Fangirl

by Rainbow Rowell

At turns uncomfortable, hilarious, sad, and triumphant, FANGIRL is all those and more.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the cover and would have completely dismissed FANGIRL if not for the recommendation of a friend who gushed over the writing and characters. Apart from the gay Harry Potter type fanfiction excerpts that closed each chapter (which I could have done without), I'm gushing with her. The writing is very simplistic and stronger for that simplicity. There are numerous long dialog exchanges often without any dialogue tags, and they ended up being my favorite parts of the book (and something I hope is a trademark of Rainbow Rowell's writing style).

The characters are equally impressive from the often frustrating awkward Cather, her thoughtlessly self destructive sister Wren, the inhumanly charming Levi, and every other character that breathes in this book. No one is flat or trivial. Every single character exists somewhere--I truly feel that way--the ones you love and hate, the ones you root for or pity down to your bones. They are flesh and blood more than paper and ink.

Again, I didn't like the story breaks that jumped to the fanfiction passages (imagine if Harry Potter and Draco were gay and and that's pretty much the Simon Snow fanfiction that Cather writes), but there aren't too many of those sections. Most of FANGIRL is rightly focused on Cather and her first exquisitely wonderful and painful year of college.

I'm officially a Rainbow Rowell fangirl for life.