Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Last year, when Fangirl came out, it was very popular among young adult readers. The fact that the book has a four-point-something rating on goodreads and a lot of good reviews made me rush to the bookstore and buy a copy even though it meant burning a hole in my pocket.

I was really excited to start this work of Rainbow Rowell, but because I promised myself that I won't unwrap new books until I read my old ones in my tbr, it was only this year that I managed to devour myself in a book by Rowell. But it breaks my heart to tell you that I'm not sure if my first experience was good.

I had very very high expectations for Fangirl, and it's sad that they were not met. I think this book was too light and too contemporary for me, because I didn't appreciate much of it. The story was too simple and there weren't a lot of things happening: it's always Cath inside her dorm, writing fanfiction about Simon and Baz (I know it really was the main point of the plot: Cath doesn't socialize much with people and prefers most of the time to be alone with the fictional characters inside her head). Even Cath and Levi's love story was so fast. Levi just said he liked her and that's that. They're officially on. There wasn't even much conflict except for the time when Wren was rushed to the hospital and when Cath and Levi fought because she didn't want to do her Fiction Writing project. And that was just a small fight.

And the ending. Ugh. I finished reading Fangirl as an e-book, and I had to check my physical copy just to be sure it doesn't have missing pages. Rainbow probably rushed the last parts, because the ending didn't turn out that good. It was like what she wrote somewhere in the book: Cath didn't want to rush writing because she wants to the characters to get the ending they deserved--the ending that would satisfy the readers. I just think it's kinda ironic that the author herself did the opposite.

Fangirl is okay and though I didn't like it that much I would recommend it to those who read and write fanfiction. I think you'll appreciate the book more and you'll be able relate to the main character.