Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

“To really be a nerd, she’d decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.”

-p. 227, Rainbow Rowell – Fangirl

Fangirl follows two twins, Cath and Wren, as they enter their first year of college away from their dad and trying to grow into themselves without each other as roommates. The story is only in Cath’s point of view, she’s majoring in Creative Writing and is a famous fanfiction writer of her favorite series Simon Snow (not that anyone knows besides her sister). Throughout the story she is struggling to branch out from her safe bubble of writing fanfiction, exploring campus life,  dating, and her sister’s eager partying as well as the bipolar disorder her dad has. We also get to learn about how the twins have leaned on each other since their mother left them when they were little, and try to deal with her trying to come back into their life. 

The book is a perfect coming of age to show how hard it can be to come out of your shell, alcoholism, and mental illness as you are growing up. We get to see snippets of the original Simon Snow books and the fanfiction that Cath has written as the book goes on. Some thing I really loved about the book was how realistic it was to see how the freshman year of college can be overwhelming and full of surprises. There was a part of the book that made me cry a little as it touched on mental illness and how it made their family stronger instead of making it fall apart. 

I’ll give the book a 4/5 stars. Highly recommended. Fangirl has been a new york times book review Notable children’s book of 2013.

Rowell, Rainbow. Fangirl. Wednesday Books, 2018.

Below I’ll be posting a video on a manga adaptation of the book that was released !