Book Review: CARRY ON by Rainbow Rowell

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: CARRY ON
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Price: $10.99
Pages: 521
Genre: Fantasy, Queer, Adventure
Year: 2015 (New Edition: 2017)

BACK OF THE BOOK (contains slight spoilers)

Source: Amazon

"Wildly fun, deliciously readable." - npr.org

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen.

That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.

Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here - it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell novel - but far, far more monsters.

"Come for the makeouts and stay for the magic." - The Atlantic

MY EDITION - comparison, extras

I wanted to read this book before this new edition even existed but I'll talk later a bit more about my journey to finally reading this book.

There exist two different covers of CARRY ON (though I think even more than two different ones, I think the old cover also has different variations) and I wasn't too sure which one I perfered.

Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

At first, I didn't know whether I liked the new cover or not. The vibrant colours and especially the purple really appealed to me but I wasn't too sure about the drawing style.. it reminds me a lot of manga and anime which I was never drawn to.

Eventually I still did decide to buy the newer version - mainly because of the extras it had inside.

When you open the book, the inside of the cover and the first page are both black with white stars, which looks incredibly beautiful. The first thing you read is an amazing quote from the book saying "You were the sun... And I was crashing into you."

Then you can even fold this page back and reveal a map of Watford, the magickal school that all the characters in the story attend. And this map is really stunning. Most maps I've seen so far were black and white, but this one is in a vibrant, almost poisonous-looking green with pink elements added to it.

While reading the book, I often looked back on the map to get a better understanding of where the characters were currently at.

Now, I don't know whether the other edition also features this, but I loved it so much and therefore want to point it out nevertheless:

This book isn't just divided into chapters but also into four so-called "books" and an epilogue. What I loved so much about this were the beautiful drawings that introduced each of those "books". I just adore details like this in a book, and I think that these work so well in fantasy books and just set you in such a special mood for the upcoming chapter.

Some of my favourite examples of the pictures:

MY OPINION

Normally, when I read a book for the first time, I always make notes for my review. Not so with this one. I just devoured it in two long sittings and didn't write a single word down because I just knew that this would be stuck in my head anyway. And it most definitely did.

My journey to finally reading CARRY ON

As I teasered before, there's a bit to tell about my journey to finally reading this book..

So I always saw those Rainbow Rowell books in the bookstores and had heard so many positive things about them and basically saw them everywhere on Bookstagram. Especially FANGIRL (click here for my review) always stuck out to me because I am myself such a fangirl and was very excited to read this book. I finally read it last year and enjoyed it a lot BUT I didn't really enjoy the fanfiction in the story. In fact, it was probably what bothered me most in FANGIRL. And since I knew that CARRY ON was basically about that very fanfiction or just that fanfiction.. that knowledge really drove me away from wanting to read CARRY ON.

And still, I knew that this was a gay story and as you probably know if you've been following me on Instagram, I'm such a sucker for everything gay. Give me a gay character and I'm sold - basically.

So CARRY ON was still in the back of my head but always with that side note attached to it, that I might not like it because I didn't like the fanfiction in FANGIRL, which is bascially what CARRY ON is about, because it's a fantasy novel and I still am rather cautious with fantasy books because I always worry that I might find them too much or too ridiculous etc., and because of its length - 521 pages seemed quite a lot - especially considering that the few passages about Simon Snow in FANGIRL had already been too dragging for me.

So, to sum it up, I had quite a lot of concerns about CARRY ON and might have ended up not reading it if there hadn't been the strong pull of it being a gay story. (I know, I'm so predictable.) Additionally, my friend raved about it and she also loved The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (click here to read my 13 Reasons Why Everyone Should Read It) which was my absolute-favourite book of 2017 - so I thought if she loved both of these, maybe I will too.

- And, SURPRISE: I bloody well did!

Why my worries weren't needed

If anyone of you has some of the same concerns concerning CARRY ON as I had, I can tell you that you should definitely read it anyway!

Fortunately, it is nothing like the fanfiction in FANGIRL and never ever felt dragging to me - in contrast, I read through those 521 pages in two days and demanded more and more and more and basically inhaled the whole book. In that aspect it was just so completely different from what I had feared the reading of it to be like.

