Kindred Spirits | Book Review

Title: Kindred Spirits

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance

Published: February 2016

*I don't share any spoilers in this review however I still go into detail about the characters and the plot so if you'd rather start the book knowing nothing then you can click off the review if you'd prefer*

Summary:

The new Star Wars film is being released in four days time and Elena decides to camp outside her local cinema till then to ensure she gets to enjoy the celebratory queue with fellow fans like herself. But to her surprise there are only two other people in the queue so she now comes face-to-face with the reality that the experience might not be what she imagined, including having to pee in cup behind a dumpster.

When the news came out that Rainbow Rowell had written a short story for World Book Day I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and read another wonderfully charming book from one of my favourite authors! It was only a month before starting this that I had read Carry On which has become one of my top 10 books of all time so I was hoping that she was still able to release some of her magic into this one regardless of it being less than 100 pages long.

Review:

Although this does have a bit of romance squeezed in there it's not a love story at all! It's more about how having a passion, in this case Star Wars, can bring you closer to others and how strong that bond can become in a short period of time. Also the story isn't heavily focused on Star Wars so you don't need to be an actual fan of the franchise to enjoy the book. However if you are a fan then there are the occasional references and puns throughout that you'll appreciate for sure!

Elena is our main character - she's a Vietnamese eighteen year old who was raised on Stars Wars by her father, which explains where her undying love for it came from. I could relate to her a lot about being a fangirl, being a mix of both a shy and outgoing person as well as having a slight addiction to Instagram. Seriously I started to wonder whether I was Elena for a second haha!
When she arrives at the cinema she is introduced to the two guys she'll be joining the queue with for the next few days: Gabe and Troy. Gabe is a character I struggled to figure out at the beginning as he was quite anti-social and distant with Elena at the beginning but eventually you figure out why and you see their friendship slowly develop. Troy came across as quite an intense character and I'm disappointed he didn't get explored more like Elena and Gabe did. I'm glad he still had an important role in the story as brought the entertainment and had some humorous moments especially while they were queuing up which spiced things up a bit.

The ending was kind of hilarious and whilst I had a feeling that was how it was going to end, it was still cute and a funny way to go! One thing I didn't expect from the book that I really respect Rainbow for doing is talking about what constitutes being a fan. Whether you know every little detail or not you can still call yourself a true fan of something and I think people forget that sometimes so I'm really glad that was demonstrated in the story.

“Everybody likes everything these days. The whole world is a nerd.”

I did wish the story was longer because I wanted to get to know the characters more but I feel like Rainbow went into enough detail about them all to allow the reader to gain a connection with them. If you've read Kindred Spirits as well let me know in the comments what you thought of it as I'd love to know! Another Rainbow book down, another happy reader!