The novel is
told from Cath's perspective as she struggles to meet people, struggles to want to
meet people really, and struggles to cope with her classes and her confusing,
unmanageable skills as an author. She's a brilliant, lovely introvert that any
"keeps themselves to themselves" person will not fail to relate to.
She's not a random, quirky dream girl, nor a secret, untapped beauty. She's
just a normal 18 year old that prefers her own company, worries about her
mentally ill dad and experiences quite intense anxiety in social situations. Or
changing circumstances. Or anything unfamiliar. Cath knows her anxiety is out
of control- she won't even go to the dining hall- won't even look for it, for
fear of being in the way, not knowing where to stand, doing it wrong. Her fear
of appearing ridiculous dominates her behaviour and she escapes into her online
persona, her elaborate and insanely popular stories about Simon Snow, a
fictional boy wizard.
Cath is finally
forced out of her Wren hangover by her fierce older roommate Raegan and her
boyfriend/ex-boyfriend Levi, who become a constant presence in Cath's room and
life. Raegan forces her to stop living on peanut butter and cereal bars and
makes her go eat in the dining hall. She takes her to parties. Levi walks her
home from the library, studies with her and gives her emergency rides into
town. Gradually they start to chip away at Cath's loneliness and a real
affection develops between the three of them.
I felt like I
really understood Cath. Her awkwardness around boys (or humans generally), her
assumption that everybody thinks she's weird. Her desire to be on her own with
a book or her computer somewhere that she feels accepted. There are so many
novels written about beautiful, outgoing hero types- it's about time we had
some regular, introvert heroes that prove that it's your qualities as a person-
kindness, understanding, patience, that make you important, not your bravery or
your glamourous-ness. She represents every person that has ever felt abnormal
for shunning company, or having a crap time at university. For every person
that worried and fretted through "the best days of their life".
Anybody that struggles to do the things that their peers find so easy, like
socialising. Everybody that's ever had a passion that others don't understand.
The empathy and
the emotion just ooze from the pages. It would be so easy for this book to veer
into sickly, twee, fairy-tale romance, geeky-girl-bags-the-guy territory, but
the sheer understanding in the author's voice stops that from
happening. It's a story told with such fondness and wry humour that the reader
can't help but root for Cath (and Levi) all the way. The book covers the awkwardness
and the sheer exhilaration of early stage romances- I loved all the little details that Cath observes, her reactions to the minute and the overpowering. The book spends a lot of time thinking about the power of reading and the
compulsion of some to write. It's a cathartic, liberating process for Cath, and reading is a shared, revealing experience. My absolute favourite scene was where Cath reads The
Outsiders aloud to Levi- it's a book that means a lot to me. I even got goosebumps reading it second-hand through Cath. The idea that the shared experience of reading a powerful book together is the catalyst, the exact
moment when two characters begin to fall in love is amazing.
Fangirl deals with so
that is relevant to the lives of Young Adults- accepting that relationships
change as you get older, the power of forgiveness, the fear of the unknown and
the pressure to make new friends. Importantly, it also shows that growing up doesn’t
have to mean growing out of the things you love, but it's learning how to
develop a sense of balance for the future; that is the true life skill. I
absolutely adored this book. Absolutely brilliant and would recommend it to
anybody as a warm, funny and emotional coming-of-age story.
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