The fact that I read it so fast also contradicted my fear of the high amount of pages

(just to make things clear: I'm no one who gets intimidated by a huge number of pages, and besides, after reading and loving Outlander books which always start at 1000 pages (click here to read my review for Outlander 1, here for Outlander 2), I don't really think that 521 pages are a lot. It's just that I worried a bit about those pages being as dragging as I found the fanfiction in FANGIRL to be - and then 521 pages seemed a lot.)

and to be honest with you, I wished it had even more pages. I would also love for the book to get a sequel or just more Baz chapters... *-*

The book being a fantasy novel also didn't bother me too much. Being completely honest here, I still wouldn't need fantasy things as wings or a dragon tail attached to a human being, but I can gladly see aside those things if the actual story is so much more than that and so worth reading.

And I actually also liked a lot of the fantasy elements. I've loved vampire stories since I was a little kid, obsessed over The Little Vampire, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. So I really didn't mind the vampire aspect in it, I actually would have liked even more of that.

And - one just cannot but notice how very similar this story is to Harry Potter. It's a bit hard to describe the feeling of reading it - I wouldn't say that the similarities and the general resemblance bothered me - it's rather that I often asked myself if Rainbow Rowell had to pay some money to JK Rowling for copying a lot in her book. Because I didn't really see any credit being given to Rowling anywhere..

Mostly, my problem with fantasy stories is, especially with high fantasy novels, that it takes me a long while to get into the story, into the world, to really understand it. I didn't have that with CARRY ON, which I think is because it is so very similar to Harry Potter - and if I know anything, it's definitely Harry Potter.

The Gay in the Book

Then there is my main reason for buying - for wanting to read this book: it being said to be gay.

I think the book included the queerness of its characters very beautifully into the story and did never put too much emphasis on it (although I'm very much here for books who do that aswell!).

I think that CARRY ON, although it features a very beautifully build gay story, is still also very enjoyable for readers who don't gravitate as much as I do to gay stories, just because the gay romance isn't at the centre of the story but is still given so many wonderful scenes to explore that.

Also, I must say that I just loved the swooning of the two characters for each other so much that I wouldn't have even needed for more to happen .... - okay who do I want to deceive here, I obviously wanted for them to get together and make out and was very happy when that happened. (*add grinning emoji*)

I just love proud queer characters in books and therefore - and for many more reasons - I just adored the hell out of Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch aka Baz. ♥

I think part of why I read through this book so quickly is because I could never wait to get to another one of his chapters. His chapters were just glorious, his thoughts so precious.

He's the ultimate Slytherin - obviously, since this whole book is basically a fanfiction of Harry & Draco aka #Drarry. (So if you ship Drarry, this book will be heaven for you. Just saying. I don't even ship Drarry and loved it so much - I can't imagine how someone who actually ships Drarry will feel about it.)

Some things that bothered me a tiny bit but not too much

Since I knew that I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars while I read it - always hoping that nothing too bad would happen for me to not be able to do this anymore - I just didn't allow myself to get bothered too much by a few things.

First, there's Agatha. I must say that this character never grew on me, that I never really liked her or formed any bond with her - which is why I didn't really understand why it was necessary to include her and especially to have Agatha characters until the very end of the book. For me, her story and her relevance for the story ended very early on in the book and I wouldn't have needed to read anymore about her after that. I just wish that every Agatha chapter had been a Baz chapter instead. :D

The second thing that bothered me was the erasure of bisexuality - which, unfortunately, happens in way too many movies, series and books. A character starts out as being straight and then, when he or she starts being attracted to someone of the same sex, sort of "turns" to being gay. There always seems to be nothing in between, which I think is very sad. There's a whole spectrum when it comes to sexuality and I really wish that people would stop only seeing the two options, namely straight and gay. Especially since books, movies and series all would function as such a great representation for their readers and viewers, if they did in fact include more sexualities than straight and gay into their works.

What didn't really bother me but what I rather wondered about, was Simon never finding out about his true parents while the reader did. I was sort of waiting for that revelation but it never happened.. so I was a bit confused whether Simon knew about it in the end or didn't..

CONCLUSION

I loved this book a lot.

I was soaked into the story from the very beginning, enjoyed the writing style a lot and also really liked all the named extras.

I fell in love with most of the characters, mostly with Baz who has earned a special place in my heart and about whom I would so love to read more.

I was also very much involved in the story and it felt like I was very deep into it while I read it.

Although I wasn't too surprised by the plottwist(s) in the story, I still really enjoyed the mystery in CARRY ON.

Because of its striking similarities to Harry Potter, it was very easy to get into the book, and it also really made me want to read Harry Potter again - I plan to reread The Half-Blood Prince anyway this year. :) (click here for my review/comparison of The Order of the Phoenix book vs. movie)

CARRY ON is definitely one of my absolute-favourite books that I've read in 2018 and also one of my favourite books in general - which I did not anticipate at all.

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