January 11, 2016

Review: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
522 pages
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Source: I borrowed this from a co-worker.
Purchase: Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Amazon
My Rating:
Goodreads Summary: 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.

My Review

This review is going to be a little different. I am kicking of the new year with a new type of review. I am going to do a question answer type format. These are questions I had while reading that I wrote out and then answered. I figured some of you may be curious about the same things so I decided I would write my review in that type of format. 

Will you like this book if you are not a Harry Potter fan?
Sure. I don't see why not. I think you may like it a little more if you are an HP fan though.

Would you enjoy this book if you have yet to read Fangirl?
I think so. It is treated as a whole separate book so you don't really need to read Fangirl to enjoy Carry On.

Does Carry On have a little bit of a mystery to its story or is it just a romance?
Although I believe it is primarily a romance novel, there is some mystery and fantasy type elements to the story as well. 

Is this book supposed to be funny?
When I first started reading I thought the whole book was a joke, and then I realized that I think it was supposed to be written that way. Why else would you call the main villain the Insidious Humdrum? I laughed quite a few times while reading.

When will the romance happen? (This thought occurred to me about 1/4 of the way into the novel.)
With all the hype surrounding this book and all the talk of it being a romance, I was very sadly disappointed that it took hundreds of pages for things to finally heat up and get interesting. I really just wanted Simon and Baz to smash their faces together.

What about all the supporting characters?
They fell a little flat for me. I think perhaps that maybe one reason for this is that since Carry On reads like a last book in a series I had a hard time connecting with the characters. Who really knows though. It may just be me.

When does this book become interesting? (This thought hit me at about 50ish pages in.)
I will warn you that I felt like the story dragged a bit at first. I felt liked nothing really happened for a long time there at the beginning.

Is Carry On worth reading?
I enjoyed it. Rainbow Rowell writes really well. Even though I wasn't completely sold at the start, I really did love the second half of the story.

10 comments:

  1. Carry On is definitely getting a lot of mixed reviews. I loved it, but I totally agree with some of your points. It did feel pretty slow paced, but I just loved the characters so much. Simon and Baz just needed to get together sooner!!

    Great review :)

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    1. I am so glad you loved Carry On! I do love Simon and Baz so very much! I wanted to squish their faces together so many times!

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  2. Lovely review! Definitely liked the format! Glad you enjoyed this one though the side characters fell a bit flat and it took it a while to really pick up. Sounds like it was a fun kind of read and very interesting!

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    1. It was very fun and interesting. I'm glad you like the format. I realized that if I keep switching up my review writing formats I enjoy writing them more. lol

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  3. Hahaha I love that the book doesn't seem to take itself too seriously (The Insidious Humdrum...I literally laughed out loud!)

    Cristina @ Girl in the Pages

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  4. I actually like this style of review because it answered the question I had been swirling around in my mind - would I need to read Fangirl first? It's nice to know I wouldn't need to, even though I own Fangirl and not this one. We'll see what I get to first ;)

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    1. I am so glad! I will have to write another review in this type of style in the future. I had fun writing it that way.

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  5. "I really just wanted Simon and Baz to smash their faces together." LOL. So I have a confession to make. I had no idea whether Carry On was supposed to be the fanfiction version of Simon and Baz (as told in Fangirl) or the original Cath wrote her fan fiction from (not sure if this was stupid of me but yeah). So the entire time I was reading I was trying to pick up on signals like WILL THEY OR WONT THEY FALL IN LOVE. I am happy with the outcome but it did take a while. Anyway, I liked this one but I would agree, it wasn't a LOVE.

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    Replies
    1. Nicole, you always seem to put a smile on my face! :D That is a legit confusion that I can totally see happening. I wasn't sure at first either, mostly because it did take so long!!!! Seriously. lol

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