Oh my gosh, okay, so I don’t know if this is multiple people or one person but hopefully I am not the first person to say to you: it’s okay for other people not to enjoy the same books that you do.
That said, I wasn’t really planning on writing this until I decided that no, I do want to talk about this. I might lose some followers, which is a shame, but it happens. Now, I might come off sounding like a spiteful and jealous writer because Rainbow Rowell is published and I’m not, and yeah, I’m human and am jealous but I don’t think that devalues what I have to say.
So, to start off, no, I really despise Fangirl. A lot of it could do with the fact that I am 26 and don’t really relate to Cather (okay, the Cather/Wren twin name thing was kinda cute, but Cather? Really?) as a person. Also, I live in Lincoln, Nebraska (which is a point I’ll get to later) and there’s this fast-food joint called Culver’s and it’s on Cather street and I sometimes wonder if Rowell was getting a burger from them and saw the name and was like that’s what I’ll name my main character. Because other than that, ever since bibliochor mentioned her name sounds like Catheter, that’s all I ever think of first. Off track, but still. Like I’m so tired of author’s having to make every name unique and special. Like why can’t their name just be fucking Mary? Why all this special snowflake name stuff? (says the hypocrite that’s writing a story with a main character named Dennelle).
Anyway, names aside, there’s just so much I don’t like about it. Let’s start with the obvious stealing of Harry Potter. I’m not even going to skirt around this one, and frankly I am surprised more people aren’t outraged at this hack! For those who haven’t read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, spoiler alert, but if you don’t care then keep reading. So the Simon Snow series within the book is no doubt a Harry Potter rip-off and basically just Rowell’s fanfiction. It’s about a boy wizard and his friends.
Simon Snow=Harry
Baz=Malfoy
Penelope=Hermione
Gemma T. Leslie (the Simon Snow author)= J.K. Rowling
There are seven books. There is a school for wizards called Watford but it’s obviously Hogwarts. Watford is where a lot of the Harry Potter movies were filmed, fyi. Now, maybe some tiny chance it is coincidental, but as a fanfic writer myself I would consider that a nod to the original work my story is based off of. So, it feels like something Rowell probably thinks herself clever of, but I don’t know because that’s just what I would do. So her fanfic version of Hogwarts is named after the Harry Potter location in Watford. And there are separate houses and years and colors for the different houses, you get the drift.
So, then Catheter writes fanfiction. I LOVE fanfiction. I read it. I write it. I encourage it. (To a point but that’s another topic for another day). She is a popular fanfic author (because of course) and her fanfic is a Simon Snow/Baz (Harry/Malfoy) slashfic. It’s so popular that people wear merchandise of her fanfic, including Catheter herself. It’s so popular that while wearing a Carry On (the name of her Harry Potter/Simon Snow fanfic) shirt that it gets recognized by another girl.
Catheter and this girl have the following conversation about Carry On and The Simon Snow series (sorry if this gets confusing):
GTL (JKR) is unfair to Baz (Malfoy) and they believe GTL (JKR) should give him a redeeming arc but they don’t think she’d ever do it.
They then discuss the fanfic, Carry On, and the girl admits to Catheter without her realizing who she really is that she likes the fanfic more than the cannon story and that Catheter is her favorite author and that she is better than GTL.
This chick is really saying she’s better than JKR and then she’s gonna publish her”characters” saying it. Are you kidding me? You are not even close to the same level as JKR, Rowell. Not even close. Half of your book is Simon Snow excerpts (which is literally just Harry Potter fanfic excerpts cause that’s what Simon Snow is) and then half of that are fanfic excerpts of Simon Snow. My head is about to explode. It’s like a paradox of fanfic and she’s made a loophole and we’re all sucked into it.
How this even got published and Rainbow isn’t being sued is beyond me but I’ll bite. So half of her book is Harry Potter fanfiction, whatever, it got so boring and I didn’t care for her portrayal of the HP au fanfic characters, so I skipped the Simon Snow and Carry On bits. It’s amazing how much of it is ingrained into the book itself. I get it’s all supposed to symbolize Catheter and Wren and the relationships and parallels and blah blah blah but no, it’s not original and not written well enough to pull that off.
