Carry On

Title: Carry On

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Rating: 4.5 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Number of Pages: 517

Publication Date: October 2015

Publisher: Macmillan Press

Summary: Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen. That's what his roomate, 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 Rainbow Rowell's version of the Simon Snow fanfiction Cath write in her novel Fangirl. While it is not necessary to have read Fangirl I personally found that by doing so I got that little bit from the story. In Fangirl Simon Snow is in many ways their version of Harry Potter.

Carry On was a hugely refreshing take on the fantasy genre. So many fantasy books are weighed down in deep and emotionally intense plot lines or on the flip side they are cheesy and don't take anything seriously. Carry On finds a nice balance by making sure that the magic is believable and realistic while making the characters fun, devious and a little crazy. The spells were a little on the cheesy but not too much.

The beginning of this book starts off at a relatively medium level then suddenly up and dumping you before taking off full steam ahead for an action packed ending and bringing together the final clues of the mystery of the Watford Tragedy.

One of the things I loved most about this book was the character development, and I don't just mean the bad guy learning to be good. But the fact that the good guys weren't perfect, in fact they were kind of far from it; but learnt to accept this and keep trying any way. This book also showed the importance of over coming differences and how important teamwork and friendship really is.

However, what I loved most was Simon and Baz's relationship. Simon and Baz has perhaps the sweetest relationship ever, despite the fact that they are "nemesis'". As these two grow and the dynamic of their relationship changes you just want to smile and watch all the problems of the world fall away as they realise what their relationship has really been like all along. The relationship of Simon and Baz is progressive and well done, Rainbow Rowell doesn't rush the changes but works it so that it is a seemless and a naturally expected change.

Rainbow Rowell has an incredible ability to write amazing characters that you can't help but love. They are smart, witty and just a little crazy, but they are also deep and so very real.

Fangirl

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Rating: 4.5 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Number of Pages: 460

Publication Date: 2013

Publisher: Macmillan

Summary (from the back of the book): Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there's romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life.

Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realising that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible...

I absolutely adored this book. If you love living in books and have gone to university, you will really be able to relate to Cath's experiences. This book is very much a coming of age story; finding who you are and more importantly accepting who you are. On top of finding out who she is, Cath also faces the problem of dealing with her social anxiety. Something that I found Rainbow Rowell handled really well.

I found this book to be a fun, light read that is very realistic and for the most part couldn't find any faults with it. But at the same time I can't say I found anything overly amazing about it either. This book just was. Yet despite this I would recommend it to anyone. One of the reasons I personally think it lack the wow factor is that I do prefer fantasy to contemporary.

This probably explains why my favourite parts of the book were the events surrounding Cath writing her fanfiction and the inserts both from the fictional Simon Snow books and the fanfiction that Cath has written. And I must say, I am really interested in reading Carry On after reading the small snippets throughout the book.

This book is very dialogue based, which I personally love. I find that dialogue is what brings any story forward. It is one thing to be able to write and describe a story but to have characters that can talk and communicate between each other and effectively is what I love and more importantly, it's what I remember. Another thing about a good dialogue driven book, is that the things that aren't said have such a greater impact.

This book is one of the best stand alone's that I have read this year and I can't wait to read something else that has been written by Rainbow Rowell.