Thoughts on Fangirl
At first this was going to be a comment on ikel89's readthrough, but then, uh .... *waves downward* that happened. So it gets its own post. :D I may figure this LJ thing out yet ...
On the whole I quite enjoyed this book! It was a nice, breezy read; most of the drama was not of the "unnecessary bullshit" variety, the characters themselves were mostly fun, and of course who doesn't like some quality fandom / fanfic nostalgia :DDD
I did find that the closer I thought about it when trying to pull together these bullet points, the less impressed I was by some of the author's narrative choices. But eh, it was still a fun read, and I'm still glad I read it. :D (I suspect I'll also be glad to have read it before Carry On, but - I'll see how I feel after I read Carry On. :D)
Onward to impressions!
* I also struggled with Cath's POV in the beginning, before she started stabilizing. I've got just enough anxiety issues that I was able to sympathize with some of what she was going through (in particular: I was also grumpy about the protein bars, ESPECIALLY after she'd been to the other cafeteria with Wren -- but her mentioning that it had become this giant anxiety "block" made perfect sense, once we got to that part).
* BUT her anxiety issues also seemed ... strangely inconsistent in ways that irritated me? Like, she'd make a point of how she always took basically the same path, which was a familiar pattern for me -- but then she just randomly wanders around the English
building enough to find a nice place to hang out behind it? Breaking anxiety-hardened habits doesn't "just happen" in my experience - there's always some significant mental tax involved. Same with "oh I just randomly decided to wander around downtown Lincoln because I had the time and why not - oh hey look there's Levi's Starbucks!" (Especially with the editor part of my brain pointing out that both were throwaway scenes meant to push the plot forward and excuse you, if you're going to make anxiety such a core part of the story DON'T IGNORE IT BECAUSE IT'S CONVENIENT TO THE PLOT)
* WHO REACHES COLLEGE WITHOUT REALIZING IT'S INAPPROPRIATE TO TURN FANFIC IN FOR A CLASS ASSIGNMENT *howls in anguish* Like, when she initially mentioned that she'd written something from Baz's POV, I though she meant a character LIKE Baz? Because I just couldn't believe she'd do that. whyyyyyyyyy. And okay, yes I enjoyed the conversations with the professor that resulted, but at least, like. Have it be an assignment to give her a sample of what you feel is your best work! or something! that is not clearly supposed to be an original story!
* Okay enough complaining about Cath. :DD When I wasn't howling in her general direction, I was generally satisfied with her as a narrator - lots of old fond fanfic writing feelings to latch on to, and it's hard to stay too grumpy at someone who enjoys sitting in the cafeteria and making fun of people with Reagan. <3
* Lots of laughing at the terrible Drarry-ness of Simon/Baz, even though back in my HP days I was mostly reading other things, so I don't have a whole lot of first-hand experience. :D
* AGREED that Levi's crush on Penelope is cute. :D I was also deeply pleased by the throwaway line about Cath reading Penelope/Agatha fic in her downtime. :DD I was never as pointed about avoiding other fics when working on my two big projects, but there were definitely times working on this latest project when I couldn't handle the distraction of another author's take on the characters, so the urge was definitely familiar. :P
* LEVI <3 REAGAN <3 That is all.
* No but in general, every scene with Reagan in it was great. Not sure I'd buy into a stable OT3 since I feel like Reagan would feel tied down in that situation, but I'd be completely on board with maybe a looser poly arrangement where she drops in when she's in the mood for dealing with kittens who have gotten their heads stuck in Kleenex boxes :') -- and then flits away again when she gets distracted by some other guy's biceps. :D
* Every scene with Levi in it is also great <3 I really appreciated how even their harder conversations were just very ... nice?
There was drama, but it was all understandable drama, and it all got resolved in as reasonable a fashion as possible. And even though he's almost always going out of his way to be nice to people, it's also clear that he's a person too - he has a life, he gets mad sometimes, he might have a tendency to drop everything for Cath, but it's clearly shown to be a general character trait of his that's just exacerbated by his feelings for her, not The World Revolves Around The Protagonist syndrome, and sometimes it does actually come back to bite him. (I was really glad we got to see him upset about doing so badly on that one test.)
* Seriously tho, did Cath have to be the jealous type? -_- Especially since it didn't actually have a significant impact on the story, so it felt like it was just there because ... idk, of course the insecure anxious girl is a jealous type? -_-
* And okay, actually, I was not terribly moved by their make-out scenes. Like, good for you, good for him, can we get back to the fan meta now? -_- (But hey, lukewarm is still more interest than I've invested in a canon het relationship in a while, so. :D)
* Also generally agreed re: Wren. I was not terribly invested in her existence, especially since she spent a large chunk of the story basically only show up to distract from more interesting things with obnoxious drama. Plus, her bratty unrepentance after her hospitalization seemed really over-the-top? And then in the spring semester, the way she suddenly switched back to pre-college attitudes + some sadness about everything she'd missed the rest of the year also felt ... off. Tbh I didn't care a whole lot (see: not terribly invested :P) but yes, it would have been nice to see something less cliche from her arc.
* I LOVED CATH'S DAD. His scenes were also some of my favorite scenes. Cath and him, especially, were just so WARM, and supportive of each other. I don't have any experience either with bipolar or that sort of broken home, so I can't say anything to the accuracy or lack thereof of the depiction, but that warmth, the humor - sometimes illness-related, sometimes not - the level of *honesty* they had with each other, was really a treat for me to read, and I was always super pleased when I realized I was heading into a section involving their family.
