I have a confession: I went into Fangirl expecting to like it less than Eleanor & Park. Rainbow Rowell had already published something close to perfect, and I wasn’t sure she had another gear. She does. Fangirl is a different kind of book — warmer, funnier, more generous — and it made me feel things I wasn’t prepared for on a Tuesday evening.

Cath Avery is starting college. Her twin sister Wren, who has been her closest friend and collaborator, has decided she wants a fresh start without Cath attached to her — a separate room, separate friends, a separate social life. Cath, left alone in a dorm room with a roommate she doesn’t understand and a dining hall she can’t make herself walk into, does the only thing she knows how to do: she writes.

Specifically, she writes fan fiction. Cath is one of the most famous fan fiction authors in the Simon Snow fandom — Simon Snow being Rowell’s thinly-veiled Harry Potter — and she has a novel-length story to finish before the last official book in the series is published and makes everything she’s working on obsolete.

What This Book Gets Right About Being a Reader

Fangirl is the most accurate depiction I’ve encountered of the particular relationship some readers have with fiction — where the worlds inside books feel as real and necessary as the world outside them, where characters become genuine companions, where being deeply invested in a story is not embarrassing but is instead the thing that keeps you sane.

Rowell doesn’t treat Cath’s fandom as a problem to be solved. It’s part of who she is, and the book’s argument — made quietly and consistently — is that there’s real craft and real emotional intelligence in the kind of writing Cath does, even if the literary fiction class she’s enrolled in would never recognise it.

The Romance

Levi is one of my favourite YA love interests. He is enthusiastic and direct and patient in a way that doesn’t tip into being a doormat. His relationship with Cath builds slowly and credibly, interrupted by the kind of misunderstandings that feel like real misunderstandings rather than plot contrivances.

He reads to her. That’s the moment. You’ll know it when you get there.

Cath and Wren

The sister relationship is handled beautifully. Wren is not a villain for wanting space; Cath is not pathetic for struggling without her. They’re two people who grew up as a unit and are figuring out, imperfectly, how to be separate people. The scenes between them are the best in the book.

Why YA Readers Will Love This

For readers who have ever felt like they were too much — too intense, too devoted to something, too weird about their interests — Fangirl is an explicit and generous response. Cath’s investment in Simon Snow is not a symptom of something wrong with her. It’s evidence of how much she feels, and the book treats that as a feature.

For readers who grew up in fandoms — who wrote fic or read it, who stayed up until two in the morning debating ship dynamics, who cried over characters who weren’t real — Fangirl will feel like coming home. Rowell clearly knows this world from the inside.

For readers who didn’t grow up in fandoms but know what it feels like to move through adolescence slightly sideways from everyone else, Cath’s first year of college captures that particular loneliness with such accuracy that it becomes oddly comforting. You were not the only one.

The Simon Snow excerpts embedded throughout — both Cath’s fanfic and the original text she’s working from — are charming in their own right. Rowell later published Carry On, a full Simon Snow novel, and it’s worth reading once you’ve finished this one.

Published: September 2013 · Genre: YA/New Adult contemporary · Standalone (with Carry On as companion)

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Fangirl about? Fangirl follows Cath Avery starting college after her twin sister Wren decides she wants a fresh start without Cath attached — a separate room, separate friends, separate social life. Left alone in a dorm she struggles to navigate, Cath does the only thing she knows: she writes fan fiction for the Simon Snow fandom, where she is one of the most famous authors, racing to finish a novel-length story before the last official book in the series makes it obsolete.

How does Fangirl portray fan fiction and fandom culture? The review calls it ’the most accurate depiction I’ve encountered of the particular relationship some readers have with fiction — where the worlds inside books feel as real and necessary as the world outside them.’ Rowell doesn’t treat Cath’s fandom as a problem to be solved but as part of who she is, arguing quietly that fan fiction requires real craft and emotional intelligence.

What makes Levi a distinctive love interest in Fangirl? The review describes Levi as ’enthusiastic and direct and patient in a way that doesn’t tip into being a doormat,’ with a relationship built slowly and credibly through ‘real misunderstandings rather than plot contrivances.’ The review highlights one specific moment as the turning point: ‘He reads to her. That’s the moment. You’ll know it when you get there.’

How is the twin sister relationship between Cath and Wren handled in Fangirl? The review says the sister relationship is ‘handled beautifully’ — Wren is not a villain for wanting space, and Cath is not pathetic for struggling without her. ‘They’re two people who grew up as a unit and are figuring out, imperfectly, how to be separate people.’ The scenes between them are described as the best in the book.

Is Fangirl connected to Carry On? Yes — the Simon Snow excerpts embedded throughout Fangirl, both Cath’s fan fiction and the original text she’s working from, are described as ‘charming in their own right.’ Rowell later published Carry On, a full Simon Snow novel, which the review recommends reading after finishing Fangirl. The two books form a companion relationship.

Further Reading from Authoritative Sources

  • Fangirl — Wikipedia’s Fangirl article provides publication details, reception, and context about the novel’s cultural impact, including its relationship to fan fiction culture and Rowell’s subsequent Carry On spinoff — useful background for readers wanting more than the review’s critical perspective.
  • fan fiction — Wikipedia’s fan fiction article provides context about the creative tradition Cath participates in, including its history, community dimensions, and cultural standing — essential background for readers who may not be familiar with fan fiction culture and why Rowell’s treatment of it is noteworthy.