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Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

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Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

FangirlFangirl is so adorable, I didn’t know whether to read it or hug it.

This sweet, funny, charming novel tells the story of Cath Avery, a college freshman who just isn’t quite ready to leave her childhood comforts and touchstones behind. Cath is a twin, and she and sister Wren have been inseparable their entire lives… until Wren abruptly informs Cath that she wants them to live apart in college, try something new and meet new people. Cath is devastated. She has no interest in making friends and meeting new people; she and Wren have lived together for eighteen years — why stop now?

On top of that, their dad is not the most stable of guys, tending toward the manic end of the bipolar spectrum without someone around to make sure he’s eating, sleeping, and generally keeping it together. Ever since their mother left, just after 9/11 when the girls were eight years old, Cath and Wren have kept their dad on an even keel, and Cath is terrified that he’ll lose it without them around every day.

Now that she’s lost Wren as a roommate and built-in best friend, one of the unwelcome adjustments required in Cath’s new college life is her brash and irritable roommate Reagan, who seems to be constantly shadowed by her best friend Levi, a sunny older boy who is just always around… and who somehow manages to work his way into Cath’s reluctant heart.

The biggest change of all is the impact of college life on the twins’ obsession with Simon Snow. In the world of Fangirl, Simon Snow is the fictional main character of a series of books set in a magical world. Think Harry Potter, with a few twists. Simon Snow is simply the biggest thing ever, with a huge fanbase that’s getting crazier and crazier as the publication of the 8th and final book in the series approaches. Cath and Wren have always loved Simon Snow and are immersed in the world of fanfiction — or at least they were. Wren seems to have left it all behind in her quest to grow up and be a “normal” college girl, with all the drinking, partying, and boyfriends that entails, while Cath wants nothing more than to live in her Simon Snow “fic” world for as long as she can.

Cath isn’t just a regular old fan, though — she’s the incredibly popular author of Carry On, Simon, which has become the hottest fanfic in the Snow-verse. Each new installment by “Magicath” gets tens of thousands of hits, and Cath can think of nothing better than spending hours writing about Simon and the boy-on-boy romance she’s created for him with his archnemesis Baz.

Fangirl follows Cath through her first year of college, through the ups and downs of her relationship with Wren, her worries about her dad, her growing romance with Levi, and her struggles to define herself as a writer, both in the world of Simon  Snow and in the context of her advanced fiction writing course — presided over by a professor who just doesn’t “get” fanfiction and won’t allow it in her students’ writing.

This is the third book I’ve read by Rainbow Rowell, and once again I’m just incredibly impressed by her talent. In Fangirl, she’s created not one but two fictional worlds. The story of Cath and her growth and development at college is convincing and feels authentic, and at the same time, Rainbow Rowell has created a fiction-within-fiction world for the story of Simon Snow that makes it feel like a real, well-thought out book series. Actually, I suppose you could say that there are three worlds going on in Fangirl, because I don’t see how you couldn’t count Cath’s fanfiction creation as a story all its own. By the end of Fangirl, I wanted to know not only how Cath’s life would work out, but both versions of Simon Snow’s as well!

Cath’s inner life is well-described throughout. She’s scared and reclusive, yearning for connection but afraid of it too, wanting to write but not willing to leave her fanfic behind or relegate it to 2nd place. I loved Cath’s insecurities and fears, her love for her father, her anger toward Wren even while she misses her sister desperately. Perhaps most charming of all is Cath’s friendship with Levi. Levi is the boy everyone wishes they met in college. He’s sweet and smart, caring without being controlling, always there for Cath when she needs him, and funny and positive to boot. I loved that Cath and Levi could explore their feelings, not without complications or issues, but at least without the trite contrivance of an unnecessary love triangle. In fact, I thought early on that the plot was setting up a triangle, and when that didn’t turn out to be the case, I felt like raising a banner with a big “THANK YOU RAINBOW ROWELL” on it. What a relief!

Rowell’s writing is full of sparkling humor and zippy dialogue. Even when serious matters are arise, there are plenty of funny and quirky moments to lighten the mood. I love this moment, among many, which uses a pop-culture reference point as almost a throw-away quip, yet really sets a great tone (and made me snicker):

Reagan was sitting at Cath’s desk when Cath woke up.

“Are you awake?”

“Have you been watching me sleep?”

“Yes, Bella. Are you awake?”

