March 2, 2016

Book Review | Carry On

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IMG_7442Carry On by Rainbow Rowell is a fan fiction story about Simon Snow, a character introduced in Rowell’s previous book, Fangirl. The main character in Fangirl, Cath, is an avid fan of the Simon Snow book series which follows a boy wizard in the UK (sound familiar?), and she is writing her own fan fiction called ‘Carry On’ as she waits for the final book in the series to be released. Rainbow Rowell herself said she wanted to write a Simon Snow story as she enjoyed coming up with the world for Fangirl. However, this version of ‘Carry On’ is not the same one Cath is writing in the book. So this book is a fan fiction of a fan fiction of a fictional character of a fictional series in another Rowell book that heavily references another fictional series. IT IS ALL TOO META TO HANDLE. Which is probably why it took me way longer to read this than I expected.

I honestly had to listen to the audiobook while reading this. The multiple perspectives kept throwing me off too much to actually hold my focus without the audio. One thing I noticed is that the narrator was reading a proof or an early draft because some of the words and sentences were not the same in the book as they were in the audio.

Once I started to get a little more into the book I started to enjoy it. The story focuses primarily on Simon, the Chosen One who kind of stinks at being the Chosen One, and his roommate, Baz. Simon is convinced that his roommate and nemesis is a vampire and obsesses over it the entire time. Baz, on the other hand, is wrestling with the knowledge that he doesn’t actually hate Simon. There is also a story surrounding a point of time when spirits can return to the mortal world to visit with their loved ones and a secret power that could potentially save or destroy the magical community.

I did enjoy the story for the most part. I found all of the characters, with the exception of Simon himself (he could be kind of annoying), to be very interesting, especially Baz and Agatha. There were a lot of references to previous years at Watford that sounded a bit more interesting than some of the scenes we did get, but as this is supposed to be a fan fiction to an existing series in the Fangirl universe, I suppose we will just have to imagine those other adventures on our own. The only thing to me that was a little wishy-washy was the romance. The Simon-Baz story had some cute moments, but most of the time it came across as obsessive infatuation (specifically on Simon’s end). I might read this again, or at least listen to the audiobook during a commute to work, but if you are interested in giving this a try, check out from your local library first.

Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars.

What did you think of Carry On? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading!

February 23, 2015

Book Review| Landline

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Posted by in Book Reviews

Hey y’all! Today I am doing a review of Landline by Rainbow Rowell.

I have had this on my shelf since it came out and I thought it was about time to pick it up. It seemed like a good book for the month of February.

I absolutely love Rainbow Rowell’s writing. I read Eleanor and Park and Fangirl around this time last year, and couldn’t get over how amazing those stories. Her characters have such strong voices, and are so engaging you never want to stop reading, but you eventually have to because the book ends and then you’re left feeling sad.

I swear, she must have like a magic pen or something that magically makes her books phenomenal.

But enough raving about Rainbow, let’s get on with the review!

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Landline follows a woman named Georgie McCool who is going through a bit of a rough patch in her marriage because she is always so busy working as a TV writer and never has time to see her family. She and her coworker/best friend Seth have been given the opportunity to create their own show, something they have been wanting to do since they met in college, but they have to work over the Christmas holiday to get it done, which annoys Georgie’s husband Neal. Neal tells Georgie that he is going to take their daughters to see his mother in Omaha which they had already planned on doing, but Georgie stays behind to work on the show and she watches them leave for the airport. She ends up crashing at her mom’s house that night after a busy day of writing with Seth. When she goes to call her family to see if they got in okay, her cell phone battery begins acting up so she ends up using an old yellow rotary phone she had when she was younger. Somehow the rotary phone allows her to communicate with Neal back in 1998 right before he proposed to her. Georgie realizes that this is an opportunity to fix her marriage, and finds herself falling in love with Neal all over again. However, she knows Neal isn’t happy and she has to decide whether she should convince past Neal to break up with her so he can live a better life without her.

I got this when it first came out since it was around my birthday, and I have no clue why I kept pushing it back on my TBR because it was great. It was a bit harder to relate to the characters in this story since they were in their thirties, but I didn’t mind too much because the actual plot was interesting.

I really enjoyed the conversations between Georgie and past Neal. It was cute seeing her fall head over heels again. I knew she loved him in the present, but it was adorable watching Georgia finding that spark with Neal. Got me all in the feels.

Also, the flashbacks to them when they were in college were really sweet. It was easy to see that, even if they didn’t always communicate that well about their feelings, they were they worked really well as a couple.

And that little Easter Egg with Cath and Levi from Fangirl in there giving Georgie a ride in the red pickup truck! Oh my gosh! I loved it! I was so excited when I read that part and realized that was them. You honestly don’t understand how excited I get when that kind of stuff pops up in books and movies.

Now let’s talk about the characters: I loved Georgie and Neal and Alice and Noomi. They were the cutest little family. I could tell that Georgie really loved her kids and her husband even if she didn’t get to see them all the time because of her job.

I also really liked Heather. I thought she was funny, and it was nice that Georgie and Heather had a good friendship despite there being such a wide age gap between them.

Seth was…okay. I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t love him either. He was one of those people that I wouldn’t mind being friends with, but I would have to take small doses of him. I couldn’t be best friends with him like Georgie.

This was an overall fantastic read, not that I expected anything less from Rainbow Rowell. I gave this a 4.5 on Goodreads, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes John Green.