caseylikesstuff: Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole…
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life – and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Handing out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from the fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words… And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?
I must be honest here: It’s been more than a month since I picked up or finished a book. However, Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, has restored my faith in the written word. Sometimes, it takes a book like this to kick me in the ass. To make me search for books that could even compare.
I loved this book. I’m a sucker for anything even remotely romantic, so to be honest, the blossoming relationship between Cath and Levi was really the only thing important to me. Of course, I cared about her relationship with her sister and her father and less with her mother, but I knew that once she could invest herself in Levi, he could put her mind at ease and keep her grounded.
I’ve also previously read Rowell’s Eleanor & Park and I loved making a Cath to Eleanor versus a Park to Levi comparison. Eleanor and Cath are similar in that they are shy and different and don’t really care to make friends. And I’m not really sure if Park and Levi are that similar.
While I loved what Park did for Eleanor, I adored and almost idolized the affection that Levi shared with Cath. Both loves were important, but Levi shines the brightest.
Like Cath, I too kind of fell in love with Levi and at one point even had to remind myself that he wasn’t real and, that at times, he was an unrealistic character. Yet, I loved him anyway. He was sweet and endlessly, unabashedly caring. I fell for him with every word that Rowell wrote.
All day at work today, I could think of nothing but this story and these characters. During my breaks, I immediately rushed to a table and opened to the words I had read last. Even before I finished, I realized that these characters, Cath and Levi, were ones that I would miss dearly once I flipped over that last page. And I was very correct.
It’s true. As Tolkien was to landscapes, Rainbow is to characters. They’re so real it hurts.
Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/62309638495.
Tags: rainbow rowell, fangirl, reblogbookclub.
