Book Review: Fangirl

My face hurts from smiling so much.

I feel like I’ll never find another book I love as much as Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, and I’m devastated to finish it. Usually it never takes me more than a day or two to finish a book; however, I deliberately took over a week to finish Levi and Cath’s story. I used my entire stack of orange sticky notes for this, and I don’t regret any of them.

I’m not sure if I ever related to a character as much as Cather. I recently wrote about my freshman experience, and I did so because I received my college diploma in the mail. I was also reminded of how painfully difficult it was for me to be a freshman while reading Fangirl.

Cather Avery is a writer, but she doesn’t think she can create her own world out of her own words. I was in Cather’s position a year ago. I remember the first day I spent in Tom Franklin’s fiction writing class; I was petrified after he let us know that only publishable stories would get you an A in his class. I thought about quitting fiction writing because I was afraid I wouldn’t be as good as the other writers around me. My class was full of real writers; publishable writers.

Tom didn’t like the first story I turned in, and he didn’t deserve to be proud considering I turned in an excerpt from a story I had written for my Beginning Fiction class. I was so afraid to start something new; I was Catalina The day came when my classmates criticized my story and my palms were sweating. He had been writing for days; I was trying to make up a story for weeks until I finally found something. I had never written anything like Virago before; it wasn’t filled with Faulkner quotes. It was simple and bordered on too much dialogue. And the only thing I remember Tom saying was, “Only a sophisticated writer would write this.”

Rainbow Rowell is sophisticated; she’s simple she doesn’t need sequins or diamonds to make her words stand out, and that’s why I love that she writes. I’m not sure I’ve ever read an ending so simply written; I had never smiled so much in an ending. I smiled at all his words.

“It’s just…everything. There are too many people. And I don’t fit in. I don’t know how to be. Nothing I’m good at is the kind of thing that matters there. Being smart doesn’t matter, and being good with words. And when those things matter, it’s only because people want something from me, not because they want me.

There are people who find out that my major in college was English Literature and look at me differently. Some always have a sarcastic comment to make; some people always find a way to tell me I worked so hard for a meaningless title. It doesn’t matter how much I love words, and it doesn’t matter that books have changed my life. They tell me ‘good luck with that’ and smile. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me, because I’ve cried many times over it. But, the thing is, I’m a writer. I’ll make it as a writer, because I have these stories in my head that don’t go away until I write them. Because people have told me that I have talent. It’s very hard to do what you love when it’s categorized as liberal arts, but I know if you really believe it can happen, it will. And it doesn’t matter if you’re published or not; what matters is that you keep doing what you love because it feels so good.

“Happily ever after, or just together forever, it’s not corny,” Wren said. “It is the noblest, like the bravest thing, to which two people can aspire.”

Rainbow Rowell writes love stories, and what I love about them is that they’re not overly enthusiastic. She shows readers that love doesn’t have to be dramatic, and she shows them that the best love stories don’t have to end badly. They can finish so purely; they can end so simply. She used to be petrified that she would only write love stories. A lot of people seem to put them down, but that’s what I write about. You write what you love, and there’s nothing I love more than reading about two people meeting. I write love stories, and it makes my heart happy. Because happily ever after is truly “the bravest thing two people can hope for.”

“Just…isn’t it allowed to give up sometimes? Isn’t it okay to say, ‘This really hurts, so I’m going to stop trying’?”
“It sets a dangerous precedent.”
“For avoiding bread?”
“For avoiding life.”

I’m in love with Rainbow Rowell and I’m so grateful that she helped me without even realizing it. We cannot avoid things that come our way because they will be difficult or because they will put us down. I’m so, so happy that my friend, Alison, forced me to read Eleanor & Park, because otherwise she would never have picked up Fangirl, and she would have missed me so much. I want to sit on the floor and read this book every day for the rest of my life, and that’s so magical.

And like I said, I almost dropped out of Tom Franklin’s class because it was going to be tough and because I was afraid he’d make fun of me for writing love stories. And I’m so glad I didn’t, because if he had quit, he would have read this:

“Alex – Well, this is a great opening to a story. Can’t wait for the mother-in-law to visit. You write great dialogue and use drama well. Great prose. Let me know if my notes need explaining. – TF”