* Also chiming in with my agreement re: Laura and being glad that Cath didn't have an Important Life Lesson about Learning To Forgive. (I thought it very interesting towards the end when we saw that Wren wasn't really that involved with her life, either - just that she was OK with that shallow bond in a way that Cath wasn't.) I was also, actually, glad that their dad didn't seem to appreciably reconcile with her, either - and that he was shown as not wanting to have to deal with it, and actually not having to.
* I was actually surprisingly fond of Professor Piper, too! Obviously I don't agree with her attitudes towards fanfiction :D (except insofar as it involves not turning one in for a homework assignment because SERIOUSLY WHO DOES THAT), but in general I feel like she was incredibly encouraging and supportive (insofar as Cath allowed her to be -_-). I think that being a longtime fanfic writer who's been trying to branch out into original fic, myself, gave me additional appreciation for their conversation about making that jump -- and a lot of appreciation just for the existence of that conversation.
* Also as someone who *also* recently finished a large fanfic project that took me over two years to write, I found myself laughing and sympathizing in equal measure at Cath's twitchiness about getting the endgame JUST RIGHT for EVERYONE and what if EVERYONE HATES IT.
* That said, that just made it additionally irritating that we never find out for sure whether she met her self-imposed deadline or not! DO YOU KNOW HOW IMPORTANT DEADLINES ARE. ESPECIALLY SELF-IMPOSED ONES. DO YOU.
* The discussion about "does Cath kill Baz off or not" irritated me. Why would she do thaaaaaaat. Especially when it was clearly a plot twist she'd come up with because it was too hard to come up with something more satisfying, not something she'd been intending / building towards all along. (I also get the feeling that the entire discussion was there to attempt to set up a meta moral about how happy endings are harder, but more satisfying, than giving up. :P No! This is a story about writing fanfic! Have her briefly consider the notion, throw it out because it's bullshit counter to the entire point of her story thus far, and show the process of her working towards the actual ending!)
* ... I'm also terribly sad that we didn't get to see the "canon is doing it wrong" fallout of the final book in a series coming out in the presence of excellent fanfics. So many missed opportunities for "I'm not bitter, she said bitterly, with a bitter expression." :') (... Had a minor existential crisis when I was disappointed by Order of the Phoenix after spending years reading 5th year fics? Me? noooooo. :)))
* That said, the cuddling and reading scene with Levi giggling at gay subtext was alllllmost cute enough to make up for it. Cath has taught him so well. :')
* ikel89 and hamsterwoman both brought up being surprised that a BNF like Cath didn't have any actual fandom friends (except her European beta, I guess?), but I actually didn't notice that at all while reading - I think because it actually mapped pretty closely to my experience as author of a moderately popular HP fic (and extreme introvert): people would comment, and I'd reply to the comments at the end of each chapter (until ff.net forbade it -_-), but I was afraid of Really Interacting With People On The Internet, so I made maybe ... one fandom friend from the process? And that withered away after a few months. (... And then I came back to fandom post-college and tripped straight into the AO3/Tumblr set and never looked back :D)
That said, context makes it sound like Cath was having conversations with her fans, in which case -- yeah, I'd have expected at least a few fandom friends.
* Nick the hipster Hemingway. :') I really enjoyed his cowriting scenes with Cath - they were giving her a sense of place and validation that she very clearly needed, and they were fun and warm. (Plus, what's not to like about poking a bit of fun at over-the-top "literary" writing? :D)
But then he submitted their cowritten story as his final project and I noped out. I hadn't actually realized just how hard I'd noped out until I hit the resolution scene with him near the end of the book and wasn't initially able to summon more of a reaction than "oh. go you tying up loose ends, I guess. Can we get back to the characters I care about now?"
I agree that his resolution seems more like authorial punishment than character-perpetuated. (I can somewhat see Cath refusing because she just Can't Deal, and not seeing the pettiness, but I also am not entirely sure I buy Nick just going "oh ok" and disappearing forever, so I feel like she'd eventually notice, feel guilt about being petty, and let the coauthorship go through. Unless Levi "disappeared" him or something lol.) I think I just didn't care as much as ikel89 and hamsterwoman because I noped so hard out of his storyline that I couldn't be bothered to care how it ended, either? :D
Though after chatting with ikel89 some, I did manage to pinpoint the main source of my dissatisfaction: not just that the resolution was a petty one, but that I'm not convinced Nick actually learned anything other than that Cath is kind of petty (and he doesn't want to be alone in a dark alleyway with any of her friends). So it wasn't even an *effective* resolution.
I think what I'd like to have seen - and what would have brought me a lot closer to reconciling with him, too - would be something more along the lines of:
- Nick gets selected for the magazine, grows a conscience, and comes to Cath to offer the coauthorship of his own free will
- At some point when Cath is actually alone, so that she doesn't have all her friends around being curious and judging Nick
- She says she doesn't want it
- ??? Somehow this develops into an actual conversation about how shitty the entire situation made her feel, probably by way of him saying something so outrageously obnoxious that she starts yelling, because I think her default response would otherwise be to shut down and end the conversation
- At some point he actually apologizes because he finally GETS how shitty a move it was
- Tentative overtures to maybe write together again sometime
- Cath probably rejects it because she's busy (*coughwithLevi*) but in a "maybe at some point" sort of way. (I can't really see her trusting him enough to cowrite anything for a long time yet, but they could hang out together in the library and she could disturb his zen with her keyboard noises :D)
- Levi etc. arrive near the end of the conversation so that we can still have the fun "I can be jealous if you want me to :DDD" moment
- Nick goes on to idk publish with sole authorship but mention her editing help in his author blurb or something.
... But despite all my quibbles, I did genuinely enjoy this book. :D I'm looking forward to reading Carry On (... at some point. soonish.), getting to know the Simon Snow characters more, and maybe finally having an informed opinion in the Fangirl/Carry On reading order debate.