Carry On (Review)

If you know me at all then you’ll know I’m a Potterhead from the tips of the fingers on my wand hand to the trail of my Gryffindor cloak. So when I heard about Carry On, which is said to basically be a Harry Potter fanfiction with a male-male romance, I was more than ready to dive in.

Technically, Carry On is a spin-off of Rainbow Rowell’s book Fangirl, where Carry On is more or less the book that Fangirl’s main character is always writing fan fiction about. A book which…I have not read. 

I know. I know. I’m usually such a stickler for reading books in sequential order, but with this one…Harry Potter fanfiction intrigued me much more than a girl-goes-to-college-and-writes-fanfiction-and-maybe-falls-in-love story. So I skipped the latter and went right to the dragon-fighting, vampire-kissing, saving-the-world-like-always, former. Can you blame me for wanting to jump ahead to the good stuff?

Except, at first, it wasn’t that good. Like…at all.

I thought this book would be meant for me. The concept was just too up my (Diagon) alley not to be. When I picked up this book the first time I put it right back down. I told myself that it just ‘wasn’t the right time’ and I ‘wasn’t in the mood.’ But then I picked it up a second time and felt myself dragging my metaphorical reading feet just as much as before. 

But I forced  myself to, well, carry on. 

It was worth it…Eventually.

I don’t mean to exaggerate. It’s not that the beginning is particularly terrible plot-wise or has bad writing or anything like that. It’s just that book one is basically the definition of that song from Urinetown… “Too Much Exposition.” It’s like cramming the first six Harry Potter books into less than 150 pages. 

Most people reading Carry On will already be familiar with Harry Potter and will immediately pick up on how the two are similar, so it seemed to me like it would have been much easier to let the reader assume that all of Harry’s backstory applies to Simon and just get on with it. That way, the reader doesn’t have to slog through dense backstory as they’re also trying to get a grip on how this rendition differs than the original, and get familiar with Rowell’s versions of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, and Draco. 

By the end, however, all the time spent reading up on these past events becomes worth it when the plot veers off from what we know to happen to Harry Potter, so that the story becomes more and more of Rowell’s own creation. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Books 1-4 are where the magic happens (well, actually it happens throughout). This is where we get to see Simon, Penelope, Agatha and Baz become not just mock versions of the classic Harry Potter trio (plus Draco) but where they grow into their own character arcs and backstories. With this comes the famed romance, which I personally found absolutely swoon-worthy. Not just because it satisfies every Drarry-Shippers fantasy, mixed with a little bit of Twilight, but because it’s a great hate-to-love, with emphasis on the hate. The banter here verges on bullying most of the time (they are nemeses after all, and have tried to kill each other before) and creates an absolutely angsty tension that is oh-so-good. 

 “You were the centre of my universe and everything else spun around you.”

I wished at times that we had had seven books to really get to know these characters, but was content enough with what was given. Baz quickly became a favorite character, not only in this book but among all the characters I cherish. He’s Draco but with an even sadder, darker backstory, and more redeeming qualities in the end. Yes. Yes. Yes. I always looked forward to reading his chapters, and selfishly wanted more. 

And there might have actually been more room for his perspective if some of the other characters’ chapters had been cut. There are a lot of perspectives in this book, all of which are written in first person, which often made it confusing. Several times I would lose track of who’s perspective I was with and have to go back to the chapter header to remind myself.  

Many of these chapters were not nearly as interesting as others. Some characters would pop in for only one short chapter in order to give us a particular detail or paragraph of information, and never get another chapter again. This seemed like a bit of an easy-way-out solution to me and I’m sure that there could have been another way for the reveals to occur without needing so many narrators. In truth, I think the book would have been fine (stronger even) with just one or a few perspectives. Simon alone might have sufficed with a little tweaking, or more plausibly, keeping the chapters to Baz, Simon, and Lucy would have been plenty, in my opinion.

“Just when you think you’re having a scene without Simon, he drops in to remind you that everyone else is a supporting character in his catastrophe.” 

 That being said, with all the criticism I have, I still adored this book and I think that any Harry Potter fan who needs a break from rereading the series for the 100th time or so but still loves the world will enjoy it just as much. Drarry shippers and Twilight fans will also get a lot out of this one. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone who isn’t already a fan of Harry Potter, however, since I think the enjoyment of the book rests in the strength of the feels you get as part of the fandom.

I rated Carry On 3.5 out of 5 stars. It has its flaws, for sure, but as for personal enjoyment, it was a five out of five all the way. If you need me, I’ll be waiting for the sequel, Wayward Son, which is set to be released on September 24, 2019, so I can meet with Simon and Baz again.