Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Book: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Genre: NA Contemporary Romance
Rating:★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
For: Fun
From: Amazon

Wow, but I've heard a lot about this book! Everyone seemed to love it. I had no idea what it was really about. Fangirl? Fangirl of what I wondered. And why did everyone love it so so much?

Well, so she (our heroine) is a fangirl of some Harry Potter type series and she is a very popular online fan fiction writer. Things get interesting when she goes off to college and suddenly doesn't have as much time to keep up on her writings, and besides, now she has writing classes where she has to do "real" writing. And even more besides, she is a bit fascinated with her roommate's ex boyfriend.

So he, this guy named Levi, was the best thing about this book. I agree with everyone that I've seen saying he's their new book boyfriend. He was simply delightful and fun and just the coolest. No wonder Cath was fascinated. But Cath herself, I was just so so about. She was a bit irritating, but still interesting I suppose. I didn't enjoy her Simon Snow fan fiction stories. They were thrown in here and there throughout this book, and they were long and weird and had nothing to do with the story. Except as a device to get Levi and Cath together, sort of. Maybe there's some sort of symbolism deep down, but I didn't dig to find it. I just felt it slowed down the main story and once there in the end, I skipped it entirely to get back to the story.

Have you read this book? Did you enjoy the Simon Snow stuff? Or did it bug you too? I'm really wondering if people generally liked it or not.

Anyway, so the relationship development was fun for me. And the relationship (or lack thereof) that Cath was struggling with regarding her family was interesting and frustrating. I didn't like her twin sister at all and I wondered why Cath even bothered with her. But she is her twin I suppose.

Bottom line: Fun engaging story. I enjoyed it despite the fan fiction stuff. And despite the many many F bombs.

Other Reviews:

As you can tell, though, for me the blend of romance, family issues and friendship challenges worked like a charm! From Anna Reads

The bottom line is that I was bored much of the time and when the swoon-worthy conclusion arrived, it did not compensate for the lack of depth in the secondary characters and their individual conflicts. From Book Harbinger

There's just so much good in Fangirl . Cath has an interesting family dynamic, and a very interesting fanfiction hobby/habbit/lifestyle, and some school drama, and one of the most adorable romances I've read in a while. From Read This Instead

This was a cute, fun book, but the gazillion issues were annoying at times. As were all the Simon Snow bits. Truthfully, I just find it hard to care about a fake novel that sounds too much like HP. From Estella's Revenge

Cath’s struggles to leave her old life behind and adapt to life at college felt very real. From Bermuda Onion's Weblog