Title: Carry On
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Genre: YA, Romance, LGBTQ, Fantasy
The first book in Rainbow Rowell's Simon Snow series is based on a fictional Harry Potter fanfic from her earlier work, "Fangirl". In other words, a character in "Fangirl" writes Harry/Draco fanfics, and then Rowell herself decided she wasn't ready to let these new characters go, and proceeded to write an actual three-book magickal school series about Simon Snow, his romantic interest Baz (Basilton) Grimm-Pitch, and their friends Penelope Bunce and Agatha Wellbelove.
The first book in the series takes on the mantle of the "Chosen One" and plays around with this trope in new and exciting ways. What's great about this series is it starts off with its characters in their final year of school, and takes readers well beyond scholastic stomping grounds across the American interstate (book two), and into London apartment living (book three). The emphasis is not on the school aspect at all, though it does provide an important backdrop and narrative context, and the lore is fun but arguably secondary to the emotional core of the stories, and the personal growth the characters undergo. With emotional themes foreground, the characters' personal struggles and difficulties are arguably more nuanced in many ways than traditional fantasy, and take on an entirely different tone, reading more like a slice-of-life novel.
Rowell's intentional diversification of her characters feels like a much-needed salve for a much-beloved story structure. The world Rowell builds is far less insular than a series like Harry Potter, and reads more like queer YA magical realism with occasional nods to high fantasy conventions and just enough absurdist details to keep things interesting. A perfect and compulsively readable winter escape for this twenty-something that leaves me feeling like quite the fangirl, myself.
- Adam
Check out Carry On by Rainbow Rowell @ the library!
