Fangirl : Rainbow Rowell

Oh this book. Every lunchtime this week, I have sat and hugged it to myself and wanted those lunchtimes to never end. Rainbow Rowell is beautiful here, Fangirl is beyond gorgeous and you should very much buy this book.

I have not been this evangelical about a book for a while now and I think my love for Fangirl comes from the heart of it. It’s full of heart, a warm, yearning, joyous heart of love and family and friends and awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like it, where the language is so soft and nuanced and pinprick sharp, quite often in the same sentence. Rowell’s good. I yearn for this book. I want to start it all over again.

Ack, I am doing this review awfully for such a luscious book. You need to know what it’s about, yes? This is how these things work.

It is about
1. Cather
2. Wren
3. Family
4. Friends
5. Love, love, love.

To be more precise, it is Cather’s first year at university with her twin sister Wren. The two of them are about to experience very different years; the outgoing Wren and the introverted Cather. Two sides of the same coin, bound to each other forever through thick and thin, and yet this year will test them both. The eponymous Fangirl is our lead, Cather, a talented, introverted, shy, wonderful girl who writes award winning fanfic centred around the Harry Potter-esque ‘Simon Snow’ series.

(May I have a swift segue? Can I tell you how much I love how Rowell writes fanfic; it is with respect and love and adoration for the skills and pleasure to be derived in it, and it is a wonderful rich thing.)

I love this book. Can you tell? I love how it made me yearn to spend time with it, and how it made me long for it to never, ever end. And I think I am a Rainbow Rowell fan for life, now, because after Fangirl how can I not be?

And I think, as well, that this could be one of those big enduring books that come to define young adult literature. There’s nothing out there like Fangirl, nothing that quite addresses literature as Rowell addresses it here, as love-giver and life-saver and relationship-former. There is nothing out there that talks about books in this way and oh man, it is long overdue.

This book is gorgeous. It is out on January 30th. I would urge you to acquire a copy of it.

View all my reviews