Review by Ian Keogh

Cath and Wren are twin sisters, and so far their experiences of college have been as different as their personalities. Cath has almost wilfully locked herself away from broadening her horizons while Wren has thrown herself wholeheartedly into the new. It led to the crisis ending Fangirl 1, and the way it’s sorted is cleverly plotted to be deliberately unsatisfying.

Rainbow Rowell, writer of the Fangirl young adult novel, is here created for adapting her story along with Sam Maggs, which wasn’t the case for Fangirl 1. The pace picks up, which may be Rowell’s input, or be down to Cath having progressed a little, and less likely to be alone with her thoughts.

While the title references Cath’s love of fan fiction, predominantly the Simon Snow series, only brief snippets featured in Fangirl 1. Here, we’re treated to longer excerpts from her fan fiction about Simon Snow and his quest, and they’re constructed well enough to be more than just distractions from Cath’s ongoing life. While their existence obviously references Harry Potter, Rowell ensures enough differences to Simon Snow’s world, further removed by Cath’s construction of a gay relationship between him and his enemy in her fan fiction.

Gabi Nam draws these sequences using more black ink to create a darkness, accentuated by the panels being placed on black pages, yet the remainder of her artwork makes extremely effective use of white space. Her people are very delicately drawn, yet emotionally transmit despite their simplicity. Areas of fine grey dot shading provide depth. It’s really impressive and attractive art overall.

It takes a fair while before a bombshell dropped in Fangirl 1 is revisited, yet only briefly for a matter that might have been given more space considering how deeply it affects Cath and Wren. On the other hand, it might have been thought that the cast were so well defined in Fangirl 1 that there wasn’t much more to discover about them, yet that’s not the case. Along the way there are some really smart observations that stick in the mind.

The ground shifts for Cath during Fangirl 2, and the pieces are there to be picked up in Fangirl 3.