Probably my only quibble with Fangirl has to do with names. Cath is short for Cather, and it took me the longest time to realize that yes, Cather is in fact her name and not a nickname. The explanation for Cath’s name (and Wren’s too) was just too cutesy by far for me to believe, and felt like a forced joke that didn’t work at all in the context of an otherwise totally believable (if not terribly functional) family dynamic. This is a small complaint, however, and certainly didn’t detract from my enjoyment of Fangirl for more than a moment or two.

Overall, I loved Fangirl. It doesn’t have the emotional punch of Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park, which took my breath away with the sorrow and hurt of its characters. In Fangirl, Cath goes through quite a lot, but it’s mostly a happy book about a young woman coming into her own, finding out who she is and what she wants, and learning how to be her own person. Cath’s experiences during her freshman year of college include unique elements, yet feel universal. For anyone who has suffered through meeting strange new roommates, figured out to maneuver through a dorm dining hall, or confronted a professor who just doesn’t get your work, reading Fangirl will be a nostalgic, emotional journey back to those days of excitement and confusion.

Filled with strong writing and original, well-developed characters, Fangirl is a joy to read — and it’s sure to especially delight readers who, no matter their age, still get a secret thrill from flipping back through their Harry Potter collection… again and again and again.

__________________________________________

The details:

Title: Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: 2013
Genre: Young adult/New adult
Source: Purchased

Wishlist Wednesday

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Welcome to Wishlist Wednesday!

The concept is to post about one book from our wish lists that we can’t wait to read. Want to play? Here’s how:

  • Follow Pen to Paper as host of the meme.
  • Do a post about one book from your wishlist and why you want to read it.
  • Add your blog to the linky at the bottom of the post at Pen to Paper.
  • Put a link back to Pen to Paper somewhere in your post.
  • Visit the other blogs and enjoy!

My Wishlist Wednesday book is:

 Fangirl

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
(to be released September 2013)

From Goodreads:

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?

Or will she just go on living inside somebody else’s fiction?

Why do I want to read this?

This just sounds perfect for me in so many ways! First, I’ve read Rainbow Rowell’s two other novels, Eleanor & Park and Attachments, in the past month or so, and while they’re quite different, I loved them both so much! (Click on the links if you’d like to read my reviews…)

And then, of course, the plot of Fangirl just sounds right up my alley. I’m imagining the Simon Snow series to be somewhat akin to Harry Potter — and who can’t relate to obsessing over characters, dressing up, waiting for movie premieres??? Plus, the deeper story of sisters growing up and growing apart sounds quite lovely, and I know that I love the way this author writes. All in all, Fangirl is a book that I just can’t wait to read!

So what are you doing on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

Book Review: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

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Book Review: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments is a love story, albeit one that’s a bit outside the usual boy-meets-girl mold. In this version of 20th century love, boy doesn’t meet girl, exactly — he snoops through her email files instead.

Lincoln is a midwestern loner in his late twenties, so badly burned by getting dumped by his first love during their freshman year of college that he’s just never tried again. Lincoln lives with his mom, works the graveyard shift in the IT department of a newspaper, and has a social life that consists primarily of Saturday night Dungeons & Dragons sessions. When Lincoln is assigned to work internet security, his job mainly entails reviewing emails flagged for violating company policy and sending warning memos to the offenders. But mostly, he sits around with not much to do, killing time in his lonely workspace and having dinner in the break room with Doris, the 60-something-year-old vending machine lady — who, incidentally, has a better love life than Lincoln does.

But as soon as Lincoln reads the first flagged email between Beth, a movie reviewer, and Jennifer, a copy editor, he’s captivated. He knows he should warn them and move on, but instead, he gets caught up in their daily chit-chat, their ruminations on life, their ongoing relationship woes, and most of all, their easy yet deep friendship. At some point, there’s no return: There’s no way for Lincoln to suddenly tell them to stop sending personal emails without revealing that he’s been reading their emails for months, and so it goes on. On the one hand, Lincoln gets more and more deeply involved and begins to really fall for Beth — but on the other hand, Lincoln starts to really despise himself for what he can no longer consider anything but creepy snooping.

There are surprises in store. We hear about Lincoln only from his own perspective, and he really does not think well of himself. So when Beth starts emailing Jennifer about the cute guy at work, it takes a few beats to realize that they’re discussing Lincoln. Wait, he’s cute? He’s big and handsome, kind of like the Brawny paper towel guy? You’d never know it, considering how little Lincoln thinks of himself.

Beth’s got self-image issues too. She’s been involved with a gorgeous guitar player for years — but most of the time, he barely knows she’s there. She wants to get married, but mostly he just wants to perform and listen to music. Beth’s sisters are married, her friends seem to all be married or on their way to the altar, she thinks her upper arms are hideous, and she has a sad collection of bridesmaids dresses that taunt her from the closet.

