"Real life was something happening in her peripheral vision."
Knowing when it is time to move on and accept the changes in your life is something we all must face at one or more points in our lives. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell introduces us to Cather, or Cath as she likes to be called, a girl who is beginning her first semester at college and faced with the difficult notion that everything in her world is being turned upside down.
Cath and her twin sister Wren go off to college and much to Cath's surprise her sister has no intention of being a part of a duo any longer. All of a sudden she finds herself alone, without her father, who lives now a few hours away, without her twin, who wants to become her own person away from her twin sister, and away from basically all that she loves. All except her fan-fiction.
"I'd rather pour myself into a world I love and understand..."
Cath is obsessed with Simon Snow (which as the reader we can basically tell it is a fictional version of the fictional story of Harry Potter) and is one of the most active fan-fiction writers of Simon Snow stories. In fact she has a huge following that hang on her every word through the fan-fiction community. It seems that only when she is writing that she feels any joy, traumatized by anxiety of meeting new people and having to find a life of her own.
Cath continues to face numerous challenges that come with becoming your own person: Meeting new people, balancing past relationships and family life, dealing with an absent mother who attempts to show up again, how to preserve her love of fan-fiction and becoming a writer, and of course men.
" He liked to talk about Simon Snow, too. He'd seen all the movies two or three times. Levi saw lots of movies- he liked anything with fantasy or adventure. Superheroes. Hobbits. Wizards. If only he were a better reader, Cath thought, he could have been a proper nerd. Well... maybe."
Being a typical nerd girl, I fell in love with this story. This struggle with your secret nerd life that you feel no one will ever understand, and then trying to be a part of the real world is definitely a challenge. But the truth is, everyone has a secret nerd life, something they obsess over that we feel no one else will ever understand. The trick, as Cath will discover, is that even if others don't understand it, this doesn't necessarily mean they will shut you out for it. Her deep love for Simon and Baz makes her feel that she is actually a part of the story and fan-fiction allows her to create the story she wishes to see. How many people have read a novel and you just keep wishing you could decide the outcome? It is the same reason we continue to read tragic stories and keep thinking that this time when I read it the outcome will be a happy one.
What Cath comes to realize and what most people realize when faced with these drastic changes in our lives is that the people around us, our friends, our boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife don't have to understand our nerdy fascinations. They just need to embrace that it is a part of us. Everyone has to geek out over something and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
As for a love story, it was subtle and sweet and not a great romantic drama which is perfect. It is what love really is in life. And I found that refreshing.
This novel certainly hit close to home, but it was cute, funny, quirky, and I adored every nerdy moment.
"You win when no one finds you, even if they're not looking."
No comments:
Post a Comment