Review: Carry On (Simon Snow #1) by Rainbow Rowell

Carry On (Simon Snow #1) by Rainbow Rowell

Release Date: October 6, 2015

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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.

This was fun! Major Harry Potter fanfic vibes but the story and characters grew on me by 150 pages in. Especially once I got used to the parallels with HP. This book switches between character POVs, which worked really well for the romance aspect of the story between Simon and Baz. Their enemies-to-lovers romance was so enjoyable and the banter between them never failed to make me smile. I can see why SnowBaz has such a big following because they are adorable and must be protected at all costs.

I also loved the friendship between Simon and Penelope. Their constant support and love for each and the way they are absolutely on the same wavelength made chapters with these 2 a lot of fun.

Simon gives off major HP vibes in terms of his character because he is an orphan, found by the headmaster of the magic school, and takes him under his wing, he doesn't have anywhere to spend holidays, etc. Over the course of the book these parallels became less jarring especially when you start to warm to Simon's character. I liked how bits and pieces started to come together toward the end for the big reveal. However, I wasn't surprised by the plot twist all that much but I still enjoyed how the events at the end unfolded.

The plot of this book was slow at the start, or I couldn't really see where it was going. But in short, there is a murder mystery in which our main characters set out to solve as well as keeping an eye out for the bad guy of the story the Insidious Humdrum who is a widespread threat to the magic world. 

I can't wait to see where the story goes in the sequel Wayword Son and I look forward to seeing the cast of characters again! 

Rating

3.5 Falling Books