Carry On (Simon Snow, #1)

by Rainbow Rowell

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savour his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he'll be safe. Simon can't even enjoy the fact that his room-mate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can't stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you're the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savour anything.

Based on the characters Simon and Baz who featured in Rainbow Rowell's bestselling novel Fangirl, 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.

• ISBN10: 144729890X
• ISBN13: 9781447298908
• Publish Date: 8 October 2015 (first published 6 October 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 3 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Macmillan
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 528
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

DNF @ 7% (aka page 34) with extreme prejudice.

I've seen this book cover and book everywhere, especially on LGBT book lists and recommendations. I thought it was a book with good LGBT representation! Boy, was I wrong.

The first thing I noticed was that its universe is almost identical to that of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. Except with different names and labels. Spells have different phrases, the muggles are called Normals, Hogwarts is now called Watford, etc. But Simon Snow is still the Chosen One, spells are still cast by wands, Simon is still an orphan, he's still friends with someone on the grounds who tends the animals, school is still "the safest place for him", etc. etc. etc.

Thirty-four pages in, I closed the book and went to google. Is this a shameless rip-off of Harry Potter? I'm not even a huge HP fan, nor have I even read all the books, but this is extremely obvious.

Here's what I learned (and why I dropped the book):

Rainbow Rowell (the author if Carry On), previously wrote something called Fangirl. Fangirl is about, you guessed it: Fangirls. Straight women who write slash aka gay fanfiction of their favorite straight (and usually white) characters in any given media. These fangirls are usually treated with mock and scorn by most people. Me included ... because I'm not straight, and most of these women are fetishizing gay men and using them for their own and usually sexual enjoyment. Aka treating gay men as only tools for their own enjoyment, and not as people themselves. Which is why canon gay representation is ignored by them in favor of their "fav white (straight) boys", the likes you've probably heard of: Destiel, Sterek, Johnlock, Stucky, etc.

That book sought to say "fangirls writing fanfic of slash is a legitimate hobby!".

And yet . . . every character (even the side characters) was straight. There were NO non-straight characters in the book. At All. So the ONLY gay characters were in fiction. For the straight characters to ship for her own enjoyment. And they weren't even gay in canon.

The worst part of it is?
The characters she was shipping and writing about were from the Harry Potter universe: Harry and Draco. The actual fic she was writing was This Book: Carry On.

This actual book is a slash fanfiction published.

A gay fetishization fanfiction published.

[rohshey]

Imagine, if you will, the following phone call between Rainbow Rowell and her agent (who in this case is obviously a Mary Sue of me, so I'll call her MS) taking place prior to the publication of Fangirl:
RR: So Eleanor and Park was like huge.....
MS: Thank you for that.
RR: So can we please publish my seven-book series of Harry Potter fan fiction now? PLEEEEEEEEZE! I've been asking for like years.
MS: I just threw up in my hand. No.
RR: PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
MS: I'm going to hang up on you now.
RR: Hey, I'm Rainbow Rowell!
MS: That might not mean as much as you think.
RR: But people will love it. It's a proven market. Look at how many people love Harry Potter! You're just being a hater because you don't like Harry Potter. You hater.
MS: Here's the unfortunate downside of fan fiction, sweetie: IT'S FAN FICTION.
RR: ****I KNOW IT'S AWESOME****
MS: It's awful.
RR: What's-her-name did it with Fifty Shades.
MS: It was awful.
RR: It made her agent buckets of money.
MS: This is a good point that you make. Would you be willing to do a search-and-replace on all the names and places?
RR: [Growls viciously for seven minutes] Fine.
MS: Last I checked, you're from Nebraska, not England. Would you be willing to set your fan fiction in the States?
RR: [Affects English accent] NEVAH!
MS: [Twitches all over as imaginary insects crawl on her skin] But Americans just don't write British English well. At all. It always comes out sounding like.....y'know.......an American doing fan fiction of British English.
RR: See above on this making you buckets of money.
MS: GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL, WOMAN! Would you be willing to shorten the story from seven books to one?
RR: Sure, as long as most of the book can consist of super-expository backstory.
MS: Now let's talk about what new twists your story will bring to the Harry Potter canon. Will there still be an orphan Chosen One?
RR: Of course! But since this is really an original work of my own invention, I made Harry live in foster homes over the summer.
MS: Damn it, I just threw up in my hand again. Will there still be a know-it-all female sidekick?
RR: Of course! But since this is really an original work of my own invention and #WeNeedDiverseBooks, I made Hermione Indian.
MS: Will there still be a feral-but-lovable groundskeeper?
RR: Of course! But since this is really an original work of my own invention, I made Hagrid a girl.
MS: Will there still be a Bad Guy from an old elitist Bad Guy family who believe that only the elite and pureblooded should attend the magic school?
RR: Of course! But since this is really an original work of my own invention and I HEART TWILIGHT, I made Malfoy a vampire.
MS: [Stomach bile has eaten through the skin of her palms by this point] I can't sell this to editors unless you convince me there's something original about it.
RR: Oh, well, there's gayness.
MS: That was understood when you said it was fan fiction. So is it Harry and Ron who fall in love?
RR: Nah, it's Harry and Malfoy.
MS: SCREECH OF FREAKING BRAKES! That should have been the first sentence out of your mouth. You KNOW I’m a sucker for the enemies to lovers trope!!! OMG OMG! I totally want to see Harry and Malfoy fall in love.
RR: In fandom, we say "I totally ship that."
MS: [Beats her head with the phone] That is so freaking retarded. You know what? No. I can't do this. I have to be able to hold up my head in this town.
RR: Okay, fine. Be that way. I'm gonna go write a book about how it feels to write fan fiction and have everyone constantly tell you it's derivative crap and a waste of time AND THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!
MS: You do that, missy.
RR: But if that book makes you buckets of money, THEN can we do the Harry Potter fan fiction book? PLEEEEEEEEEEEZE!?!?!?!
MS: Sigh. I’m gonna regret this…but sure.
RR: Thanks, Mary Sue! You’re the bestest agent a girl could have.

