Thursday, November 19, 2015

Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Carry On

Author: Rainbow Rowell
Release: October 6th 2015
Genre: Fantasy, Magic, YA


Plot:

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, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story—but far, far more monsters.

Review:

And bi-invisibility strikes again! It's like she didn't even have to include Harry Simon's invisibility cloak as an item, because it was already put into his character description. No one ever mention a word about how Simon might not actually be gay, but bi since he is attracted to both genders, in fact! 

Other than that, it was entertaining. I liked how you could definitely see that it was obviously heavily, let's say inspired by Harry Potter, but then the book up and went and did its complete own thing, it didn't even care. Rowell didn't even care. She included people of color, she included multiple perspectives, lbtq+ characters, magical creatures as actual characters and so on, I could list you almost every thing Rowling has been criticized for not doing in her original novels, which Rowell did do.

I'll admit the plot dragged a little at the very beginning, it only really got interesting as soon as Baz and Simon finally agree to start working together, but from that point on, it's a really good novel. It's more or less fast paced, it's intriguing and something wholly new and its own; it's definitely not the same old story told in another, slightly altered way. The dead spots were an original, new idea and added character to Rowell's story. 

The characters themselves, uhm ... see, I didn't like any of them. There were some I disliked in fact and some that I was simply neutral towards, but overall, there was no one whom I truly enjoyed reading about. And that's an issue. I think Baz was okay, as well as Penelope; they were decent characters with their own thoughts and feelings, which were justified and so on; Agatha and Simon, on the other hand, simply seemed like spoiled, whiny little kids who couldn't ever do something right and who were both so completely stupid, I really wouldn't wish them on anyone else but themselves. I don't even want to elaborate, it's enough to say I did not really like the two of them.

All in all, it was an alright book, I enjoyed it well enough and it was entertaining enough to keep me going, and make me keep going every night. It wasn't one where I would willingly force my body to stay awake in order to finish it, but it wasn't one that I dreaded picking up every night, either. 

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