Please be aware that there will be spoilers ahead! + Everything in this book experience is entirely based on my personal experience and opinions. (:
I haven't posted anything on my Tumblr account for a while, since I don't have any new art pieces to post. but I've just started reading again after years of not reading a single book! I thought it would be fun to make a little book review/experience post. So here is Aqo's book experience with Rainbow Rowell's "Fangirl"!
The start.
This book, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, was given to me by a friend in 2014. Just by glancing at the cover, I could tell this book was going to be highly relatable. A girl in spectacles sat atop a large letter that read "Fangirl" and was writing something on her laptop. Relatable.
I was definitely a "Fangirl" back in the days. I couldn't stop reading fanfiction about my favorite fictional characters, my sense of style was all over the place (and generally horrible), and I was overthinking everything to the point where all I wanted to do was hide in my room and look up content from my favorite shows on the internet.
Strangely (or perhaps "lazily"), I didn't read or touch the book that my friend handed me until this year! The date is April 18th, 2022. Rainbow Rowell, please accept my heartfelt apologies for neglecting the book for the past eight years.
When I finally finished renovating my room, I purchased a new bookcase to house my old books. All of my old books were stored in a dusty storage closet on a family bookshelf. I came across Fangirl while reading through my old books and was instantly transported back in time. A flash of nostalgia. I opened the yellowing book (which I like) and realized that I had only read 3 pages of it back in 2014. This is typical of Aqo.
I wanted to show this book the respect and care it deserves. After all, it was a present.
As a result, I read it.
It took me only 6 days to complete it (which is quite rapid by Aqo's standards).
And this is how it went.
The experience and the book.
The story begins with Cath, our main character, embarking on her new adventure as a first-year college student. She has an identical twin sister named Wren, with whom she was very close with.
At least, until Wren proposed that they shouldn't continue being roommates for college.
Cath was devastated because Wren had been her sole roommate for the previous 18 years of her life. Cath is the twin sister who dislikes smiling and prefers to spend her days writing fanfiction in her room and following a set regimen. Wren, on the other hand, is the happy-go-lucky, self-assured, and outgoing twin sister.
Cath is well-known among her fandom. She's a well-known fanfiction author who writes about her favorite fictitious couple, Simon and Baz. Her entire existence centers around writing, reading, and looking for Simon Snow content on the internet. Her passion for fiction writing led her to declare English as her major.
She's been creating this massive Snowbaz (Simon and Baz's couple/ship name) fanfiction, which has been read by tens of thousands of Simon Snow fans. The Snowbaz fanfic called Carry On (which in the end became a real book made by Rainbow Rowell) was Cath's interpretation of the final book in the Simon Snow series.
Along the way, Cath made a few new friends in her life. One of them was Reagan.
Reagan is honestly my favorite character other than Wren. She has this strong, “mean”, but secretly soft personality. But that’s just how she shows affection. Cath and Reagan got a long pretty nicely. Since they both doesn’t like being bothered by people and likes to be sarcastic together.
And then there’s Levi. Whew. Hmm. Well, I do like Levi. He’s sweet, he’s kind, he is a ray of sunshine that likes to give smiles to everyone. He is Cath’s boyfriend by the end of the book. But, is it weird to say that I’m not really interested in Cath and Levi’s build up and relationship? 😬 I kind of felt like the build up was boring, and since we’re reading this from Cath’s point of view, every situation seems mellow and emotionless since Cath isn’t very expressive.
I was more interested in reading about Cath’s relationship with her sister, Reagan, her dad, and her issues with her mom. I can actually feel the emotions when she talks about them. But when it comes to her romantic relationships, such as her ex boyfriend that broke up with her through call (I forgot his name but that was a d*ck move), Cath didn’t even try to fight back. The guy practically said their relationship was never real. He said it casually. just like that. I understand that she was broken hearted and she was in a panic, but — oh my god — I want to jump in the book and grab her phone and just scream at him.
And then there was Nick who was also so annoying. He was fine at first, but then sadly he became a d*ck as well. And I can tell Cath was very tired of men being mean to her through out this book. Well Levi redeemed himself and made a great boyfriend. But —again— reading about their relationship is kind of boring to me. But I gotta say I was pretty happy with the ending where Cath got to finish her final papers, her sister came back to her life, her dad is getting better, Reagan stood by her the whole time, and things are actually looking up for Cath.
But there’s this one thing that made me uncomfortable. Its that non of the main characters are LGBTQ+, and this book talks about a girl who’s obsessed about writing gay fanfction. There was also a moment in the book where Cath felt weird about reading gay fanfiction out loud cause there is an actual gay person in the house. which made me go “???” for a moment.
But letting that slide, this book was very easy to read and the words just flows. Its the type of book you don’t need to wreck your brain over.
Do i like Fangirl? sure. Is it one of my favorite books? probably not.
But I am currently reading Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and so far everything looks great! might do a little book review about Carry On as well.
This is was a big 2019 mood. and its something i want to change. this 2020, I want to reach out more to the people I love, I want to love my body unconditionally with all its "flaws", and I want to be more grateful of the life I have. It's going to be hard, and of course its going to take sometime to get there, but its better to start than to never start at all. 😊✨🧡
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