This early magazine’s title is the “borrowed” title of my post tonight, THE SATURDAY REVIEW.

Tonight (6/18) I want to review a book I read a couple of weeks ago, but never wrote a review on.

Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell is a fast read and an enjoyable twentyish-appealing novel. It even kept this 77 year old’s interest.

At the risk of labeling my self “old,” I must confess I had always heard the term “fan fiction,” but never knew what it meant until I read this novel. Several of my students have mentioned various semesters that they wrote fan fiction in their teens, but later branched out and wrote stories, poems, and “pieces” of their own. Cath,(twin to Wren) the protagonist of this YA novel, is the ultimate Simon Snow fan and writes alternate stories to Snow’s author, sometimes even before the next book is published. She has a huge following, but she keeps her identity a secret from her followers.

The twins are ready to start college, and Cath is bemused by Wren’s decision to room with another girl rather than with her twin sister. As they begin their freshman year, apart for the first time, the girls begin separate lives and separate interests and friends.

The novel includes the themes of a parent who left, roommate relationships, romantic complexities, betrayal, and the true meaning and kinds of friendships.

I heard about this book in a magazine review and ordered it online from a bookseller. It turned out to be a “darned good read.”

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