Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

     Awhile ago I read this book called 'Eleanor and Park', and it was also written by Rainbow Rowell. "Eleanor and Park" is definitely in my list of favorite books, so I decided to check out the other books Rainbow Rowell has written and I came across 'Fangirl'. The description was not very intriguing but after reading many good reviews on the book, I decided to read it and let me tell you, I was not let down.

     When you first see the title 'Fangirl', you automatically paint a picture in your head of a crying girl surrounded by hundreds of posters of her favorite pop star, well that is far from what this book is about. First of all the main character Cath, is a relaxed fangirl and instead of freaking out over a pop star, she has this deep love for the characters in the 'Simon Snow' book and movie series. Cath shows her love for them by writing fan fiction stories using the same characters but she changes the plot and the character relationships. The thing that makes this book interesting is that Cath and her twin sister Wren, are starting their freshman year of college. They are meeting new people and gaining new experiences and Cath, has to try to balance her very popular fan fiction writing and college work while also worrying about her work loving crazy dad.

     *****Do not read this paragraph if you have not read the book; SPOILER ALERT*****
     The characters personalities were developed well throughout the story in good and bad ways. For example, Cath, met Nick in her fiction-writing class and they become writing buddies outside of class writing stories together. It turns out Nick was just using Cath for her writing skills and is really a jerk. Then there is Wren who turns into the party girl when she goes to college and saying rude things to Cath, but by the end of the book Wren turns things around after a huge wake up call and she goes back to her actual self that is not a party girl drinking the night away. I think Rainbow Rowell did a really good job in giving all of her characters a turing point in some way, you follow a story for not only Cath, but also the many other characters in the book.

Inside front cover

     Something else that Rainbow Rowell does that is unique in her books is that in her books you can find special designs on the inside front and back cover of the books. So instead of a plain white inside cover she chose good fan art for the book and then puts that on the inside covers. These designs can in some way help the reader understand the characters and book more. Personally for me when I was reading 'Fangirl', I kept looking at the designs when she was describing Levi and Wren, the designs gave me a better picture of what Levi and Wren looked like. Also in 'Eleanor and Park' there were drawings of Eleanor and Park and they helped give me a picture Eleanor's crazy red hair.

Rainbow Rowell

     Overall 'Fangirl' is a well written book of girl in college dealing with typical college things and also doing her own thing, which is writing a very popular story. Before 'Fangirl' was published there was a lot of anticipation for it, and personally for me, this book met my standards. An interesting
thing about Cath's fan fiction is that in the book Rainbow Rowell puts in snippets of the fan fiction 'Carry On' that Cath is writing and Rainbow Rowell liked writing those snippets so much that she made 'Carry On' into an actual book that came out this past October. Overall this book is very good and please don't judge it based on the description that is written on the book, you will be surprised.
   
**images provided by Google