by Rainbow Rowell
I've read Rainbow's other young adult novel Eleanor & Park, and even though it contains tricky topics and bad language, I rather liked it, as did many others (Goodreads Best Young Adult Fiction of the Year, Amazon's one of the ten best books of 2013). I was therefore looking forward to reading this next Young Adult offering. Hmmm. It was very long. When I finally finished it I was relieved. It was all too...well....American. Loads of speech - 'fast' speech, like they do - I didn't really care for the main character Cather, she's rather wet and wimpy - never goes out, stays in to write her fanfiction every evening, scared of meeting people. Then even though she loves writing she decides she can't and won't write a story for one of her final English papers. Just annoying really. I quite liked Reagan, her college roommate, all feisty and confident and costant rolling of eyes at Cather. Well actually, there was much rolling of eyes by most of the characters in the book - that was quite annoying too. Then there's the snippets of the fanfaction blog and the book the fanfiction is based on (basically Harry Potter with name changes) between each chapter. We know you can tell you a story Rainbow, there's no need to throw in bits of other stories too to muddle us with.
Basically, it's about twins Cather and Wren (their mother wasn't expecting two, she just had one name ready, so she split it between them. Weird.) After giving them weird names because she couldn't be bothered to think of another one, she leaves them and her dad when the girls are 8, and never sees them again. The dad has a meltdown, recovers, but is prone to recurring meltdowns during high stress moments. The girls go off to college a few hours from home when they're 18, Cather not really wanting to but Wren not being able to wait. Even though they have been close all their life and write the fanfiction together, for some reason Wren decides not only does she not want to share a dorm with Cather, but she doesn't even want to be in the same dorm block. Another weird. Anyway, Cather lives her hermit life and befriends Reagan's boyfriend Levi. She also develops a writing partnership with Nick, a guy from her Fiction Writing course. We sense love is looming, it's just a waiting game to find out which one she goes for. Meanwhile, Wren is having the time of her life - parties, boys, drinking - until one night she goes a bit too far. Mother reappears on the scene for all of 5 mins - not sure why (and nor is Cather). Just to upset everyone really. And that's about it.
