage in life where familiar relationships change and Cath portrays how hard it can be to adjust to that. Her relationship with her father is loving, but painful in a way that personally related to me and opened up old wounds. 

The romance is a distracting and delightful highlight. The main guy is golden retriever, and I have never been able to resist fictional golden retriever men.

Lastly, Cat grows with her love for media and being a true geek - by her own definition, someone who would choose fiction and fantasy over reality any day - and doesn't force her or Wren to grow out of it. Instead, their loved ones participate in their interests. The novel takes fanfic as seriously as it should be, and shows the genuine art, love and dedication that goes into it. It understands girl geeks, which was refreshing.

I think this is my favourite Rowell book. I'll come back to it.

Okay, I had such high hopes for this book because I really liked the premise HOWEVER. Cath sometimes reminded me of myself and I liked that but most times made me want to commit acts of arson because sometimes she was so unbelievably annoying, sometimes justified, most times incredibly annoying. I get that she’s scared of rejection and lonely but oh my god. She has anxiety, understandable, me too but sometimes if someone is annoying, it’s just because they are annoying. However the stuff with alcoholism and bipolar was done well and was interesting to see. I sort of liked the little splices of Simon Snow books and fan fiction because I knew what I was getting myself into but sometimes it goes on for too long. Another thing is the ending!! WHAT A LACK LUSTER ENDING OH MY GOD. I STUCK THROUGH ALL OF THAT TO GET THAT KIND OF ENDING? bleh. just one big bleh. Reagan was awesome and almost made the whole story for me. Anyways I can see how people like this but I think I’m just not a big fan of love stories anyway. Oh also I understand it is a “blatant rip off of Harry Potter” but I like that about it and like how it’s obviously about Draco x Harry

 My first book of 2023 — check!

I was lucky enough to go into this book with a neutral opinion. Initially, the idea of a book based around fandom was extremely enticing as someone who does 95% of her reading on sites like AO3. However, reading a lot of the top reviews and seeing such a strong divide between readers, I lowered my expectations for Fangirl by quite a lot, and I’m glad I did.

The book wasn’t inherently bad, per se, and I can see why a lot of you liked it. The pacing was good overall and the characters were, for the most part, easy to empathize with. But, lowering my expectations allowed me to finish the book much easier than I otherwise would've.

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Cath, the main character of the book, is by far my least favorite - and yet the most like me. (I wonder what that says about how I view myself…) A mentally ill father, mommy issues, and a sister who says none of it hurt her? Check, check, and check. I just find Cath to be a bit too… I’m not sure what the right word is… Sure, Cath is a very flawed individual, but she tends to be depicted as ‘unique’, both in thought and appearance, more so than not. Her eyes are depicted as being blue, brown, gray, and green — all in the same paragraph. On her first day in her college town she notes that it’s creepy that everyone there is all around her age. I wonder what she expected from a college town, honestly. Cath also suggests, a bit later in the book, that their mother is selfish and desecrated a national tragedy with her own issues, after she walked out on them on September 11th (“The September 11th”). Like I said, I have more than my fair share of mommy issues, but suggesting their mother intentionally left on 9/11 is a bit far.

Other than Cath, we have a bit of my least favorite trope: “pretty girl takes her glasses off and is deemed more pretty”. Levi, the love interest, asks Cath to warn him if she plans to take off her glasses after seeing her twin sister, Wren. Later, he asks her to take off her glasses, and, after she asks if he likes her glasses, goes on to say, “I love your glasses. I especially love the moment when you take them off.”

There are also quite a few references, anywhere from Soylent Green to Zack and Cody. Many of which I had to end up Googling to understand. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but something to know before you go into it.

Oh, and CW: Kanye reference. Yeah… that didn’t age well…

To its defense, however, I don’t believe Fangirl was wrongly represented. (Though, I wasn’t in the book world when it was being advertised, so maybe I’m wrong!) Sure, we don’t get a lot of fandom in here, but we do get what the title suggests; a fangirl. A relatable one at that; one who almost fails a class, TWICE, because of her dedication to her fanfiction. Who gets snarky when someone’s only watched the movies. Who gets hurt when the series she loves is talked down upon.

Like I said, many of the characters are extremely likable (I’m joining the Reagan lovers, she’s the best), including Cath (after the first couple chapters that is). It is not hard to empathize with these characters at all. There are scenes where Wren and Cath disagree about their mom, and I easily flip back and forth between agreeing/empathizing with each.

(On the topic of which, I’m glad that Cath was allowed to never let her mom in. I’m glad that even though family is clearly very important to her, it doesn’t mean she had to cave.)

Overall, Fangirl does what it set out to do, and I don’t regret the read. I wish the book had a stronger start, but I liked following along on the ride!

OH!!! And don’t get me started on Cath… Wren…

★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩

“I could hear you. In some of the best parts.” 

this has always been one of my favourite books, it’s heartwarming and well as heartbreaking here and there watching the relationship of cath and wren grow and change, the development of cath meeting levi and reagan (reagan supremacy) and growing into herself. i also think the loving relationship cath has with fan culture and community is comforting to see

I loved this book because it had other sorts of love (sisterly, parental, etc.) as well as the bog standard boy meets girl routine. As Malorie Blackman always says, at the heart of every story, love can be found.