Carry On (Simon Snow #1) by Rainbow Rowell
"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 starts 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."
“You were the sun, and I was crashing into you.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Carry On
I was late to the game as far as discovering this book. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t buy it. It was on a free table at a Pride celebration and I loved the cover and it became mine. I didn’t know there was a sequel and I didn’t really know much about it. But I’m so glad I did pick it up because it was fantastic.
More honesty: It took me a while to get into it. As I started reading all I could think was how similar it was to Harry Potter, but with every sentence it was simultaneously not like Harry Potter at all. And here I was coming in so late in the story, I felt like I’d missed 6 books before this one. I did some deep breathing and eventually separated the two in my mind... and I fell in love with it.
I am, have always been, probably always will be, a sucker for brooding “bad guys” that turn out to be good people. So I adored Baz.
I also really enjoyed that this was a story told from multiple points of view. I love the juxtaposition of different viewpoints and learning about what’s really happening before the main characters figure it out.
So you probably didn’t need another person to tell you how great this book is, but I’m going to anyway. It’s fantastic, you should read it!
Genre: ya, fantasy, lgbtqia+
Representation: gay, bi
Content Warnings: Abuse, Bullying, Character death, Murder, Racism, Violence