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.
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.
Keep Calm and Listen On: The Carry On Audiobook Experience
I’m always happy when I get the chance to “listen” to our book club choices! Since Carry On is a whopper of a book at over 500 pages it was great to maximize my reading time with the audiobook. The Carry On audiobook is just under 14 hours and is read by Euan Morton. Thank you to Macmillan Audio for sending me a copy!
The Carry On hardcover is really lovely inside and out, with illustrations, maps and an eye-catching dust jacket. But in the audiobook, Euan Morton’s narration makes the story a feast for the ears that I felt lucky to experience and I didn’t feel like I missed out on anything.
Carry On is Rainbow Rowell’s first foray into fantasy and is a spinoff of sorts of her 2013 book Fangirl. In Fangirl, Cath writes slash fan fiction about two popular characters from the Harry-Potter-like Simon Snow series. We got a taste of some of that fanfic between the pages of Fangirl, and now Rowell fleshes out Simon and Baz’s story in Carry On. Carry On can be read as a standalone, and don’t let the fantasy element put you off. There is still a lot of the Rainbow Rowell you know and love from her contemporary work in this accessible and fun fantasy. Potterheads will of course dig this too!
In the Fangirl audiobook, Rebecca Lowman performs Cath’s story while Maxwell Caulfield performs the fanfic portion. It was cool to hear the fanfic narrated in a different storytelling style- though I wasn’t fully engaged with the story-within-a-story. What I’m saying is my favorite part of Fangirl was not Simon and Baz’s story- so I was not sure how I’d connect to Carry On. But this story exceeded my expectations, and I quickly fell for Simon & Baz. There is a great combo of magic, friendship, mystery and romance that kept me captivated. And as we discussed in our book club chat, reading this made me want to revisit the Simon & Baz chapters in Fangirl.
Audiobook narrator Euan Morton is a great fit for Carry On. The book is told in multi pov, though this mainly through Simon and Baz’s eyes. Morton brings the characters to life with his performance so that you feel like you are right there at the Watford School of Magicks. Morton delivers a sophisticated performance and gets to the heart of each character. I particularly liked his reading of Baz, and he made me love the character more than I already did. I did speed up the narration to about 1.25 to suit my listening preference and that worked out well. The intro music was a nice touch too. I’m sure I’ll be listening to this one again.
Listen to an excerpt:
Next Month:
Hope you’ll read-along with us in December as we discuss DELICATE MONSTERS by Stephanie Kuehn.
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I’m kind of leery of this too because of the fantasy aspect but, Rainbow Rowell! I’m glad to see you liked it.
I have this one, just haven’t got around to reading it yet…