Rainbow Blog #6

All right, in the interest of preventing myself from rambling, and droning on and on, and beating a dead horse, and dragging things out, and to keep the posts clear and concise, and not bogged down with too much commentary, and to prevent them from being repetitive, and redundant, and filled with pointless information I have decided that we will limit each chapter to no more than 4 salient points going forward, to strive for brevity, so as not to take up too much of anyone’s time, including my own, in order to keep these brief and to the point, so as not to beat around the bush, and to prevent them from being repetitive, or lollygag, but to come to a direct point, to bring things to a head, swiftly and immediately, and to prevent them from being repetitive, without undue waste or mindless chatter. Thank you.

Chapter 13

1. Cath doesn’t want to go to a party that roommate’s boyfriend is having because there will be drunk people galore. “I don’t like to talk to drunk people.” I can relate to this as a fellow non-drinker. Sorry drinkers. But Cath, holing up in your room is not the answer, either.

2. THIS IS NOW MY FAVORITE CHAPTER. With all apologies, here’s the truth. Until I find a typo within your book, I’m sorry, I just can’t get all the way into the book. I start worrying that I’m reading the creation of some kind of robot or something, potentially sent from the future, because with each book I’ve had a part in, whether it be writing or editing, despite scouring them for typos or formatting errors they always find their way in. Frankly, it pisses me off. So I need to see a typo somewhere when I read, no matter how minor. I need to see the author “bleed” a little bit. I need to know they are human.

So, after 147 pages, I have seen Rainbow Rowell and her team of nearly flawless editors bleed. What is the typo? Oh, it’s no big deal: “and his face with filled with disgust and decision.” No big deal, yet it made me deliriously happy. Or maybe only a little bit happy, but deliriously happy sounds more interesting. #writerstryingtowrite

3. Nick is a perfect fit for Cath even though I don’t want him to be, yet in this chapter we’ve got roommate’s boyfriend making her read her stories to him and so he’s proving to be a good fit for Cath as well, just as I thought he might. And this is why I don’t do love triangles in my books. Because seriously, which one of these fine gentleman should she end up with? The guy who writes with her and seems to be a nice guy, or the one who is read to by her and seems to be a nice guy? I can’t decide. How could I decide as a writer? I couldn't. I'd stare at the computer for hours and hours. So I don't do love triangles for that reason. Well, that and I would be absolutely awful at writing them. 

4. Roommate shows up and there is some definite tension abounding. In abundance. Abounding tension abounds in abundance in chapter 13. Roommate knows there is some unspeakable chemistry floating in the air between her boyfriend roommate's boyfriend and Cath.

Chapter 14 

I couldn't find MJ saying "you ain't nothing" but Weird Al will do nicely.

1. So I was reading this at a swimming pool the other night while my daughter and my cousin swam, and there weren’t a lot of people there, yet for some reason I felt obligated to put my hand over the spine in a position so that if someone walked by, they wouldn’t see that I was reading a book called Fangirl. And I have to say that I’m disappointed in myself for doing it, because what do I give a crap about what people think about what I’m reading? Yeah, I’m reading Fangirl, and yeah, it has a love triangle—what’chu gonna do about it? Nothing, that’s what. You ain’t gonna do nothing, man! You ain't nothing! 

2. We get a pretty funny bit about working for an advertising agency that makes working at an advertising agency sound both fun and all kinds of horrible.

Perfect, in every way.

3. OK, the last sentence of this chapter hit me like a lightning bolt. “The green bean casserole sat in the kitchen and got cold because Wren was the only person who ever ate it.” I feel like I had the rug pulled out from underneath me. I’ve been operating under the delusion that Wren was kind of the freaky and strange twin, but with that line, it seems clear that Cath is the nut. SHE DOESN’T LIKE GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE!

Who doesn’t like green bean casserole? It’s so simple—green beans, cream of mushroom soup, some of those little onion deals, and a smattering of pepper. Yet it is so much greater than the sum of its parts, which in some ways makes it the ultimate American food, because a bunch of things that shouldn’t work together somehow join as one and form the most delicious of all side dishes. And yet we have both Cath and Cath’s dad rejecting this foodstuff, and so I have to question everything said about Cath through the duration of this book. Remember how I said that she was so unlikable that I was rooting for her to become likable? Well, she may have passed the point of no return. She may have caught a train or a supersonic jet plane and went screaming by the point of no return. What inhuman monster doesn’t like green bean casserole? I will have to stew on this and see if I can continue on with chapter 15.

Aw, who am I kidding, I need to see who Cath ends up with—but the way things are going, I just might work up some slash fiction of my own and put Nick and roommate’s boyfriend together… I bet the both of them eat green bean casserole.