Actual rating: 3.5 but I’ve rounded up! A fun, easy, lighthearted beach read. I loved the wittiness, banter and cheesy moments. The relationships between all the real life characters had me rooting for them! But I didn’t love the Baz/Simon relationship and those excerpts of the fanfiction did not add to the book in any way for me (could have done without them).

Reading Rainbow Rowell makes me feel like a geeky young girl again, with all the awkwardness and uncertainty that brings, but also reminds me that there is a place in the world for geeky young girls when they're all grown up. Also made me go back and read some of my own cringe-worthy fanfiction without cringing (too much).

I am really torn on this book. “Fangirl” is the story of Cath during her first year of college. Cath is also one of the Big Name Fans in the world of ‘Simon Snow.’ (Basically Harry Potter with the serial numbers scraped off.) Cath is the fanfic writer of the internet’s most beloved Simon Snow slash fic. Oh, and Cath is the perfect stereotypical picture of what many imagine slash writers to be. She’s afraid of people to the point that she doesn’t visit the dining hall for a month; she has very little life outside of the internet, built her life around her much more outgoing twin, and owns very little clothing that isn’t related to Simon Snow. While the stereotype is prevalent, Rowell does do a good job of depicting someone that is socially stunted, emotionally damaged, and needing to step away from the computer. Cath is annoying and has the maturity of a much younger teenager, but that’s who the writer was trying to depict. She did an excellent job with that.
After each chapter, the author places excerpts from the fictional Simon Snow books and pieces of various fanfiction written by Cath over the years. While I appreciate what the author was trying to accomplish with this, it falls flat. We have basically three authors here: Rowell writing the novel, ‘Gemma T. Leslie’ writing the Simon Snow, and Cath writing fanfiction. The reason this does not really work for me is the writing style does not differ. At all. This means that 18 year old college freshman has the exact same writing style and voice as the fictional writer of a bestselling author and these styles are interchangeable with the author of the novel. Had there have been any variance in these three, it would have added a layer of realism in the book. It would also make sense if these fictional excerpts related to the story but they feel like filler taking up space.

I did like the way Rowell touched on the plagiarism and copyright arguments concerning fan fiction. It was well presented and dealt with. Rowell also did an excellent job with the family dynamic within Cath’s family. All of the issues contained in the family had very noticeable marks on both Cath and her sister in a very realistic way. All in all, it is a decent book. I don’t understand what all the hype was about it.

This was a cute book. I liked the cover and was intrigued by the story. I will probably try to read more by Rainbow Rowell.

3.5; v cute

[bc:Fangirl|16068905|Fangirl|Rainbow Rowell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1355886270s/16068905.jpg|21861351]
I LOVED Fangirl. It is one of the first contemporary books that I've read. I've been trying to branch out in the genres that I read and I heard a lot of great things about Rainbow Rowell and Fangirl, so I decided to give it a try, and it was definitely worth it. I connected so much with Cath and her experience in college, her anxiety, her trouble making friends and connecting with people, and the fact that she's always off in her own world of books and fanfiction. I think Fangirl is a story that many people will be able to connect to. Cath is put into a new situation when she goes away to college and has to learn to adapt to this new life, while at the same time learning to be separate from her twin sister who wants space for the first time in their lives. I had previously never really been able to get into contemporary because I had grown up reading fantasy. My fall back was magic, and mythical creatures, and fairytales, and creatures of the night. The first real series I read was Harry Potter, that I started when I was 6, so other genres had never really appealed to me. I read to escape to a new place, a place that could never exist except in my head and in the pages of a book. Contemporary doesn't have any of those things. No one has magic, and vampires don't come to life at night. The story is still fiction, but its just about someone's regular life, and I hadn't, previous to Fangirl, understood the appeal of it. But, Fangirl was able to perfectly capture an average persons life, with Cath, and reflect all of her anxieties and worries in myself, making me feel like I wasn't alone. I think that the magic of Fangirl is that it's so easy to find yourself in Cath and be reassured by her journey.

Loved the book and the story. Wish I had read more into the Simon Snow extracts as I was reading and how it related to Cath. Felt it odd end a little abruptly.

2.5 STARS

This book could not end fast enough. It's embarrassing to think that I actually liked Cather in the beggining.

Fangirl est à classer dans ces livres nostalgiques qu'on déguste comme un petit bonbon.

Je suis de cette génération qui a grandi avec le plus célèbre héros magicien à lunettes de l'histoire. Comme beaucoup j'ai attendu en trépignant entre chaque tome et pour combler ma soif d'aventures, j'ai découvert le monde des fanfictions.

Vu comme ça, c'était évident que ce livre allait parler à mon petit coeur de fangirl. J'ai beaucoup aimé les thèmes abordés dont celui de l'écriture évidemment mais aussi autour de ces univers créés, ceux dans lesquels on aime se plonger pour oublier le monde, s'oublier soi-même et ceux qui nous marquent à jamais. J'aurais aimé que ces thématiques soient encore plus mises en avant car finalement je n'ai retrouvé ces réflexions que dans le 1er tiers du livre.

Je me suis aussi beaucoup retrouvée en Cath, notre héroïne principale. Anxieuse, fuyant les situations sociales, se sentant parfois en marge de la société et se retrouvant plus dans un univers virtuel. Les relations qu'elle entretient avec ses proches, son angoisse, son effacement, tout cela m'a beaucoup parlé.

La romance était très mignonne mais aurait très bien pu ne pas exister pour moi tant Cath est un personnage important, central et marquant.

En bref une petite lecture doudou, qui apporte beaucoup de réflexions intéressantes qu'on aurait aimé voir encore plus qui se relira sûrement avec beaucoup de plaisir et de nostalgie.