Embracing My Book Addiction: 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Date Published: September 2013
Date Read: 08/02/2015
Genre: Young Adult
My rating: 5 of 5 stars ✯✯✯✯✯

I spent the entire night of August 2nd reading Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and smiling like an idiot... I've sat and read entire books in one session plenty of times before and ended up with strained thumbs from holding a heavy hardback or back discomfort for sitting still for too long, but I think this is the first time my face has hurt from wearing a constant goofy grin. I was really excited to read this, mostly because I loved Eleanor and Park so much and knew this book had a large fan base, but to be honest, I wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did.

The truth is... I'm convinced that Cath and I are soul-sisters. I just get her and all of her neuroses--the social anxiety and awkwardness, irrational fears, love of fiction, poor self-esteem, being a hermit-- all of it. If I had a twin sister or wrote Harry Potter fan-fiction the way that she writes Simon Snow fan-fic, I'd be convinced that Rowell based this character off of my personality. I found it 50% hysterical and 50% pathetic that pretty well every anxious thought she had was one I've also had a thousand times. It made me giggle and shake my head at myself, especially this conversation that I swore I've had verbatim, about a gazillion times.

"Get your shoes," Reagan said. I'm showing you where the dining hall is."
"No." Cath could already feel the anxiety starting to tear her stomach into nervous little pieces. "It's not just that... I don't like new places. New situations. There'll be all those people, and I won't know where to sit-- I don't want to go".
Reagan sat at the edge of her own bed, folding her arms. "Have you been going to class?"
"Of course."
"How?"
"Class is different," Cath said. "There's something to focus on. It's still bad, but it's tolerable."
"Are you on drugs?"
"No."
"Maybe you should be..."
--Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

The characters, and heck, the entire tone of this novel was utterly charming. I'd pinch this book's cheeks and squeeze it into a huge bear hug if I could. I found myself giggling several times (did I mention the incessant smiling?) at the witty comebacks and endearing personalities of the characters. I must say that Levi is one of the sweetest and most charismatic characters EVER. I also must say that my favorite out of many other favorite moments was Cath and Levi's Kanye dance party... It was so cute and so much fun to watch it play out in my head. Seriously, here I go with the ear-to-ear smiling again, just from thinking about it...

I want to point out that this isn't a book solely about nerdy fangirl-dom, although there is plenty of that to appease (just about) anyone who is unafraid to let their nerd flag fly. If I had to sum up this book into one cliché description, I'd call it a "coming-of-age" story--and a darn good one, too. It's about learning to embrace change in order to achieve personal growth--learning to fly away but never forgetting your way home. Also, let't not forget these little words of wisdom, that were made into really adorable artwork by Pandanemar at http://pandanemar.tumblr.com