Turtles All The Way Down Review

Today was the release of John Green’s long-awaited new novel: Turtles All The Way Down. I wouldn’t be a Frenzied Fangirl if I hadn’t immediately run to the nearest Waterstone’s to grab myself a copy, and I’ve just finished reading it. Here are some thoughts. Please be warned that this review contains SPOILERS. Although it does not go into the plot very much, if you want to approach this book without any prior knowledge of its subject matter, leave now.

Here’s a picture of our cat, the book, and the awesome t-shirt and bracelet I also got.

Pokemon Go Book Tag

Thanks go out to Happy Indulgence Books for bringing this tag to my attention, and to ReadAtMidnight for coming up with it in the first place.

This is hard to remember. I think my development as a reader has a lot to do with Harry Potter, but The Letter For The King by Tonke Dragt, the greatest achievement in Dutch children’s literature, probably started off my life-long obsession. Before that book, I mostly had my parents read to me. The Letter For The King was likely the first time a book was so gripping I couldn’t wait to finish it and did all of the reading myself.

Fictional Fans

I once wrote a blogpost about fictional fandoms. Well, it stands to reason that fictional fandoms have fictional fans, right? So, this blog post is dedicated to just such fictional individuals. Perhaps they are the ones I identify with most of all. Perhaps the creators of my favorite stories conceived of them to criticize me or, to put it more bluntly, to encourage me to Get A Life. I don’t care. I love being a fangirl and I love my fellow fictional fangirls.

Cather Avery – Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl is centered around Cather Avery, a young girl who goes to university. She is introverted and struggles withe developing a social life, but on the internet she has no problem making friends. On the internet, Cath writes Carry On, Simon, the most popular Simon Snow-fanfic ever. The Simon Snow fandom is fictional, but it it obviously based on the Harry Potter fandom, and it pleases me a lot to see a respectful portrayal of fangirls and fanfiction writers in this book.

Penny Lane – Kate Hudson in Almost Famous

Contrary to popular belief, Penny Lane and her friends, Polexia Aphrodesia and Sapphire, are not fangirls.

Penny Lane: We are not groupies. Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music, we inspire the music. We are Band Aids.

An Open Letter To J.K. Rowling

Dear J.K Rowling,

Even as I write this my fingers tremble on the keyboard, my armpits slippery with sweat. How can I, a lowly mortal of the blogosphere, address your divine genius? Yet here I am.

First of all, I want to thank you. I cannot be certain that your writing has made the world a better place, or, indeed, that the written word is capable of such a thing. I can only assure you that your creativity has made my world a little more compassionate, a little more beautiful. You’ve made my life just a little brighter. I thank you for the ways Harry’s anxiety has helped me deal with my own. I thank you for Hermione, who has shown me that being bookish doesn’t mean you can’t also be a badass. Most of all, I thank you for the dedicated fanbase your work has inspired.The Harry Potter fandom has brought me so much joy, so many wonderful friends, and so much more insight into my own creativity and mind. This is something I can never thank you for, because it cannot truly be put into words.

There’s just one teeny tiny thing that I can’t keep quiet about any longer.

Wishful Thinking: Fictional Fandoms

It is the eternal plight of the fangirl that the things she loves most in the world are not real. Hogwarts is not real. Sam and Dean aren’t going to save you from a monster because monsters aren’t real. Toys can’t walk or talk or think for themselves, no matter how many times we watch Toy Story.

But fandoms are real. Books are real, TV series are real, films and games and stories are real. It really happens that I sometimes walk down the street, see a boy carrying a TARDIS messenger bag, and wave at him. Once, I even happened upon such an individual while I was carrying my own TARDIS messenger bag.

My point is, sometimes you can love a fictional world or character so much that it hurts to consider the fact that it isn’t real. It’s fictional. But when that happens, the fandom community can offer you support.  But what about fiction within fiction? What about the fandoms that were made up for the sake of writing about fandom? What about the things fictional characters fangirl over?

In this post, I’ve listed some. Just in case your life wasn’t infected with fandom enough as it was.

Books You Wish Were Real