Bringing me to the writing. You can tell Rowell is a fanfic writer. She’s on level with Anna Todd. I think Meyer and Clare can tell a story far better than she can and if you know me, I despise those writers as well. Almost for similar reasons and how terrible they treat the people that don’t worship the ground they walk on. But, I digress, Rowell can’t hold much without the help of her fanfic woven within. Okay so it’s all essential to who Catheter is. But Catheter is pathetic and I absolutely despise her character. I wanted to like her, I did—hell! I wanted to love the book. Like, I get the anxiety she feels because I experience it too and the way Rowell explained it was actually really well done and felt very real. I hate talking to new people and work myself up over nothing and I could relate to a lot of what Cather felt, but not eating because you’re too afraid to ask someone!? Nononononono.
Okay there are fucking signs all over campus that direct you around. There are maps. Catheter! You are on the internet all the time! You’re really telling me you couldn’t go to the UNL homepage and look at the fucking maps they provide? There’s no excuse for that kind of stupidity and it’s lazy writing.
Catheter falls into the self-sufficient daughter with the dad that needs looking after tripe but omg she can’t even google where to eat. Use foursquare, man! C’mon. There are SO many popular culture references (hello, that book is so going to outdate itself) that I’m supposed to believe she spent an entire month living off of protein bars because she was too scared to ask or look up answers. Lol no please just stop.
Sub par writing aside, I’m actually in stitches that Catheter gets pissed off at another character for stealing her work when Rowell is literally doing what that character did to Catheter to JKR. And now she’s going to publish Carry On. The fanfic of a fanfic is getting published? And people are excited about that? Plus, we know how it ends so how is there any excitement to that? And the pages and quotes, those are going to have to be part of the story now. They’re already written and published so no going back or that contradicts Fangirl. Rowell has tied herself down as a writer with this move, she doesn’t give herself much to expand.
I also hate how Cather and Wren are IDENTICAL TWINS yet because Cather is the epitome of a special snowflake she has glasses and isn’t pretty like Wren and she doesn’t go party because she’d rather stay at home and write fanfiction and get on tumblr and the book condemns partying like it’s a bad thing. It’s not. It’s part of the college experience. Don’t want to join it, that’s fine, but poor Wren gets treated like a rag doll for Rowell to show her resentment toward the popular party girl. Nice slut shaming too. The all pure virgin thing can be put to rest. No one cares Catheter. Also, how can you be ugly but your sister be pretty if you’re IDENTICAL!? That’s perpetuating the ugly girl myth and Hollywood does that enough thank you. I am not magically hotter when I am not wearing my glasses and I am not ugly when I am wearing my glasses.
Also, I was really surprised when I found out Rainbow Rowell lives in Omaha because I would have guessed she has never been to Nebraska. Seriously. Her depiction of UNL and Lincoln in general is poor. Like, I’m sorry but how did you not include more Husker stuff? I hate football but let me tell you there is NO escaping it and the fact that Catheter didn’t go to one game or party or some form of Husker thing makes that book even way more unbelievable to me. The entire time I read it I felt as if Cather was just an empty shell for the average tumblr girl to crawl inside and be like, yeah, this is me.
There’s no real drive and I feel like the story really drags. What’s it even about? A lonely girl gets a boyfriend and becomes a published writer, there are no real ramifications to the main character and she doesn’t really change. Even her view on fanfic remains the same despite her adamant teacher’s views toward it. Why are you turning fanfiction in as your own work at a college class? Like what even is this book?
It’s a giant mess and it’s Cather’s empty shell of a character that was easy for the Fangirl’s of the world to claim her. The writing is hardly above 9th grade level and the conflicts in the story are just a result of lazy writing and not of actual substance. I’m all for books that are just meant to be fun but this was torture to read and I can’t believe it’s as popular as it is for ripping off HP so openly. I’ll give Rowell one thing, she knew who to aim at and was smart enough to market it.