[jeannamichel]

An amazing chosen one story with a heartwrenching, Rainbow Rowell twist. Review to come.

[readingwithwrin]

Originally I received this as an arc from NetGalley and the publisher. ( I ended up reading it in physical form from the library.)

I haven't yet read Fangirl ( I have tried but just couldn't get into it) so I didn't really know what to expect going into this. Besides that, it was a type of fanfiction.

Very early on it was easy to tell that it was fanfiction, but it also felt like things got started really slow, and I could have done without the first 100 or so pages. A lot of info gets put in because we didn't have any back story to explain what was happening, so it was understandable but a bit much at once as well.

We do get to see multiple points of views from Simon, Baz, Agatha and Penelope and few other characters here and there.
Simon's obsession with Baz not only seemed unhealthy but a bit much after awhile. I did like his friendship with Penelope and Agatha were nice to see, and both were very strong in what they believed in and were level headed for the most part.

The world itself is different from harry potter, and it did feel like an older version of it mixed in with vampires. Magic while present wasn't used all the time either in fact Simon hardly used any at all with an actual wand which was interesting.

Overall I really did enjoy it and It surprisingly was a quick read. The romance was okay, it did seem to go from hate to love rather fast, but it had been building for awhile from what the other characters were saying. I am now interested in reading other books by Rainbow Rowell. I'm thinking about going with Landline first.



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[Stephanie]

I'm really mad at all of you. Why did you wait so long and not tell me how adorable and lovely this book is? MUST I READ EVERYTHING?! (Yes, yes. I do. But also, this book.)

[girlinthepages]

I love love love Ranbow Rowell, and Carry On was the last novel of hers I had left to read. I put it off for quite some time, I think mostly because I was a bit wary of one of my favorite contemporary authors writing in a completely different genre. I was scared I wouldn't love it as much, and I'll admit I did some skimming during the Simon Snow portions of Fangirl. While my feelings about Carry On aren't as vast and burning as my love for Rainbow's other novels such as Fangirl and Eleanor & Park, I'm so glad to have it as a part of my collection.

So first off, let's discuss the Potter-shaped elephant in the room. Is this book similar to Harry Potter? Definitely. Fangirl gives off the vibe that the Simon Snow books are in Cath's universe to what the Harry Potter books are in ours, with a Draco/Harry shipping fanfiction twist. The parallels are impossible to ignore, with a trio of friends, elitist old magic families, and even a "Hagrid" type character who herds Watford's ghosts and has a checkered past. However, I went into this book almost expecting it to be a bit of a parody on Harry Potter, and I found it to be really fun and funny. Yes, it's very meta and self-aware in some ways, especially in the ways it integrates pop culture references and non-magic society so seamlessly, as opposed to HP's closed off system where Hogwarts doesn't have a whole lot of interaction with Muggle popular culture. A lot of the characters also seemed to be hilarious caricatures of HP characters (Penny is the smart and sassy friend who is always getting Simon out of his messes, Simon is like Harry if he was all brawn and no brains, Baz is Draco from every fan fiction writer's fantasies, etc.) Halfway through the book though the plot starts to diverge from HP and become a bit more unique, so it's not unbearably similar, although the resemblance is undeniably there.

While Rowell's writing is delightful as ever, I did find this novel lacked a coherent feel that the rest of her novels do (coherent as in she writes delightful standalones that feel fleshed out and well-thought out). Carry On is obviously supposed to be a last book in a series, so the feeling of missing out on a certain amount of context and the need for info dumping is rather inevitable. However, I would have appreciated a least a bit more explanation regarding how the magic system (based on words) worked, and the running motif of magic being finite, something that can be "used up" or wasted.

