Book: Fangirl

 

Follow Cather as she awkwardly tries to navigate college life as she continues her Simon Snow (knock-off Harry Potter) obsession with her fanfiction writing. She has a twin sister Wren who is all too happy to be independent of her twin and be "grown-up" as she goes to parties and bars. Cather, on the other hand, struggles at first with her independence, especially since she isn't close to her roommate, Reagan and her roommate's boyfriend, Levi is always there smiling and being somewhat annoying.

Cather is 18 but has the emotional maturity of an 8-year-old: for her, almost everything is black and white. And because she's just so inexplicitly talented and the main character she gets literally everything she wants with almost no consequences for her inaction.

 

Summary (Spoilers):

Their mom left when they were 8: also, she (the mom) wasn't expecting twins so she split up the name Catherine among both of them (that was the first clue your mama doesn’t love you if she can't be bothered to think of a second name). So, Cather suffers from severe mom issues and in the middle of the story her mother wants to reconnect, and Cather really doesn't want to (which is understandable) but her sister Wren wants to get to know their mother and this gets them arguing to the point where they don't speak to each other, that and Wren takes her partying a little too far. Also, her father has mental issues and has a full-blown mental break down in the middle of the book and Cather misses her finals because of it and is mad at Wren for not doing the same. Her Professors are really nice and let make it up after her father is a bit better.

At some point, Cather starts having feelings for Levi and they end up sharing a kiss before both passing out on a bed. Wracked with guilt she tells Reagan who is surprised that Cather likes Levi and tells her that Levi is her ex-boyfriend turned friend not her boyfriend. So just when Cather wants to confess her feeling to him, she finds him kissing another girl and it takes a few chapters for her to calm down, forgive him and then they start dating.

Throughout the story, though Cather is actively avoiding an assignment from her fiction writing professor. She is supposed to write a 10,000-word short story on any subject as a final project and it can't be about her favorite subject, Simon Snow! This sends Cather spiraling because she can't think of anything to say that isn't about Simon Snow or her ship, Simon and Baz! She gets an extension on the project and refuses to work on it because how dare "professor know-it-all" not accept fanfiction as original work (sarcasm). So even though she has an extra 6 months to work on it she spends it working on her fan fiction blog (which is super popular, because everything that Cather writes is apparently absolutely amazing).

But Levi makes her see how stupid she's being so 10 days before it's due she writes it and turns it in. But the audience never gets told what it's about or if the professor was pleased, or what her grade was. No, my dears the fact that Cather wrote it at all was so momentous we don't need to bother with any other details at all. And then the book just kind of ends, like the author couldn't think of anything else to say about Cather or her life.

My thoughts:

I think this book boils down to what you want out of it. If you want to see an emotionally stunted adult slowly growing up, then perhaps you'll be satisfied. If you're here to learn about fandoms or the fandom-lifestyle then you will be sorely disappointed as this book can only show you what it means to be a fan to Cather. You wear t-shirts of your fandom all the time and spend lots of time on the Internet reading or writing fanfiction and you are extremely socially awkward to the point its painful! I can personally tell you that is not my personal experience and there are plenty of fans of things (fiction and otherwise) that aren't this extremely of socially inept; it’s inaccurate at best and insulting at worst.

Personally, I don't enjoy adults who are emotionally immature at some point you need to get over things that make you uncomfortable, that's just life. I can't tell you how many projects I was assigned that I didn't want to do but did them because I had to. At work I have assignments that range from boring to gross, but I still do them because it's my job. In my experience whining gets you nowhere and that is all Cather does, whine and hide, yet she gets everything she wants because she does the bare minimum and is loved by all despite being super judgemental and shutting almost everyone out for most of the book. If this isn't white privilege, then I don't know what is.

Also throughout all of this are just most random excerpts of Simon Snow nonsense that add diddly squat to the plot. Some are from the original books and some are fan fiction, and you don't know which is which until the end of the excerpt. I guess if they weren't there this would be a short story because I swear it's like every other chapter. And I repeat it adds nothing to the story! At some point I just skipped them because I'm not here for Simon.

It had some nice moments like the scenes of Cather and Levi hanging out were sweet and Reagan was a really cool character and perhaps if the book was about her, I would like it more because I related to her more than anyone else.

I rate this novel 2 stars out of 5.

 

 

Kat K out-