Just finished #1 New York Times bestseller that follows the adventures of Simon Snow, a dragon, and a vampire…
Star Rating: 4 1/2
Transcript
Paul Cram: Oh hello everybody. I am Paul Cram. I literally just finished reading Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On and I wanted to hop on and just share some of my thoughts. Do a little bit of a book review. Talk about it.
I’m going to try to avoid doing any really severe plot, you know spoilers. In this review I’m just going to kind of share what’s on my mind. It’s kind of where my head’s at, so I’m going to avoid spoilers as much as I can.
Gosh! This book made me feel all the feels in a really nice way.
I really enjoy the world that she built and created.
I’ll give a star rating here towards the front-end of my review, and then I’ll dive into some of that thought about the world, because I have more to add to that thought about the world that that these characters are existing in.
I would give this book a solid four stars.
Yeah I’d give this a book a solid four, and, actually no wait, I would give it a four and a half. Definitely. Yeah.
I know. Recently I’m still kind of getting my footing with the book review ratings that I’m doing.
Recently I did a review of the book Scythe and in thinking about it I was like you know one-to-five stars. I’m thinking about it if I had a redo on that one that I would say that Scythe for me was a three and a half almost a four.
You know this one, Rainbow’s Carry On this this this is a solid four and a half stars.
I just found myself really enjoying the world and of being immersed in that. Isn’t that wonderful when you’re reading a book and you just forget what page you’re on and how long you’ve been reading because you’re swirling up in the world?! It’s wonderful, and that hasn’t happened for me for a while, so I was really happy to have that happen.
Now I have to say I knew nothing about this book when I bought it other than that I really thought that the cover art was really beautiful.
The cover art design is by Olga Gurlick. And Olga, I gotta say ‘bang up job!’ Because your art is what prompted me to buy this. I was like ‘that’s beautiful.’ I like the colors. It just, it caught me.
For anybody that’s listening that can’t see the cover art — the cover art, it has like this swishing purple-toned dragon behind the two main characters. It’s done in a really nice sort of a, it’s almost looking like a watercolor, but the colors are so vivid! Yeah it’s just really well done.
And it has the two main characters in the book Simon and Baz on the cover. Baz is holding a wand and Simon is holding his sword.
They look sharp.
Dapper.
Yeah, hair tousled. A really good cover design.
So I bought the book, it came, I started reading it and I was like ‘What is going on though?’ Like I read the first couple of chapters and I literally, I did, I took the book and I threw it down and I was irritated.
I was like ‘what is going on?
This is a complete ripoff of the Harry Potter series.
The way that the book starts. This is an utter and complete ripoff of Harry Potter. Even down to, again I love this book design by the way, I like that on the inside they have utilized on the inside, they did some black printing. You can see like little stars. They quote one of the lines in the book you were the sun and I was crashing into you.
But you fold it out and there’s a map of Watford, which again it’s a very Hogwarts-esque style, if you would, which I didn’t realize it at first, until I started reading, and I was like ‘okay I’m mad!’
So I went online I did some searches. such as: “What in the world? Why is Carry On so popular when it is a complete ripoff of Harry Potter?”
And lo and behold, it’s supposed to be.
This is actually like a love letter to Harry Potter. This is a sort of fan fiction piece that has just been elevated in the most wonderful way.
So I was I when I found that out I was like I don’t know about this because I do, am a Harry Potter fan. I really enjoyed reading all of J.K. Rowling’s books. And I begrudgingly picked this back up. Thinking to myself ‘all right let’s see where we go.’
And I’m so glad that I did because I thoroughly thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed this. It it did it I was like the author really really really pays homage in the most wonderful way to the magical world and it’s so obvious that it’s, I already said it, but it’s like a love letter to Harry Potter to J.K. Rowling. It’s just beautiful and it’s really well done.
Something else that I at first, again I wasn’t totally sure about, was that each chapter — and the chapters range from just a page or two to 10 or 15 pages. But each of them jumps from a character’s perspective to another character’s. In what that character is thinking and they kind of become the narrator of what’s going on.
I’ve seen that done before with like longer chapters but not quite like this where it really does ,it jumps from person to person, and it’s fun. I really enjoyed that.
So I just I have to share about getting towards, like three-fourths of the way through, Rainbow does this really clever and humorous thing with the writing and I belly laughed. Oh my gosh I belly laughed. It has to do with tempo and it has to do with these chapters jumping from person to person to person. So fast forward here, if you don’t want to, if you want to experience this you for yourself without me telling you, but I am going to just tell people.
So Simon is talking and he has his chapter, and he’s he’s talking towards the end of the chapter, he literally says “I wish I knew what he was thinking…” and it jumps to Baz’s chapter and all it is is one line. It says “I don’t know what I’m thinking.” And then it jumps back to Simon and he goes on and on. And it was hysterical. It is so well done. Kudos to you Rainbow! Because that was, it I belly laughed so hard. You are using such wonderful beats in the writing. So I appreciated that.
Another thing I really laughed about, was this. There’s a chapter in here where the character of Agatha, we have a few characters, I’ll just say their names really quick, there’s Simon. Baz. Penelope, and Agatha. These four friends. Agatha is talking and she’s describing Penny one of the other friends, she says Penny’s already dressed, she’s got her hair pulled back in a giant frizzy ponytail that would probably be nice and wavy if she’d put any product in it at all. Anything. Hand lotion. Shaving cream.
I’m probably not doing it justice but it was really funny to me. It just is really insightful into Agatha. I loved it. Made me laugh.
Can I read this next part without it being too much of a spoiler?
[Thinks}
No. I can’t.
So there was another part in here towards the end that I really liked. There’s a character, I’m not gonna mention who just kicked me in the chest in the most wonderful way. I was just like ‘oh oh it’s so good.’ I’ll refer to a completely different series. In The Hunger Games books, in book one, oh my gosh her name’s roo right? Roo? Roo? I might be mixing up some characters, but in the same way that in The Hunger Games the first book where, oh my gosh, it just kicked me in the chest so hard when Roo she dies.
There’s a spoiler for The Hunger Games. I think I’m okay saying that. But in this book there’s there’s a completely different character and she had that same effect on me. Because of who she was, because of how she chose to, I’m kind of, I don’t know, it is a, she… but I’m gonna leave it at that.
Something that I was excited about was Fangirl. Apparently in Fangirl there’s connections to Carry On you know, and actually I will say before I read Carry On, I am familiar with some of Rainbow Rowell’s work like I did read her graphic novel Pumpkin Heads, and also the other graphic novel, um oh my gosh the name is totally escaping me, and I didn’t realize that there’s a connection to this until I was just like ‘well duh!’ So Rainbow has this entire world that she is playing with, and yeah, if you can get over that hump of frustration like I did, And then started to understand what was actually going on. I’ve really started to appreciate it and I’m excited for book number two, and number three. Yeah I think I’m gonna end it on there you guys.
I really appreciate everybody.
If you haven’t checked it out I recommend it. I enjoyed it. Yeah if you have different thoughts than I please share. I always enjoy chatting and talking and hearing other people’s takes on things that I’ve read and I love chitter-chatter so let me know alright I hope you have a really good night!
Thanks.