Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

I'm starting off discussing my weekly reads with Fangirl because I love Love LOVED it.  I had heard great things about it but was still a little skeptical because I've never even read fanfiction and do not intend to start.  However, this book was not just about fanfiction.  As the inside jacket cover says, it is "a coming-of-age take of fanfiction, family, and first love."

Cath and her twin sister Wren are used to doing everything together.  They've had the same friends, same classes, same interests (though Wren is a little more boy-crazy), etc.  They dealt with their mother's abandonment together.  Their mother left them when they were young because she did not want to be a wife and mother.  Obviously, since she named the twins Cather and Wren.  Cather-Wren...Catherine....get it?  Being too lazy to come up with an extra name does not a good mother make.

Anyway, when the girls are off to college, Wren decides she doesn't want to live with Cath, so Cath has to deal with her new roommate and new life.  She doesn't deal with change well and tries to hide herself in the Simon Snow fanfiction that she loves to write.  Judging from her tens of thousands of followers, she's pretty good at the fanfiction, too.  She pretty much is a hermit other than going to class.

Her new roommate tries to break her out of her shell and make her at least go somewhere for dinner each night.  She finds a study buddy for her fiction-writing class, which she loved until her professor decided to stab her through the heart by stating she hates fanfiction.  Cath is trying to figure out who she is and what she wants out of life while balancing the never-ending drama of her family and the scariness of first love.

She learns a lot about herself and about college life.  At first she hates college, but then she discovers that doing more than just going to class really isn't that bad.

I liked this story and read it in two sittings (pesky job got in the way again).  I was constantly intrigued and curious about what would happen and how Cath would make it through her freshman year.  In between the chapters, the author inserted various excerpts from Simon Snow and from Cath's fanfiction.  Her fanfiction name is Magicath, which is very clever since Simon Snow is about magic.  The situations were all pretty realistic, which is a huge change from my normal supernatural/paranormal or dystopian reads.  It's obvious that Cath and her family probably need some intensive therapy, but it was fun to see how they dealt with their issues (sorta) on their own.

I'm very curious to read more from Rainbow Rowell.  I like the tone and the language that she uses.  I hope her other books are just as good as this one.