But let's talk about BAZ. I LOVE HIM. He is my precious, angsty bb. Even though I found Simon to be highly, highly annoying I couldn't help but root for their romance because I wanted Baz to be happy and to be his authentic self despite all of the old magic family high expectations placed upon him. He's pretty much everything my 13 year old fanfiction loving self wanted Draco to be (I was big into the Draco/Hermione FF, not gonna lie). I pretty much knew going in what was going to happen with the romance after reading Fangirl/reading reviews/general book community discussion, but I still think Rowell did such a great job building up the romance and showing the sometimes tenuous line between love and hate (I mean Simon's chronic obsession with Baz, even when he still hates him, is pretty telling).

Also, although I'm not sure this is a book I'd reread I'm absolutely obsessed with the new paperback cover that's coming out in 2017. I may have to buck all of my book buying resolutions for 2017 and have Amazon Prime ship it straight to me please&thankyou.

Overall: Carry On bears strong associations with the Harry Potter series, but becomes it's own, fun story if you stick with it. While the novel is subject to a lot of info-dumping and feels about 150 pages too long, Baz and Simon's story is silly and fun and just meta enough to put a smile on your face. I liked Carry On, but it doesn't quite compare to my love of Rainbow's contemporary novels.This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[jesstheaudiobookworm]

4.5 star ★ Audiobook⎮I honestly don't know where to start with this review because I'm not really sure what the hell I just heard. But I do know that I liked it. Throughout the entire audiobook, I kept telling myself that this story is like a mystery flavored Bertie's Bott Flavored Bean. It's good (as long as it's not bogey flavored), but no one really knows what they are ingesting. Is it supposed to be fanfiction? Written by Cath? Is it supposed to be part of the original Simon Snow series from Fangirl? All of these questions (and many more) kept popping up while I was listening and I had to keep reminding myself to just go with it. The one thing I am sure of is that this story is too glaringly similar to Harry Potter to be brushed off as a coincidence. Anyone that insists otherwise is fooling themselves. But bless my Harry Potter-loving heart, I don't even care. It's been almost a full decade since the last Harry Potter book was released and I will take what I can get, even if it means devouring watered-down knockoffs. To me, it seems that Rowell obviously knew this book would be seen as an imitation of Rowling's work and decided to take things a bit further by almost making it a work of satire. Certain elements of this story were so ridiculous that I felt Rowell was coming dangerously close to making fun of the reader. Now, that may be pushing it. Maybe I just didn't "get" Rowell's point in writing this. I did really enjoy almost every other element of this story. Rowell has something great here, but naming spells "Have a break. Have a Kit Kat" and other completely asinine things made it difficult to take seriously (yes, I know it Fantasy). At times, it seemed like she was treating the entire book as a spoof and that didn't sit particularly well with me. But that's my only beef and if it hadn't bothered me so much throughout the story, I wouldn't have mentioned it all. I enjoyed this audiobook so freaking much, that I found myself delaying it sometimes just to prolong the experience. I also came to realize that Simon and Baz happen to be the first male/male couple in one of my audiobooks (yeah, I really need more diversity on my TBR). About halfway through this audiobook, I began to ship them SO HARD. Although I liked this story way more than I liked Fangirl, I definitely think I identified more with Cath after listening to Carry On.

Narration review: The narrator absolutely made this audiobook. His voice was so comforting and gave me "warm fuzzies". For the most part, he did a good job of changing his voice and/or accent to help the listener distinguish between the characters. By the way, this audiobook included a little melodic piece before and after the beginning of the audiobook (as some do). It was only after completing the audiobook that I realized how similar the Carry On melody is to the tune used in the Harry Potter films (you know, the one probably playing your head right now). Cheers! ♣︎

[nightingalereads]

3.75 stars.

Loved the characters and writing, but I feel like so much more could have happened plot-wise. Some things felt a little rushed. Still a great book!

[sarahjay]

I have complicated feelings about this book. I did mostly enjoy it, Simon and Baz are adorable, but outside of that it frustrated me from time to time. A lot of the "Britishisms" felt forced and too obviously an American trying to prove she knows British references and words. The plot never really surprised me, except when it did things that didn't actually make sense. I will say that it reminded me a lot of reading Harry Potter fan fiction, and that might sound weird but I mean that as a compliment. I read a lot of amazing HP fic back in the day.

This book wasn't perfect for me but if RR writes more books in this universe, I'll be happy to read them, as long as they aren't about Agatha.

[anne]

Have author crush on Rainbow Rowell and this book just feeds the romance. She is awesome!!!