This is, ultimately, a very romantic book, and so it’s clear early on that Beth and Lincoln are destined to finally connect. How they get there and what they go through is where all the fun lies. Attachments is a quick, quirky read. The Beth-and-Jennifer parts of the story are told via their emails, and really, these two women are people you’d just love to hang out with. They’re funny, they’re snarky, and they’re really there for each other, with an honesty that only best friends can truly afford. Lincoln’s chapters are the meat of the book, and their narrative flow is both sad and humorous. You can’t help but root for Lincoln as he takes baby steps toward manning up and moving forward — look, he went out to a bar! Look, he arranged a weekend outing! Look, he started going to the gym and bought some new clothes!

Attachments starts out in late 1999, with the world starting to seriously worry about Y2K and whether technology will grind to a halt. There ‘s a charm to the millenial internet jargon, the coding frenzies, the gradual introduction of email privacy (or lack thereof). This book was written in 2011, and I’m not entirely sure that I think the nostalgic look back at 1999/2000 is really necessary to the storyline — although I suppose things couldn’t happen this way today, with our firewalls, spam filters, and tech-savvy social media obsessions. There’s a certain sweet innocence to the emails between Beth and Jennifer, blithely talking about their personal lives with no thoughts about anyone reading their words, forwarding their emails, or posting embarrassing quotes on their Facebook walls.

Office settings are rare in contemporary fiction as anything but backdrop — the places the main characters go when they’re not on stage in their homes or other more action-packed or glamorous settings. In Attachments, the office is a bit of a social melting pot, where Lincoln is finally dragged out of his cocoon and forced to acknowledge himself as a person who needs and wants other people.

I decided to read Attachments after reading Eleanor & Park, the new (and amazing) young adult novel by Rainbow Rowell. I loved the author’s voice and approach to her characters so much that I decided to seek out anything else she’d written, and as it turned out, Attachments was her first and only other novel. If not for Eleanor & Park, I doubt I would have come across Attachments… but I’m so glad that I did.

Attachments is sweet, romantic, funny, and warm-hearted, and surprised me by being much more affecting than I’d anticipated. It’s a great love story, well-suited to a lonely world in which people connect best via their devices and screens. At its heart, Attachments is about real, live, human connection — how rare it is to find it, and how special it can be. Check it out! It’s a quick, satisfying read that’ll leave you with a smile on your face.

Rainbow Rowell has a new book, Fangirl, due out in the fall. You can bet I’ll read it!

If you liked this post, please consider following Bookshelf Fantasies!

Thursday Quotables: Attachments

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tq7Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

If you’d like to participate, it’s really simple:

  • Follow Bookshelf Fantasies, if you please!
  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now!
  • Link up via the linky below (look for the cute froggy face).
  • Make sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com).
  • Have fun!

tq5This week’s Thursday Quotable:

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Lincoln,” his sister would tell him. “You’ve been on dates. You’ve had a girlfriend. There is nothing about you that is inherently un-dateable.”

“Is this supposed to be a pep talk? Because all I’m hearing is ‘inherently un-dateable.'”

Source:  Attachments
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Dutton/Penguin Group, 2011

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

Link up, or share your quote of the week in the comments.

Book Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

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Book Review: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

There are some books that are bad choices for staying up past midnight to finish… simply because they are so powerful that they haunt your dreams when you finally go to sleep. Eleanor & Park is one of these. It will take me quite a while to get this lovely, sad story and its unforgettable characters out of my head.

Main characters Eleanor and Park are sixteen, growing up in the Flats, an undesirable Omaha neighborhood where keeping your head down might be your best strategy for getting through high school. It’s worked so far for Park, the only Asian kid around, son of an American army vet who married the girl he fell in love with during his service in Korea. Park listens to punk music, reads comic books, is a mostly obedient son, and tries hard not to attract attention from the loud and obnoxious crowd at the back of the bus.

Everything changes on the day that new girl Eleanor shows up on the school bus. Park — and everyone else — can’t help but notice her:

The new girl took a deep breath and stepped farther down the aisle. Nobody would look at her. Park tried not to, but it was kind of a train wreck/eclipse situation.

The girl just looked like exactly the sort of person this would happen to.

Not just new — but big and awkward. With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she was dressed like… like she wanted people to look at her. Or maybe like she didn’t get what a mess she was. She had on a plaid shirt, a man’s shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging around her neck and scarves wrapped around her wrists. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser. Like something that wouldn’t survive in the wild.

