Fangirl was a blast of university nostalgia.
Cath is starting her first year at college. She needs to learn how to live with a roommate, how to traverse the cafeteria, and how to not end up pulling all-nighters before assignments are due. Cath has anxiety uses that makes the whole university experience that much more difficult.
Cath loves Simon Snow, think of it as this world’s version of Harry Potter. She’s deeply involved in the Simon Snow Fandom, and has been writing one of the most popular Simon Snow Fanfics online: Carry On Simon an alternate ending to the series. But the author of the Simon Snow books is about the release the last book in the series. Cath must finish her story before the author finishes hers.
Fangirl is one of the first books that I’ve come across that discusses the fan to object/book/movie relationship. When I was in high school I was pretty active on fanfiction.net. I’ve actually posted some of my horrid fanfiction on death of the author. You can check it out here and here. Fangirl doesn’t try to explain why people write fanfiction, but just acknowledges its a thing and that people enjoy reading it. People grow attached to characters all the time. Who doesn’t have a favourite book or favourite character?
My god just look at the Loki and Bucky Barnes fandoms on tumblr these days.
Even though Fangirl doesn’t pass judgement on fanfiction it does acknowledge that some people do. Is Fanfiction on par with plain old fiction? Well that’s something for you to decide. There are pros and cons to both views.
But most importantly for me anyway, Fangirl was the closest I’ve come to reliving the university experience. It had a great cast of characters, a cute romance and an awesome representation of what it’s like to be in a fandom. So if you’re in university or a university student at heart than I suggest you go out and give this book a read.
