If You Don't Like Rainbow Rowell I Don't Like You
If you know me you know I love reading. Some of my earliest memories include my mom and grandma reading to me, and it created a habit that I will continue until I literally am unable. I took my senior photos with books. I will have a stack of books tattooed onto my body until the day I die. I have probably 50 books sitting on my shelf (or, more likely, in stacks on my desk) that I just had to buy but haven't actually had time to read. And beyond that hundreds more that I have read.
I love books. I also love Rainbow Rowell. She writes books. She writes books that I love. As I've mentioned before, I have a very hard time picking favorites but Rainbow Rowell is my favorite and I'M WILLING TO TRY PICKING MY FAVORITE OF HER BOOKS FOR HER. Well, for me. Because Rainbow Rowell is probably busy writing her next book and being fabulous (or possibly staring at her amazing hair and wondering how she got so lucky) and if I try to pick my favorites I get to spend the afternoon thinking about my favorite books. So it is for me, but whatever. You get the point.
Here's a list of my favorite Rainbow Rowell books:
(Before I get started, I'd just like to make it known that I have yet read her comic book, Runaways, or her short stories, My True Love Gave To Me and Midnights. I am sure they are amazing, but I am not sure how to rank them in competition with the books I have read.)
(I would also like to mention that this is going to be one of the hardest things I have ever done and I can almost guarantee that I will cry in .05 seconds when I have to choose one book over another.)
6. Carry On
You see, it's not that I don't enjoy this book. It's not like I don't LOVE where it came from--the main characters, Simon and Baz, and the world of Watford originally started as part of a Harry Potteresque fanfiction the main character of her novel Fangirl wrote. The story, which could have easily been quite dull (I mean, we've all read Harry Potter already), is endlessly interesting. It's nostalgic in a way that feels like home--which, I'm sure comes from me having met the characters in Fangirl--but also manages to feel new and exciting. Don't ask me how a novel can feel nostalgic and new at the same time because I DON'T KNOW; instead, take the time to read the book or maybe if you meet Rainbow Rowell on the street one day ask her and get back to me.
All in all, this was me when I was done reading:
And don't forget: if I had to rank a list of books that included a bunch of novels written by people not named Rainbow Rowell along with Carry On, it would probably be dang near the top.
5. Landline
Describing the genre of this book is kinda like when my 60 year old writing for magazines professor asked me what genre twenty one pilots is: a little bit of everything. It's a love story. It's a magic mystery. It's a comedy. This novel is like no novel I have ever read. It is impossible to categorize and it is impossible to put down. It makes me want to believe in fate and true love and everything good in the world even when things are bad and love sucks and fate feels like the wrong side of karma. I am trying to think of a reason to hate it so that I can justify its being toward the bottom of the list, but I'm coming up with nothing.
4. Attachments
I will never forget the first time I read this book. Escaping my crazy family at Christmas time, I snuggled into my grandparent's old recliner with cushions straight-up from heaven and lost myself. The plot flowed faultlessly from page to page and chapter to chapter. At the time, I was dying to read more of her words--I had read all of the other books she had published at that point--and this book did not disappoint. Though, with how desperate I was, she probably could have profited from me by writing a telephone book (LOL GET THE PUN BECAUSE THE NEXT NOVEL SHE PUBLISHED WAS LANDLINE.)
3. Kindred Spirits
This is the only short story of Rowell's I have read, but even if I had read all of them I imagine this would still be my favorite. I literally own two copies because even though my sister had bought me this one (which I literally carry around with me in my backpack every single day just in case I need it):
Then I found this one at a book store that was closing and couldn't bear the idea of it sitting on the shelf without an owner who loved it:
This short story is honest and unexpected and downright funny. I mean, honestly, it's a story about sitting in a line waiting for Star Wars... What's not to love? PLUS: Rowell donates all proceeds from the eBook to the ACLU so you should really give it a shot.
2. Eleanor and Park
First off, I need to state for the record that it was very hard for me to put Eleanor and Park at #2. This was the first Rowell book I read. The writing in this book could make somebody who hates to read fall in love with the power of words. The story, and the way the story is told, is simply phenomenal. It made me feel things I had never felt before. It made me love characters in a way I had never loved before. It made me smile and laugh and cry and I could not stop turning the pages. To be fair, it also made me go all Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook a few times (WHAT WERE THOSE LAST THREE WORDS):
Though, only things that I care deeply for can cause that sort of reaction, so I guess that says something in itself. I care so, so deeply for this book. "So why, then, did you rank this wonderful, beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime-novel as #2, Taylor?" Well...
1. Fangirl
...I ranked my dearly beloved Eleanor and Park at #2 because I could not find it in myself to put Fangirl anywhere on the list except first. This book is pretty much everything to me. I identify so deeply with Cath that I don't even know how to put it into words. I read this book for the first time when I was in high school and connected with it more than I had ever connected with a book, and then I read it again after I went to college and somehow connected with it more. Rainbow has often mentioned how little parts of herself are sprinkled throughout her books, but I think possibly she stalked me for a long time and sprinkled little (big) parts of me in this one.
The characters in this book feel as if they are my friends. It feels as if when I visit Lincoln or Omaha Cath and I could go get some Canes together and then stop by Starbucks to see Levi. It feels as if I could call them up when I am in need of my own emergency dance party. The feeling I get in my soul when I read this book feels like what Beyoncé looks like dancing to flawless.
The way I felt reading Fangirl is the way I felt every morning when I would open my bedroom door and hear my pups' paw prints pat-pat-patting on the floor as they ran to greet me. There are not many things greater than that feeling.
I hope this gives you a little insight into why every time I'm asked about my plans after graduation (122 days but it's not like I'm counting) I just stutter and say I want to be Rainbow Rowell--she did start out as a journalist after all😏
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