Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I love Rainbow Rowell, her writing is fantastic and reading it is like getting a big warm hug, this book was no exception. 

Rainbow Rowell wrote Fangirl, a novel I loved. It was about Cath, a fan of the 'Simon Snow series' by 'Gemma T. Leslie'. This is a fictional series, which is clearly based on Harry Potter. If you haven't read Fangirl you can read more about it here (this won't spoil Carry On at all). In Fangirl, Cath writes Fan fiction about Simon Snow called Carry On Simon Snow, and there are excerpts throughout the book. This novel, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell is not the fan fiction that Cath wrote, but it is essentially Rainbow Rowell's meta-fan fiction of the fictional Simon Snow series. You do not have to have read Fangirl to enjoy this novel, but it might help to appreciate it further. 

Carry On is about Simon Snow, and his last year at Watford School of Magicks. Simon Snow is the 'chosen one', he is the most powerful magician to grace the world in a long time, problem is he has all this power and has no clue how to use it. According to his vampire roommate Baz (Full name: Tyrannus Basilton Pitch) he is the worst chosen one who's ever been chosen.

Baz and Simon have had a hate-hate relationship. throughout their past 7 years at Watford, but when infuriating Baz doesn't even show up to the last year of school with no explanation, Simon is determined to prove that he is plotting with the Insidious Humdrum. The Insidious Humdrum is 'sucking' the magic up from areas leaving magic deadspots all over the UK, and for some unknown reason he looks exactly like 11 year old Simon. But everyone is convinced that Simon being the 'chosen one' will be the one to defeat the Humdrum.

Overall it was an enjoyable story. It was difficult to get into at first, until I got to book 2 (it was split into 4 books and an epilogue) and it was written from multiple perspectives (I think there were 8 different character POVs) which I didn't really enjoy that much. It was a slow moving story throughout most of the book then everything seemed to happen at once at the end. 

One reason why I couldn't give this book anything higher is that it relies on another authors story. To understand Watford, it really is better if you have read Harry Potter. For the first 100 or so pages it felt like I was reading a Harry Potter fan fiction and I couldn't stop comparing the similarities and differences. 

The characters were really great though, writing fantastic characters is one of Rainbow Rowell's skills. My favourite character was definitely Baz.

Have you read this? What did you think?