Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they 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 - she wants 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.
I would like to start this review by saying that I was not a fan of this book. I realised this fairly quickly and started to make notes of my thoughts for this review. I will also say that it was very engaging, and even though it took me about two weeks to read it (that’s ages for me), it definitely kept my attention. But probably for the wrong reasons.
I was so excited to read this book. It seemed perfect for me: it was about a girl starting uni, she wrote, she was obsessed with (let’s face it) Harry Potter (disguised as Simon Snow). And you know what, the snippets of Simon Snow were about a thousand times for interesting than the actual book.
I don’t even know where to start. With Cath, maybe?
Okay, yeah, with Cath. Okay, so Cath is insufferable. Boring. Judgmental. Her twin is about 1001% more interesting than she is -- Rowell could’ve written the whole thing from her twin sister, Wren’s, point of view and I think I would’ve been on board.
Cath. Cather. Yah, like Catheter but no one brings it up… no one cringes when they hear about Cather and Wren (I did, I almost faceplanted the wall… you don’t even freaking SAY it like that. Cath and Wren would’ve hurt my heart, but it would’ve worked).
So back to Cath. This story would’ve been a lot better without her. Okay, okay, I know. Not every character can be likable, that’s the point, blah blah blah -- you can talk to Courtney Summers about unsympathetic main characters she freaking rocks at it -- but Cath was just irritating. And, get this, other characters like her. When her uber awesome roommate, Reagan, told her she was pathetic I jumped for joy. It’s going to be one of those stories, about realising that being pathetic and boring won’t get you anywhere in life. Oh no wait, there is absolutely no character development in this story. We didn’t see Cath with her boyfriend before, we didn’t know that she didn’t like to be touched, therefore we didn’t get it when she was suddenly okay with it. I forgot she even had that first boyfriend.
She gets to uni, right, and she doesn’t even try. She doesn’t do what we all did when we went, which was cry in our room, and want to go home. Everyone does that at some point -- I was that kid in 2009 when I went to a university far away from my home. And I did drop out of that uni to go somewhere else. But I tried, and it wasn’t because of the awesome people I met there. She doesn’t even try. Fine if you don’t like the uni, fine if you don’t like the classes, and to be honest, I know why no one is friends with you, Cath. You are so boring, my eyes wanted to bleed every time you sulked. Boo. Boring. Move on.
The other characters, Wren, her dad Art, Nick, Levi, Reagan, had personality, sure. They seemed like people, and that’s good. Even no-fun-allowed-Cath seemed like a person. A person who I would hate if I met them. A person who gives nothing to nobody throughout the entire thing and expects the moon back, and get this. They give it to her. Levi thought she was a special snowflake (he wasn’t ‘nice’ he was overbearing), Reagan still wanted to hang with her despite it not making sense at all, Nick thought she was a good writer (you get to read her stuff, and news flash, she’s terrible).
One of my biggest peeves was Professor Piper’s -- Cath’s creative writing teacher - reaction to Cath’s writing. Telling her it was good. That is was amazing, in fact. It wasn’t. I read it. It was awful. After a while, I stopped reading the fanfiction because I couldn’t get through it.
Simon Snow itself I could read, and I thought it was supposed to be like Harry Potter and tbh Rowell could’ve left out the line about HP existing, and I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. But she didn’t. She said that HP existed. So this is a world where someone has ripped off HP, published it, and it’s massive. Yep. Let that sink in.
My last point before I round this up is that Cath makes the weirdest comparison’s I have ever witnessed.
Here are some examples:
WTF Comparisons
‘Reagan wore eyeliner all the way round her eyes, like a hardass Kate Middleton.’
‘Wrapped a beer around her waist’
‘Eyeteeth’
‘Cracks in your foundation’ -- (not WTF really but she says this outloud to Wren and I sang Kate Nash)
‘You’re like Winston Churchill’ didn’t make any sense at all in its context.
‘Foetal smile’ yah I dunno either.
‘Cat in a field of daisies’
There were a few more but I didn’t make a note of all of them.
In conclusion, it wasn’t a terrible book. It’s important to capture your audience, and Rowell certainly did. I did actually want to read it, and keep wanting to read it, and want to finish it. But not for the right reasons.
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