Dear Daisy,
hello there, how are you? I hope as marvellous as me? You wonder, why I am this happy? Because I just came back from a magical adventure loaded with lots of feelings. If you want to embark on this journey as well, I can gladly recommend Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On which was originally released by Macmillan in 2015.
The story follows the protagonist Simon Snow and his friends. Their quest? Saving the magickal (not a typo, I promise) world from a creature that threatens to suck all the magic out of it. Sounds like the typical Chosen One story, doesn’t it? I can promise you one thing: it isn’t. The thing is, Simon isn’t very good at wielding his powers. Even though he’s been attending a school for magic for the past seven years and has his witty best friend by his side. (I realise the Harry Potter vibe this is giving off but I’ll talk more about this a bit later). Additionally, he has to share a room with his archenemy and his relationship is going through some serious trouble. You see: things aren’t going well for our knight in shining armour. But that’s exactly what this book is about: A Chosen One who doesn’t fulfil his or her trope.
Having read numerous (and I mean NUMEROUS) of books focusing on said trope I absolutely loved the new perspective Carry On presented. Some of them, I saw coming, others I didn’t and they took me by complete surprise: I hadn’t been aware how quick I was at stereotypically categorising characters.
However, this wasn’t the only thing that made this book an amazing read for me. I also enjoyed that it didn’t so much focus on the action (it did. Don’t get me wrong. There was lots of it.) but also on the characters and their relationships to each other. While Harry Potter (I’m probably over-citing this but I guess it’s the best example.) has a lot of plot and the characters are well rounded, there is a lot of interpersonal stuff we don’t see and/or experience as readers. Partly because we see the whole story through Harry’s eyes and he’s too busy saving the world to focus on anything else– especially in later years. In contrast to that, Carry On is told through varying perspectives. All of which were clearly distinguishable by their style of writing. This allowed for a deeper insight into the characters psyche and made them feel a lot more relatable than just seeing everything through the eyes of one character.
I feel like I have to mention how quick I got through this book: it had an immense pull and immediately drew me in. Though, to be honest, I approached it with a lot of prior-knowledge: I’d read all the Harry Potter novels (numerous times…), plenty of other YA literature and, of course, Fangirl. The latter was the reason I actually got this book: it treats this one as fiction and talks about some aspects of the plot and the characters’ relationships. Hence, I already knew a bit about what was going on. Whilst reading Carry On , I sometimes felt as if it’d have taken me longer to put together all the pieces of the characters and their plottings otherwise. Which isn’t a bad thing, just something to consider: I feel like I’d recommend reading the two books in the order I did to get the most out of one’s experience (though, of course, they can be read individually) – upon finishing this book, I actually felt a strong sense of satisfaction because it answered some of the things left open in Fangirl.
As I’ve already mentioned: there are some parallels to Harry Potter. And I found myself thinking at times (especially in the beginning) that this felt like a fanfiction. A really, really freaking awesome fanfiction. But now that I’m done, I’m not so sure anymore: surely, the book uses tropes that were also used in Harry Potter but in a completely different way: the character constellations as well as their motives and doings are nothing like the ones in Harry Potter. Yes, they go to a wizarding school in England but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The whole point of this book is to make you question tropes you’ve read a hundred times over – and it very successfully does that.
Hence, I’ll leave you with a huge recommendation for this book and gladly further indulge in the positive feeling it left me with.
Love,
Daffy
