The Post About MagiCath and My Love Of Fanfiction (*spoilers*)

First and foremost I would like to announce that I just finished Fangirl and I loved loved loved it. I love that Cath didn't give up her love of fantasy and her "fangirlness" to be all normal college student who goes to parties and finds a hot guy. I mean she does find a hot guy but it's a guy who likes her because of her quirky weirdness not in spite of it.

I do feel like the out come of the fiction-writing paper she was supposed to do was rushed but It was an amazing story. I felt a few times, especially in the beginning, that Rowell was writing about my experience as a nerdy recluse freshman. If you have fandoms or are new to the whole adult scene this book is incredible.

The romance is handled in such a good positive way. She takes her time with the boy she is incredibly attracted to but doesn't go to either extreme of  getting intimate too quickly or having nothing at all. She is skittish and nervous which is perfectly normal but she doesn't do anything before she isn't ready and I fell like that is an amazing aspect of average life that most authors don't really touch on. Sex was not a defining factor in this girls relationship and that was refreshing.

I honestly thought that this was going to be very different. There wasn't really a climax or a falling action in the standard sense but it was beautifully written in a real time sense. Yes her father had a bit of a breakdown and her sister was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning and her mother makes a reappearance but none of those issues really get resolved and that's because normally those things don't settle themselves in 300 pages or less. They are ongoing issues that sometimes don't every get neatly wrapped up. Her dad still has some issues he is working through and the whole mom issue is a work in progress, I also really like that Cath stuck to her convictions on how she felt about her mom and her mom leaving. Having a similar situation happen to me, I believe it isn't up to the child to right a parent's wrongs that even when it's hard and it hurts a parent should always try for the love of their child. Especially after just leaving, not returning any phone calls from your children and then popping back into their lives years later and still not wanting to be parental.

Cath being a famous fan fiction writer was the most refreshing storyline, coming from someone who blogs and follows a few fandoms in the weirdest, quirkiest possible way (superwholock). It was nice seeing a girl who was actually nerdy and interesting and not what the media thinks is nerdy and interesting. We didn't have a plain jane girl who simply isn't popular go to college and wow the general populous for no apparent reason. We had a girl who loved a fictional fantasy series, much like Harry Potter, and she didn't give up on it for a single second. She had custom made t-shirts and posters, even commemorative busts of her two favorite characters. Not to mention her otp was a gay crackship and very few people blinked an eye at the idea of an eighteen year old female writing homosexual slashfic. It brought something that most people view as a dirty little secret, whether you read slashfic or write it, into the light of the general public in the form of a bestselling young adult novel. In a way it's saying you like this thing other people like and that is ok. I think that is amazing, coming from someone who used to read a lot of fanfiction and would get made fun of for it, I like that it's becoming a social norm, that fanfiction writers are getting a following. It keeps worlds and stories alive in magical ways.

If you have read Fangirl or are interested in adding any comments to this post feel free to comment.