Fangirl Analysis

You might not think of Omaha as the big city, but it's big compared to Lincoln, which has approximately half of Omaha's population. Compared to Arnold, the small farm town Levi's family calls home,...

Rainbow Rowell is so good at writing from inside Cath's head that you often forget Fangirl isn't written in first person. It isn't, though—our narrator is outside the story looking in, no matter...

Most of the characters in Fangirl are young adults, trying to figure out how to go from, well, young to adult. It doesn't get much more YA than that when it comes to genres. And going from young to...

From the first sentence of the book, "There was a boy in her room" (1.1.), Fangirl talks to you like you're a close friend having coffee—which, if Levi has anything to do with it, will be a Starb...

If you and your friends like to give each other a hard time and occasionally use slang—which we're thinking is probably the case if you don't live in a cave—then Rainbow Rowell writes like she'...

Fangirl is a slang word that arose with online fan communities, or fandoms. There's a fandom for everything from Sherlock to My Little Pony, and the word can be a noun or verb, as in, "I'm a Dr. Wh...

There are happy endings, and then there's the ending of Fangirl. If you don't cheer for Cath's triumph over her writer's block and Prairie Schooner Prize win, then you're being stingy with the chee...

Fangirl requires young readers to imagine what college will be like, and whether they'll be more like Cath or Wren. Both are dysfunctional, but you'll have to decide which one wins the prize for th...

You Think You Have Social AnxietyCather Avery has just arrived at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to begin her freshman year. Her twin sister, Wren, didn't want to be her roommate—after all, t...

He's not Harry Potter's roommate, but Draco Malfoy is the closest HP character to Baz. (Source.) Fangirl fans are now writing Simon Snow fanfiction. How's that for meta? (Source.) Here's how nine a...

Although Cath and Levi fall in love, they don't have sex. The closest they get is a steamy make-out scene near the end, and it's implied that Cath finally lets Levi take off her shirt, but there's...

Donald J. Sobol, Encyclopedia Brown (12.131)J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (14.95)S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders (15.9)Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved (13.214)Charles Dicke...