Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - BOOK REVIEW!

TITLE: Fangirl
AUTHOR: Rainbow Rowell
FIRST PUBLISHED: 10th September 2013
PAGES:
RATING: 5/5
AGES: 13+
READ IF YOU LIKED:
- Eleanor and Park
- The Fault in our Stars
- Looking for Alaska
- Divergent (for the Fourtris aspect)

Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently the did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - se want's to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life. 

Without Wren Cath is completely on her own and totally outside her comfort zone. She's got a surly room-mate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible . . .

--iTunes description

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Okay - first I'd like to apologise for my lack of updates lately. I didn't want to post for no reason, but I wanted to post yet I had no reason.
This book took me about two weeks to finish because I was trying to soak in every single aspect of it! Every character, every place. Every scene and every conversation and every thought was completely realistic - which is a theme  that I've noticed among Rowell's novels.
Fangirl had all the characteristics of a soap-opera, but it was less soap-opera-ish. There was always something going on in Cath's plain lifestyle that isn't too unbelievable, creating a deep connection between myself and the her. Although sometimes it's a little bit cliche, I didn't really care, because really, who actually minds a tiny bit of cliche? From the beginning Fangirl was the type of book that pulled you in. Immediately you fell in love with the characters, and only wanted the best for them. Every character is amazing, there's not one part of them that you feel like you don't really know. This book has a place in my heart now, I didn't want it to end. Cath's life, writing, english, fan fiction, is very similar to mine, and it's something that I don't find commonly in books.

In everyone's life, certain chapters will always come to an end, just like Cath and Wren's first year at college. And like always, not everyone's chapter ended perfectly, which is refreshing to see in a modern-day book, instead of every character living happily ever after.

I hope that you do give this amazing book a chance - it most definitely deserves it!
Happy reading,
The Bookworm! :)

CARRY ON WILL BE A BOOK!

To anyone who's read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, (my review will be up very soon), and loved it even half as much as I did, you will be excited to hear that Cath's fanfic Carry On, from her favourite book series Simon Snow, will be a book coming out in October this year!!!!

This tweet was released on the 10th of December 2014, and I can't believe I hadn't heard it sooner. It's such exciting news, and if it's anything like Rowell's previous books, it will be FABULOUS! I was literally sitting here the other day thinking, what if Simon Snow was real, and not just that, if Carry On was real! I guess dreams really do come true! Who else is thrilled?!

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: BOOK REVIEW!

TITLE: Eleanor & Park
AUTHOR: Rainbow Rowell
FIRST PUBLISHED: 12th April 2012
PAGES: 325 (paperback)
RATING: 6/5

AGES: 13+

READ IF YOU LIKE:  The Fault in Our Stars -John Green

                                      Looking for Alaska - John Green

 

Website of Rainbow Rowell

 

 

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. -- goodreads.com

 

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Eleanor is the new girl in town, and with her chaotic family life, he mismatched clothes and unruly red hair, she couldn't stick out more if she tried.

 

Park is the boy at the back of the bus. Black t-shirts, headphones, head in a book - he thinks he's made himself invisible. But not to Eleanor . . . never to Eleanor.

 

Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall for each other. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're young, and you feel as if you have nothing and everything to loose. -- Book blurb

  

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Now, just to clear myself up -  the 6/5 star rating is not a typo. Yes, I really did love the book sooooo much I felt the need to rate it more than the average 5 stars.
I believe that from the very start of a book, you should feel a connection -  something to keep you reading. And with Eleanor & Park, right from the beginning I fell in love with this book. You got to know the characters at a steady rate, so you could really, really relate to everyone, and it has everything ticked off on my list of what I think makes a good book.  In the first 90 pages, I felt the need to rant about the book so far, and trust me, I ranted. You can read the rant here. So quite literally, it was love at first sight. Nothing about this book gives you the feeling it's been rushed, everything happens at it's own pace. It's a very natural book, and you can expect everything to Eleanor and Park to happen in real life.

This book has it's own cool qualities because it's set in 1986. They have problems different to ours these days. I found this made it much more interesting. It didn't have the same problems that you see in every contemporary love story. It really made itself feel separate and different compared to the other books on my shelf. Even if you, personally, have read a 1980's love story with bullying, music, and life, you still would never have read a book the same or better, than Eleanor & Park. - I loved it!

Because the novel was told from the point of view, (but in the third person) of both Eleanor and Park, it made it so that you knew the two main characters the best you could. You got to see their home life, their school life, and know exactly what they're thinking in that head of theirs at all times. You loved certain characters and you hated certain characters, depending on what they thought. Everything that they feel, you most certainly feel, even the first hand hold, you knew exactly how it felt.

As John Green said 'Reminded me not just what it's like to be young and in love with a girl, but also what it's like to be young and in love with a book' which I find, is completely true. While reading the book, you feel every emotion, so you feel like you're in love. And when you feel like your in love because of a book, you can't help but fall for the book as well, it's like a package.

In conclusion, I thought  Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell was a marvellous book, and would recommend it to anyone who loves romance and YA genres. Or just anyone looking for a fun, light book to read.
I also believe, that if you don't read this book, you're truly missing out, because even if you hate it, at least you can most likely relate to it, or hate / like a character. I can almost guarantee, they'll be at least one thing about this book you like.

I hoped this helped some of you with your book reading choices,
Happy reading,
The Bookworm! :)