{"id":3222,"date":"2014-01-23T17:28:53","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T22:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/?p=3222"},"modified":"2014-01-23T17:28:53","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T22:28:53","slug":"fangirl-rainbow-rowell-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.slj.com\/printzblog\/2014\/01\/23\/fangirl-rainbow-rowell-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Fangirl — Finally!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fangirl<\/a>Why isn\u2019t Fangirl<\/em><\/a> getting more Printz buzz? It\u2019s earned five stars and has appeared on a couple best<\/a> of 2013<\/a> lists.<\/p>\n

Is the subject too niche? Are readers putting all their support behind Eleanor & Park<\/em><\/a>?<\/p>\n

Whitney Winn of Youth Services Corner<\/a> did a useful roundup<\/a> of Mock Printz lists. While\u00a0E&P<\/em> appeared on all nineteen of the lists included in her data, Fangirl<\/em> was on just five.<\/p>\n

Am I taking crazy pills?<\/a><\/p>\n

I lurve<\/a> E&P<\/em>. You know I do<\/a>. But Fangirl<\/em> is the stronger book. It\u2019s richer thematically, has better characterizations, a more complex story, and a fascinating structure. If only one of Rowell\u2019s novels is recognized by the Real Committee this year, it should be Fangirl<\/em>.
\n
\nBefore we dig into the text, let\u2019s judge the book by its cover. Fangirl<\/em>\u2019s features gorgeous a pastel illustration depicting a guy trying to get the attention of a girl who is busily typing on a laptop, while a thought bubble shows her thinking about two boys in love\u2014two boys in capes. If you don\u2019t know anything about the plot, but know about fanfiction<\/a>, you can probably guess the premise of the book from the cover. (The artwork is by Noelle Stevenson<\/a>, known online as gingerhaze<\/a>. She\u2019s the creator of a webcomic and terrific fanart.) Even when we don\u2019t mean to, we do make snap judgments based on what we see before we read a single word. This cover says a whole lot about the book inside. On the surface, Fangirl<\/em> is a rom-com for geeks.<\/p>\n

But look again.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something else on that cover. Take a look at where the girl (the titular character, Cath) is sitting. She\u2019s sitting on the title<\/em><\/strong>. \u201cA novel\u201d is written on her laptop\u2019s screen. By having the subjects collide with the informational text, the art conveys that this is a novel about writing.<\/p>\n

Fangirl<\/em> is delightful and bursting with appeal; my teen students have read it and loved it. But this is a book that’s bigger on the inside. This is a deeply layered and fascinating text, one that has been as fun to dissect as it was to read for the first time. And it\u2019s all there on the cover.<\/p>\n

Rowell is a master at third person limited narration. Just enough of her authorial voice is present while allowing the flavor of the novel\u2019s story and characters to shine. Attachments<\/em> takes on the social awkwardness yet lovability of its protagonist, Lincoln. Eleanor & Park<\/em> throbs with an angsty \u201880s beat. Fangirl<\/em> is introspective and quirky. Rowell\u2019s voice is immediately identifiable but always harmonious with the individual novel.<\/p>\n

In Fangirl<\/em>, voice is particularly important because there are three separate authorial voices: Rowell\u2019s, Gemma T. Leslie\u2019s, and Cath\u2019s, nested together like matryoshka dolls. Between chapters of the book about Cath, there are passages from Cath’s fanfic and the Simon Snow series that inspires it. The most impressive of the three is Rowell\u2019s writing as Gemma T. Leslie, the author of Cath\u2019s beloved books. Leslie is a J.K. Rowling-esque writer, so Rowell infuses Leslie\u2019s voice with some of the Harry Potter<\/em> author\u2019s style. Rowling’s habit of qualifying dialogue with adverbs is also Leslie’s, and characters don\u2019t just talk, they stammer, grumble, and whisper. As one would expect, Cath\u2019s writing shares this trait in her Simon Snow fanfiction. The excerpts from her fanfic demonstrate that she is just as good as has been implied, but that she is most definitely mimicking Gemma T. Leslie, with bits of her own voice peeking through. There are moments when Rowell\u2019s authorial voice merges with Cath’s. There is a particularly fun paranthetical when Rowell (or we could read it as Cath) wonders if boys giggle or chuckle. Of course, later on in the novel in one of the excerpts from Carry On<\/em>, Simon giggles with Baz. It’s a subtle and wonderful connection to the earlier instance when that word choice was pondered.<\/p>\n

