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.

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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.