Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Summary

Fangirl tells the story of identical twin sisters Cath and Wren during the first year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  Cath is more reserved suffering from a social anxiety disorder; while Wren cannot wait to spread her social butterfly wings by going out drinking every night and distancing herself from her sister. Cath and Wren come from a home where their father is bipolar and their mother abandoned them when they were eight.  The book focuses on the struggles of Cath; who spends most of her free time writing fan fiction about Simon Snow, a boy magician. Cath, though facing her social anxiety demons, is able to make friends with her bold outgoing roommate Reagan and fall in love with young boy named Levi.  We are also witness through the struggles that Cath goes through in her fiction writing class; where her Professor believes that Cath has plagiarized her papers and where her writing partner, Nick has used Cath to his advantage.  In the end, Cath is able to deal with her problems and face them head on and strive to survive and complete her first year in college

Commentary on Strengths

The book was enjoyable to read.  The genre of the book is modern contemporary realistic fiction.  The book format is more of a Young Adult Romance novel.  The theme is easy to spot which is that of a young girl who is able to find her own voice through her writing.  It was a great coming of age story. It was also easy to compare the fan fiction writing of Sam Snow to that of Harry Potter.  This is a book that most teenage girls will be able to relate to and live vicariously through Cath.  Highly recommend this book.  

Readers also enjoyed:  The Summer I Became a Nerd by Leah Rae Miller; Yaqui Delgado want to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina; Roomies by Sara Zarr; Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith; and Golden by Jessi Kirby

Additional books written by Rainbow Rowell include Attachments; Landline; Carry On; Kindred Spirit; and Eleanor & Park

Teachers can find ideas on how to incorporate this book into their lessons by downloading the following document:  ltrc.state.lib.la.us/2016/guides/Fangirl.docx 

   
      Rowell, R. (2015). Fangirl. New York: St. Martins Griffin.

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