Carry On (Simon Snow, #1) in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Nov 05, 2015 Maryam rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, ya, romance

Carry On is my third book from Rainbow Rowell. She is such a natural in storytelling. Plot flows so easily you cannot put the book down and always want to continue.

from : All The Simon Snow Things blog on tumbler

from : All The Simon Snow Things blog on tumbler

This book is a fantasy with the touch of romance. Everyone says Simon Snow is the chosen one but in the eyes of his roommate Baz, he is the worst possible choice. Simon doesn’t show any great talent in magic and most of the time his wand is useless in his hands. Baz on the other hand is brilliant but he is evil and a vampire, most of ...more

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Oct 06, 2015 eb rated it really liked it

Shelves: print, male-protagonist, young-adult, fiction, fantasy, multiple-viewpoints, vampires, magic, queer-main-characters

Christ. It was good, okay? It was really good. The magic system was especially compelling and completely airtight. I loved the moments when the magic words people used revealed how powerful they were, without any explanation-- I mean, that's how awesome the worldbuilding is, that the rules are clear, and you can infer so much about how they're applied or bent or broken.

Many of the cliches, rhymes, and other turns of phrase used as magic words are also hilarious geek references, and getting them ...more

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Dec 10, 2014 Megan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, romance, contemporary

Yay. :)

Do you want to read about gay wizards in a boarding school? Of course you do! Fluffy fantasy with a little angst.

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Dec 02, 2015 alana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, vamps, fantasy, addicted-to-ya-2015

Another Rainbow Rowell read that I wasn't so sure I loved until halfway through and then everything zipped along delightfully and left me wanting more Baz&Simon <3 Seriously, these boys. I want to go back and read Fangirl again and see what Cath added to their story (or how this version is different from the series referenced in Fangirl). Rowell tells this eighth year at a magical academy with extensive references to what happened in previous years (like how book two of Harry Potter summarized * ...more

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Sep 09, 2017 Talia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya-fantasy, readharder2017

Sigh. I don't know, y'all.

If you have lived in a cave for the last 20 years and have not read or seen any "Harry Potter" movies, then yeah, read this! The writing/storytelling is pretty good, and I love Rainbow Rowell.

But.
If you have read "Harry Potter", then be prepared to notice similarities all over the place. Watford = Hogwarts. Penelope = Hermione. Eb = Hagrid. It feels redunant to make so many comparisons, but they're RIGHT THERE. Only towards the end does the story take on a life of its o ...more

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Jan 16, 2017 Lacey Louwagie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, youngadultfantasy, youngadult, lgbtqi, book-club

This book took a little while to get going for me -- at first it felt as if Rowell was clearly out of her element writing fantasy -- and as someone who reads a lot of fantasy, I couldn't help but notice the shortcomings in worldbuilding, and just how LONG it seemed to take to set everything up; the story was about 1/3 of the way in before the plot really got going. Everything else was just showing us what it was like to be a student at Rowell's version of a magical school.

However, this book can This book took a little while to get going for me -- at first it felt as if Rowell was clearly out of her element writing fantasy -- and as someone who reads a lot of fantasy, I couldn't help but notice the shortcomings in worldbuilding, and just how LONG it seemed to take to set everything up; the story was about 1/3 of the way in before the plot really got going. Everything else was just showing us what it was like to be a student at Rowell's version of a magical school.

However, this book can really be read on two different levels: as a fantasy story in its own right, or as commentary on the world of Harry Potter.

It's passable as a story in its own right, but as commentary on the Harry Potter franchise, it is brilliant.

The parallels and nods to J.K. Rowling's worlds are obvious -- after all, the book started as an obvious stand-in for Harry Potter and Potter fan culture in its original incarnation in Fangirl. It's in the departures from Rowling's world that Rowell really drives her points home. Her version of a magical wizarding school is far more culturally and ethnically diverse than Rowling's, and it includes gay characters who don't have to wait for the whole series to be completed before being "outed" (::coughcough:: Dumbledore being gay after the fact was a copout ::cough cough::). It is, of course, much edgier than Rowling's world, with plenty of swearing and some making out, although certain aspects of it were strangely chaste. (Like, why did we never know the extent of Simon's and Agnes's sexual relationship even though they had been together for three years? Am I the only one who wondered about this?) It also examines the whole idea of the "chosen one" mythos and especially takes a jab at the somewhat creepy/inappropriate/irresponsible relationship between Dumbledore and Harry that is glossed over as perfectly healthy, warm, and admirable in Rowling's book. By contrast, the Mage (Dumbledore's stand-in), is an ethically ambiguous character, ultimately more dark than light, but for a long time Simon sees him through an adoring child's eyes much the way Harry sees Dumbledore. The difference is that Simon's perception of the Mage matures; Harry's never does.

It's somewhat strange to come in reading the "last book" in a series when the earlier books in the series do not actually exist. I couldn't help but notice how much more of an impact this story probably would have had on me if I had been following these characters' lives for years rather than being dropped into their world in the final act. I'm not sure I would have wanted to commit to seven books of this, anyway, but it's definitely a worthwhile read. It's got that Rowell "relationship magic" if that's what you go in for, but it's also a smart, incisive critique of what is arguably the most influential children's series of our lifetimes. ...more

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May 26, 2016 eb rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: male-protagonist, young-adult, fiction, audio-book, fantasy, multiple-viewpoints, vampires, magic, female-author, friendship

Euan Morton's narration was perfect. All the character's voices were distinct--some of them with different accents-- and so well done I often forgot that it was one man voicing the whole thing.

This is the second time I've read Carry On, and this was a great format for it. ...more

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