60 pages • 2 hours read
Rainbow RowellFangirl
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Names “Cather” and “Wren”
Content Warning: This section contains references to stigmatizing language about mental health conditions.
Cather is the full name of Cath, the main character. Her twin’s name is Wren. “Cather” and “Wren” are the name “Catherine” broken in two halves. Wren says, “Our mother didn’t know she was having twins […] And she didn’t feel like coming up with another name” (79). She split one name, “Catherine,” in two. Their mother’s unwillingness to come up with two different names foreshadows her eventual abandonment of her daughters as well as the way the girls will struggle to develop identities separate from one another.
Going into college, the twins see Coming of Age and Exploring Identity differently. Wren thinks the “whole point of college is meeting new people” (6). She wants them to meet new people and find out who they are individually. Wren thinks that unless she and Cath start pursuing individual activities, people at their new school “will treat [them] like [they’re] the same person” (7). Cath does not see this as a negative thing. She still sees them as two parts of a whole, like their names. She thinks the “whole point of having a twin sister […] is not having to worry” about meeting new people (6). Developing her own sense of identity away from Wren is one of the largest internal conflicts Cath tackles throughout the novel. By the end, she has found a happy medium between being close to her sister and being her own person.
Simon/Baz Fanfiction
Cath’s favorite ship pairs Simon, the eponymous main character of the Simon Snow series, and Baz, his classmate and main rival. Simon is a hero and a golden boy, while Baz is darker, more mysterious, and secretive. In Carry On, Cath’s main fanfiction, Cath creates an opposites-attract romance for them. Cath’s Simon/Baz fanfiction mirrors her opposites-attract romance with Levi. Simon struggles with the fact that Baz is “a vampire—a vampire, damn it. A monster” (373). In part of her fic, Simon and Baz argue “about whether vampires could ever truly be considered good and also whether the two of them should go to the graduation ball together” (27). Simon struggles with what he sees as his fundamental differences from Baz but also with the undeniable romantic interest he has in Baz despite these differences. Similarly, Cath is “brimming with objections” about how she and Levi “don’t have anything in common” (279). She catalogs their differences without giving the same credence to their similarities or what Levi identifies as their most important commonality: “We like each other” (280).
One of Cath’s goals with Carry On is to do justice to Baz, a character she identifies with. Both Baz and Cath harbor deep secrets and feel conflicted with their own sense of identity. Baz tells Simon, “‘I’m a magician. I’m not—’ He gestured toward his throat and face. ‘—this’” (374). Likewise, Cath feels like the face she presents to the world hides secret aspects of herself. She tells Reagan, “[M]aybe you think I’m a little crazy, but I only ever let people see the tip of my crazy iceberg. Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and socially inept, I’m a complete disaster” (184). While Cath experiences anxiety, her father has bipolar disorder. She confesses to Wren her fear that “[she’s] crazy like him” (226). Though this language stigmatizes the mental health conditions of both Cath and her father, which can be addressed by qualified mental health professionals, it represents a secret she feels she must keep about herself, like Baz’s vampirism. As Simon accepts Baz’s secret, Levi accepts Cath’s. When she uses the stigmatizing language “crazy” to describe herself, Levi says, “I don’t have to know […] I’m rooting for you” (282), indicating that, like Simon, he accepts her fully despite their differences.
Food
Food is a motif connected to the theme of Coming of Age and Exploring Identity. The way Cath and Wren interact with food indicates how they are navigating their identity more broadly.
Cath’s anxiety makes it difficult for her to talk to new people or enter new situations. When Cath arrives at school, she is too nervous to visit the dining hall. For a month, she survives on protein bars and jars of peanut butter in her dorm room. Because she does not want to eat with Reagan and Levi in the room, she thinks about how she will “eat an entire jar of peanut butter” once they leave and excuses herself to the bathroom to eat protein bars in the stall while “letting nervous tears dribble down her cheeks” (27-28). Due to her anxiety, Cath engages in repetitive unhealthy eating behaviors. This behavior becomes so extreme that Reagan approaches Cath about whether she has an “eating disorder.” Cath admits, “I don’t like new places. New situations. There’ll be all those people, and I won’t know where to sit—I don’t want to go” (39). Reagan helps Cath conquer the “block” she has about going to the dining hall. This becomes the origin point for their friendship, which in turn helps Cath begin to discover what her identity is apart from her family.
While Wren’s relationship to food is different from Cath’s, food still expresses how Wren explores her identity. Unlike Cath, who avoids social gatherings and meeting new people, Wren spends most days of the week sneaking into bars and drinking to excess with her roommate, Courtney. Wren thinks that the “point of college is meeting new people” (6), but she puts herself in unhealthy and sometimes dangerous situations to do so. For instance, she and Courtney start a diet called the “Skinny Bitch Diet,” which is severely restrictive. While certain types of dietary restrictions can be useful to people who have specific dietary needs, Wren admits to restricting food so she can drink more alcohol without gaining weight. Courtney says that she and Wren are “skinny bitches on weekdays” so that they can be “drunk bitches on the weekend” (85). Wren wants to explore her newfound adult identity by going out on the weekend and meeting new people, but her relationship with food exemplifies the unhealthy ways she goes about doing so.
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