RATING GUIDE:
6 – Life-Affirming and Life-Changing!
5 – A keeper!
4 – Very good
3 – Passable
2 – I’d rather read
a telephone book
1 – An absolute bomb.
Read at your own risk!
0 – Nothing will compensate for what I lost reading this
book
After reading all these books for
young adults where the young are either perpetually horny, perpetually
smart-alecky, or perpetually pa-profound, you’ll be thrown off-balance
when you first read Rainbow Rowell’s “Fan Girl”. What is this girl all about, what is this book all about? Is it worth my time and money or should I
just toss this into my “To Donate” box?
Rainbow Rowell’s “Fangirl” is the
story of Cath, a whiny, geeky, socially inept girl who hates change. Tough luck, for soon, Cath and Wren, her
twin, are forced to leave their home and their dad for college. Unlike Cath, Wren can’t wait to start
school. Soon, she leaves her socially
anxious sister in order to try out all the fun things a freshman supposedly
does (e.g., getting drunk with the popular ones). At first, Cath stays holed up in her dorm room, writing fan
fiction. Unlike in real life, Cath is
highly known in the fandom she belongs to (she is a well-known slashy/bromance
fan fiction writer). But Cath can’t
stay in her room forever. With the help
of people like Reagan, her dorm mate, Levi, Reagan’s best friend, Cath is
coaxed out of her shell. It turns out
that Cath is a girl running away from her own life and its dark, painful secrets. As Cath slowly gets to know herself and the
world and the people around her, Cath needs to make a decision. What kind of future does she want? Will she continue hiding in her boring but
comfortable shell, or face her demons and build a new life?
To be honest, I initially thought
this book was a dud, because the writing style was so simple. After reading John Green’s books, I was
looking for something that was extremely witty or profound and “Fangirl” didn’t
fulfill those expectations at first. It
took a while, but I soon learned to appreciate what Rainbow Rowell offered her
readers --- a simply written, yet very honest and moving book about the complex
world of today’s teenagers.
In this book, we have twins (Cath
and Wren) who are very different from each other. There’s the socially anxious Cath, who’s so scared of people, you
wonder if she’s mentally ill. Then
there’s Wren, who seems like your ordinary freshman. But then, as you read more about their lives, you discover that
they are older beyond their years and are forced to cope in a world not of
their own making. We see some of the
ways teenagers deal with their angst in the 21st century (in Cath’s
case, it’s escaping into the internet and her fan fiction writing; in Wren’s
case, it’s partying). Yet, we also see
that no matter what generation teens belong to, whether it be the 20st century
or the 21st, there are some things that never change. A teenager will always need a home, a family
and real friends.
Rowell’s cast of teenagers aren’t
all innocent and virginal like Cath, but they are thankfully real and mostly
good and kind-hearted. As for her cast of adults, it’s easy to
sympathize with them, even though some of them are so screwed up. The good thing about this kind of portrayal is,
readers are reminded that no matter what one’s age is --- whether one is a
child, a teenager or an adult --- there is always hope for redemption, as long
as one is brave enough to face one’s issues, forgive one’s self and others, and
choose love over hate.
