YA Book Club recap by Kara Eng, grade 11

Summary:

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 sets 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.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story — but far, far more monsters.

For January’s YA Book Club, we read Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. The novel was supposed to be the book that Fangirl’s protagonist fangirled over. YA Book Club had mixed reviews. While we initially couldn’t stop comparing characters to Harry Potter, eventually these characters diverged and became their own stories and people. Most of us liked Baz’s narration the most and almost all of us disliked Agatha’s story. Some talked about how there were too many narrations to keep up with and that the transitions between their narrations happened too quickly, leaving readers a little unsettled and disoriented. We also found some issues with the plot. The beginning of the novel starts off with lots of lead up to a big showdown between the Old Families and Simon, but the novel ends on a completely different note, not addressing the headache it had worked to create and describe.

Despite its shortcomings, a lot of us liked the logic behind the magic. It made things much more realistic and understandable than traditional magical explanations. This magical world also seems much more relatable. The normal world and the magic seem to converge on a regular basis. And, although we had our criticisms, we were surprised by all of the plot twists. It was hard to predict what would happen next.

YA Book Club gave Carry On an average of 2/5 stars.


 

This meeting was moderated by Kara Eng, grade 11, from the Teen Advisory Board.