These three voices (four, if you count Rowling\u2019s invisible influence) are a wonderful example of how intertextuality manifests in an author\u2019s use of language. This is something Rowell shows literally in Cath\u2019s writing sessions with Nick as she writes in between, around, and above his words, reshaping his anti-love story while allowing some of his style to influence her own use of language. Their working relationship provides great romantic and dramatic tension, as well as a suitable foil for our heroine; it\u2019s also another example of the ways in which text is the space where multiple texts converse and influence each other. (Full disclosure: I wrote a few papers on this topic as an undergrad, so please excuse any dryness in my tone. I\u2019m a recovering English major with a soft spot for post-structuralism.)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the beauty and brilliance of Fangirl<\/em>: it\u2019s a highly enjoyable, swoon-worthy coming-of-age tale. It\u2019s about family, what happens when our closest relationships fray, how we cope with leaving home for the first time; it\u2019s a sensitive exploration of people living with anxiety, of dealing with the literal and metaphorical end of your childhood, and learning how to be in a real romantic relationship. Fangirl<\/em> is readable. It\u2019s authentic. It\u2019s perfect for teens as aspirational reading and perfect for adults (particularly millennials) as nostalgic reading.<\/p>\n

But, and I can\u2019t stress this enough, this book is wicked smart.<\/p>\n

As an exploration of why we write, Fangirl<\/em> is metatext. What motivates a writer to tell stories? What responsibility does the act of writing put on the writer? Cath writes to escape herself, yet she feels responsibility to her fans. She is very much conscious of her audience, but the extrinsic is not her main motivator; it\u2019s simply a validation of everything that she values in herself. \u201cWhen I\u2019m writing my own stuff, it\u2019s like swimming upstream. Or \u2026 falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.\u201d Her journey throughout the novel is learning to value herself outside of her escape into Simon and Baz\u2019s world where she feels comfortable and knows she can feel success.<\/p>\n

In addition to Cath\u2019s metatextual creative and emotional growth, Fangirl<\/em> is metafictional. When they eat in the cafeteria Reagan and Cath create stories out of the interactions they observe. Cath can\u2019t \u201cshake the feeling that she was pretending to be a college student in a coming-of-age movie.\u201d Cath describes Nick\u2019s story as \u201cMary Sue to the tenth power.\u201d Even throwaway lines support this reading of the text. After winning a round of bowling, Levi (wearing a shirt on which he has written,\u00a0The Strike Out King<\/em>) states: \u201cEverything I write on my shirt comes true.\u201d Cath and Levi bond as she reads her fanfiction to him. Words, language, and storytelling are everywhere, because the text is wonderfully self-aware.<\/p>\n

Just as in Eleanor & Park<\/em>, pop culture is a part of the characters\u2019 identity formation. Cath quips that she needs her glasses to keep \u201cfrom becoming the girl in She\u2019s All That<\/em><\/a>.\u201d Cath\u2019s dad tries to convince her that he shouldn\u2019t have the main role her life now that\u2019s a freshman in college by citing 90210<\/em>. Rowell\u2019s proven herself as a writer who gets how people think in pop culture. She\u2019s a native speaker, not a mere observer, which is why these references and her style is always pitch perfect and authentic. It is arguably more important here than in E&P<\/em> because this novel is a space where so many texts meet, and where intertextuality is such an important theme.<\/p>\n

I’m kicking myself for not getting this review up sooner (this is what happens when you think too much and try to read other books at the same time). It is absolutely one of the top five books of the year and deserves more recognition than it’s received to this point. So this is me, shouting from a virtual rooftop to say that Fangirl <\/em>is one of the best of the year. You may have noticed that voting<\/a> is open until 7pm and we will have our honor book voting soon. Unfortunately I voted before I really cemented my thoughts for this review; if I were to do it again, I certainly would have thrown some support behind Fangirl<\/em> for gold.<\/p>\n

Stray observations:<\/p>\n