A review by crufts
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

emotional funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I picked up this book one morning, and was pleasantly surprise to find myself having blitzed the entire thing in less than a day. It is good.

The premise of the story is established in the very first page, an imaginary Wikipedia article about the Simon Snow series - a seven-part fiction series that's effectively this world's equivalent of Harry Potter, having sold millions of copies, spawned seven movies and achieved worldwide fame.

Meanwhile, our protagonist Cath is a big-name Simon Snow fanfiction author. Her magnum opus fanfic is Internet-famous; but in real life, she's a nobody. The world of fandom is comfortable for her, whereas her new world of college life is unfamiliar, frightening, and worst of all, real. With a group of college roommates, friends, and classmates around her, Cath is thrown into this new world and has to learn how to deal with it.

Amongst its many fine points, I adored Fangirl's depiction of anxiety. The author takes Cath's irrational fears and writes how they twist and bend to become rational and believable, showing the true, internal experience of anxiety.
How can [my roommate] just fall asleep like that with a stranger in the room?
The depiction of mental illness and mental disabilities in a few other characters was also sensitive and realistic.

It also made me laugh that the Simon Snow series had all these parallels with Harry Potter, tiny details that fans will enjoy:
[They were watching] Simon Snow and the Selkies Four [i.e. the fourth movie of the series]. All the actors had longer hair in this movie.
I liked that we actually get to read many, many excerpts from the Simon Snow series. It's not just a handwaved plot device that we have to believe; we get to see for ourselves why it charmed so many people. (It was a bit odd that the Harry Potter series also existed in this world, though.)

Fangirl ended a little abruptly, with some of the climactic crisis decisions being resolved in less than a page - e.g. the conclusion of Cath's university fiction writing course was resolved in a one-paragraph text excerpt. However, perhaps the author knows this because she added a little FAQ section to this edition, answering the questions of what the characters got up to after the story. A little odd, but hey, it worked.

I really enjoyed this book, and I hope you will too.
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