Carry On – Rainbow Rowell

3.5 stars

“Because we match.”

Rainbow Rowell, you’ve done it again. You’ve taken my heart and squished it with one of your insanely loveable stories.

I’ve wanted to read Carry On for so long. Ever since I put down Fangirl I knew I needed more of Rowell’s stories in my life and Carry On seemed like the perfect way to fill that hole in my heart.

This is the second of Rainbow Rowell’s books that I have read and the one thing that stands out above all else in her stories for me are her characters. Rowell seems to have this supernatural gift where she can make me fall in love with her characters to the point that they seem to cross the line of being fictional characters and I start to care and think of them as much as my actual real life friends.

First she made me fall in love with Cath and Levi, now I literally cannot stop thinking about Baz and Simon. My heart literally bursts with love for them both. Rowell writes such perfect and heart-warming relationships, which for me truly are the emotional core of her books. She writes these mesmerisingly beautiful relationships which haunt your heart for so many days after putting the book down. Its the relationship between Baz and Simon in Carry On which makes its story so warm and comforting, making it almost impossible to put this book down.

 

Although the relationship in this story is of the same sex, I wouldn’t particularly say that this is a story about them being gay. It’s more a story about their relationship and how they come to build that relationship. It’s not about their struggles coming out or dealing with the fact that they’re gay, if you want a story like that then I would suggest Aristotle and Dante or I’ll Give you the Sun. Instead, it’s simply about two people who love each other and how they come to realise their love for each other. It’s simple, it’s wholesome and it’s perfect. Probably one of my favourite relationships I’ve read and I think it’s going to be difficult to beat.

I need to say now that I loved this book. I loved it with all my heart. I read it too quickly because I couldn’t put it down. It was so lovely and so amazing … so then why only 3.5 stars?

I couldn’t give it anymore than this because there were flaws, but I think very personal flaws.

Some of the reasons I couldn’t give it higher were just little things. For example, being too much of a Harry Potter stan (I’m not going to get into this because I’ll come across pretentious and it also has nothing to do with why I gave it less stars).

Also, another little thing, was simply that it was very clear that an American author was trying to write about being British. Being British myself, this was very noticeable … and admittedly a little irritating at times. It stuck out to me when a British character used American idioms and not British (I’ve never really heard anyone in Britain say vomit we’d just say be sick). Also some of the British pop culture references just seemed a little over exaggerated. However, this wasn’t really that jarring and I wouldn’t drop it 1.5 stars for this.

So, the real reason that I’ve really dropped stars on this book is unfortunately my lack of interest in it’s story.

I did really REALLY care about Baz and Simon’s relationship, and that aspect of this story had me hooked, but the adjacent storyline of the Mage and the Humdrum just didn’t float my boat.

I didn’t really care about this other aspect of the story. It was predictable and wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as Baz and Simon’s story. I know that the whole story about defeating the Humdrum and Baz’s mother was crucial to Baz and Simon’s story, but this doesn’t mean it was interesting.

It can be argued that Baz and Simon’s relationship was actually the main story and that everything else was simply an underlying storyline, but for me that wasn’t the case. I have already pointed out that these other story-lines were crucial to the love story, so surely they should be just as important?

I don’t think I can consciously give a book any higher than 3.5 if I didn’t care about a huge chunk of its story, regardless of how much I loved the two main protagonists’ relationship.

Its probably unfair to give Carry On a lower rating than I think it deserves, but for me it was important that I like all components of its story. I didn’t like one of it’s major story-lines and that is a deal breaker for me unfortunately.

That being said… This book was amazing and beautiful. I truly and utterly fell in love with it and I’d recommend it to everyone. I will DEFINITELY be reading another Rainbow Rowell story as soon as I can. I fell in love with Baz and Simon, and I hope to God this is not the last we see of them!