Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
So I read the novel Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wouldn't say it'll change your life, but it's fun, and the author has a brisk, breezy, highly readable style--the kind that makes you want to read on, but doesn't make you OBSESSED with the book to the point that you can't fall sleep. And since that was exactly the kind of book I was in the mood for, it worked for me.
(Unlike most reviews, I'm not going to bother summarizing the plot. Laziness!)
I didn't much enjoy the opening chapters, I have to say. But for me, that's sometimes a good sign. Sometimes if I enjoy a book right away it means it has tipped its hand too early, and by the midpoint I'll be majorly bored or annoyed by the plot or the characters. Not all books, but...books written by younger authors tend to be like that for me.
What annoyed me about the opening of the book was a certain sparseness of description that is characteristic of a lot of fiction by people who write (or read) fanfic. You don't need to describe the setting very much when you write fanfiction--in fact, if you do, you might annoy people. As I read the first few chapters of Fangirl I couldn't picture people or places. But there's a reason for that--the protag is anxious, probably clinically so, and she is so focused on her internal state that she is not noticing a lot of things.
I would say though that the anxious unreliable narrator doesn't really convince me. I just read another book with an anxious main character (and she has OCD too), Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, and THAT is a book where you get deep into a character's head. John Green has OCD and anxiety, so that probably accounts for the in-your-head realism. Turtles made me cry by the end of it; it made me look at my own anxious moments and people I know with clinical anxiety quite differently.
Fangirl on the other hand did not make me cry. It is a feel-good story about a young woman who overcomes her anxieties and her obstacles quite thoroughly, all within the space of two school semesters. She snags a perfect boyfriend, becomes the darling of her creative writing prof, writes a short story that gets published in an Undergrad journal, keeps her scholarship, manages to finish her gazillion-word mega-epic, mega-popular Harry Potter Simon Snow fanfic, and seems to overcome most of her anxieties with flying colours. (And despite writing huge amounts of text on her computer every day, she doesn't get carpal tunnel, eye strain, or a bad back, never mind burn out.) Sure, she has a low point when she wants to quit uni and come back home, but it's not THAT low a point.
I'm sure there are people who are this successful in their first year of university. I'm sure many of those people are full of anxiety, as many over-achievers are. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. I'm just saying that Fangirl isn't necessarily a book that will hit you like an emotional freight truck. And that's fine! It is good brain candy, and it is nice to see fandom being validated and positively portrayed overall.
And even if I say the book is brain candy, that doesn't mean it's without literary value. It's well-constructed and moves along well. It has lots of clever dialogue. It's got some English 101 shtuff to analyze. I like how the author points out how the protag is an unreliable narrator...by giving her an assignment to write about an unreliable narrator. And I liked how most of the Simon Snow excerpts were essentially metaphors for the protag's mental state. I'm sure there's more stuff like that that I missed (when the protag realized that her creative writing prof was a stand-in for her absent her mommy figure, it made me go "oh DUH, why didn't I notice that"), but it's fine, I'm sure my subconscious got a kick out of the literary goodness anyway.
So I give Fandom a solid 4 out of 5. It's a good read, and I think the author deserves kudos for giving fanfiction this nice bit of exposure.
This entry was originally posted at https://flonnebonne.dreamwidth.org/112588.html. Comment here or there - it's all good.
(Unlike most reviews, I'm not going to bother summarizing the plot. Laziness!)
I didn't much enjoy the opening chapters, I have to say. But for me, that's sometimes a good sign. Sometimes if I enjoy a book right away it means it has tipped its hand too early, and by the midpoint I'll be majorly bored or annoyed by the plot or the characters. Not all books, but...books written by younger authors tend to be like that for me.
What annoyed me about the opening of the book was a certain sparseness of description that is characteristic of a lot of fiction by people who write (or read) fanfic. You don't need to describe the setting very much when you write fanfiction--in fact, if you do, you might annoy people. As I read the first few chapters of Fangirl I couldn't picture people or places. But there's a reason for that--the protag is anxious, probably clinically so, and she is so focused on her internal state that she is not noticing a lot of things.
I would say though that the anxious unreliable narrator doesn't really convince me. I just read another book with an anxious main character (and she has OCD too), Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, and THAT is a book where you get deep into a character's head. John Green has OCD and anxiety, so that probably accounts for the in-your-head realism. Turtles made me cry by the end of it; it made me look at my own anxious moments and people I know with clinical anxiety quite differently.
Fangirl on the other hand did not make me cry. It is a feel-good story about a young woman who overcomes her anxieties and her obstacles quite thoroughly, all within the space of two school semesters. She snags a perfect boyfriend, becomes the darling of her creative writing prof, writes a short story that gets published in an Undergrad journal, keeps her scholarship, manages to finish her gazillion-word mega-epic, mega-popular Harry Potter Simon Snow fanfic, and seems to overcome most of her anxieties with flying colours. (And despite writing huge amounts of text on her computer every day, she doesn't get carpal tunnel, eye strain, or a bad back, never mind burn out.) Sure, she has a low point when she wants to quit uni and come back home, but it's not THAT low a point.
I'm sure there are people who are this successful in their first year of university. I'm sure many of those people are full of anxiety, as many over-achievers are. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this. I'm just saying that Fangirl isn't necessarily a book that will hit you like an emotional freight truck. And that's fine! It is good brain candy, and it is nice to see fandom being validated and positively portrayed overall.
And even if I say the book is brain candy, that doesn't mean it's without literary value. It's well-constructed and moves along well. It has lots of clever dialogue. It's got some English 101 shtuff to analyze. I like how the author points out how the protag is an unreliable narrator...by giving her an assignment to write about an unreliable narrator. And I liked how most of the Simon Snow excerpts were essentially metaphors for the protag's mental state. I'm sure there's more stuff like that that I missed (when the protag realized that her creative writing prof was a stand-in for her absent her mommy figure, it made me go "oh DUH, why didn't I notice that"), but it's fine, I'm sure my subconscious got a kick out of the literary goodness anyway.
So I give Fandom a solid 4 out of 5. It's a good read, and I think the author deserves kudos for giving fanfiction this nice bit of exposure.
This entry was originally posted at https://flonnebonne.dreamwidth.org/112588.html. Comment here or there - it's all good.