Enjoy this great post from our spectacular substitute librarian, Amanda:
The bestselling, award-winning author, Rainbow Rowell is perhaps best known for her book Eleanor &Park. That book, a young adult novel about a teenage romance in the 80’s, quickly became one of my favorite books of all time. I have since read many other books that Ms. Rowell has put out including Attachments and Landline, her adult fiction novels, and her other young adult novel Fangirl.
Let me take a moment to explain to you the brilliance that is Fangirl. This book is about twin sisters that go off to college. One sister is super excited about typical college life experiences and the idea of creating her own identity and the other… well the other is Cath. Cath has no interest in developing a new social life and has anxiety when her sister decides not to be her roommate in college. She has to meet new people!? She would rather just stay indoors and write her Simon Snow fan fiction. Simon Snow is a book much like the Harry Potter Series. An orphan boy goes to a magical school and he must defeat an evil called the Humdrum. As an obsessed teen, I too wrote fanfiction. I, too, was a little uneasy my first year away at college. This book spoke to me and it was one of those rare books I actually read twice in a row. Needless to say, the announcement of Carry On made me extremely excited.
What is Carry On, exactly? This masterpiece is the very Simon Snow fanfiction that Cath wrote in Fangirl. Cath has a huge following in the book of other fans who read her story called Carry On, Simon. This story is meant to be the fanfiction version of the last Simon Snow book. She writes it before the real final book is released and posted it online. In her story, Simon and his arch nemesis at school, Basil, fall in love. The ACTUAL book that Rainbow Rowell wrote is that fanfiction from the Fangirl universe. Mind = blown.
Carry On was all I hoped it would be. It was funny, smart, and heartwarming. It made me remember fondly the days of reading Harry Potter and yet… and yet, it is its own thing. Rainbow Rowell has managed to create a beautifully unique world that actually fixes a lot of problems I had with the Harry Potter series. The characters are very real and flawed; much like in Rowell’s other realistic fiction. I also loved the idea that magic has to come from somewhere and keep in balance. It reads like fanfiction, which is not a bad thing. The story ends in a way that you won’t predict, but that you will love just the same.
You can probably read Carry On without reading Fangirl. Even so, I would recommend them as a pair so you can appreciate the story on a deeper level. I cannot recommend these books or others by Rainbow Rowell enough. Must reads, all of them!
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