Eleanor takes the only vacant seat available to her, next to Park, who desperately wants to be left alone. If Eleanor pays any mind to Park at all, it’s only as the “stupid Asian kid” that she has to endure twice a day. But gradually, their silent daily bus rides turn into a kind of silent communion. Park notices Eleanor reading his comic books from her seat next to him, and soon starts bringing in a supply for her every day. Before much time passes, the daily rides turn into intense conversations about comics, then music, then life in general. The bond between Eleanor and Park is sudden and all-encompassing, and soon they both realize that their connection is soul-deep and earth-shattering. But is it enough?

Eleanor lives in a tiny, falling-down house with her four younger siblings, her fragile, abused mother, and her mother’s new husband, who is, quite frankly, scary and deeply creepy. The bathroom has no door, so Eleanor has to rush home each day if she has any hope of taking a bath before the awful stepfather gets home. She has only the clothes her mother can scrounge from Goodwill, and washes her hair with whatever soap she can find in the house on any given day. There simply is no one on Eleanor’s side. Her mother is too broken down to even protect herself, let alone Eleanor. On top of her horrible home life, Eleanor — as a new girl who doesn’t fit the mold — is teased and tormented at school. My heart broke again and again for this strong, difficult girl, who is too fearful of the consequences to go to her guidance counselor for salvation from her family life — but thinks that maybe she could at least ask her for a toothbrush.

Eleanor is a prickly character, who pushes Park away every time he gets too close. She lives in fear and shame, and can’t fully accept that someone as wonderful as Park would want to know her. Park is Eleanor’s ray of sunshine, someone who cares, who wants to protect her and to love her, but even Park can’t save her from the nightmarish home she’s forced to return to each day. Park, for his part, and much to his surprise, falls deeply and passionately in love with Eleanor.

The descriptions of Eleanor and Park’s experiences with first love and passion are just beautiful. For example, their first time holding hands on the bus is electric:

Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.

If someone had been watching, what would they have seen? Park couldn’t imagine what his face had looked like when he touched Eleanor. Like somebody taking the first drink in a Diet Pepsi commercial. Over-the-top bliss.

And from Eleanor’s perspective:

All through first and second and third hours, Eleanor rubbed her palm.

Nothing happened.

How could it be possible that there were that many nerve endings all in one place?

And were they always there, or did they just flip on whenever they felt like it? Because, if they were always there, how did she manage to turn doorknobs without fainting?

The trajectory of Eleanor and Park’s relationship is fast and sharp. Soon, their entire worlds revolve around each other. But an inevitable sense of disaster lurks above and around them constantly. Eleanor’s volatile home life is always on the verge of exploding — and when it finally does, the repercussions are devastating and heartbreaking.

I found myself holding my breath through the final chapters of Eleanor & Park, on edge, scared, and trying to hold back the tears. No spoilers here — not what happens, nor what happens after that. Suffice it to say that it was clear from the start that the odds of a happy ending were slim to none. And yet, there is a beauty and a truth in this love story that make it so worth reading. At the risk of sounding sappy, I’d describe Eleanor and Park as having a purity to their relationship, not in the usual context of sex, but in terms of the absolutely pure emotions they feel toward one another — love, caring, and a selflessness toward one another that is completely believable even while recognizing how rare such a thing is in any relationship, much less a teen relationship.

On a final note, I just loved Rainbow Rowell’s writing. It’s emotional and expressive, but not at all overdone or trite. The conversations between Eleanor and Park are funny, smart, and snappy, and I never felt that I was reading adult dialogue via a teen mouth, as I’ve occasionally experienced in other young adult novels. Throughout the book, we get alternating point-of-view sections, so that we’re often able to see the same event through both Eleanor and Park’s eyes — for example, these two views of their first intense kiss:

Eleanor looked at Park’s face so full of something she couldn’t quite place. His chin hung forward, like his mouth didn’t want to pull away from her, and his eyes were so green, they could turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.

He was touching her all the places she was afraid to be touched…

Eleanor tried one last time to be embarrassed.

He relaxed against the door.

He felt Eleanor’s hand on this throat, on his chest, then took her other hand and pressed it to his face. He made a noise like he was hurt and decided to feel self-conscious about it later.

If he was shy now, he wouldn’t get anything that he wanted.

Two loners, ready but scared, each making conscious decisions to let the other person in and, for once, to stop worrying about how they might look or what others might think. Eleanor and Park are two stand-out characters in the world of YA fiction. I loved everything about Eleanor & Park, and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who enjoys good fiction, period.