2016 read #81: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell.

Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow by Rainbow Rowell
522 pages
Published 2015
Read from October 14 to October 24
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5

Simon Snow began his literary life as a Harry Potter pastiche in Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl. Carry On was the title of the Simon Snow slashfic written by the eponymous fangirl, but Rowell (as she says in the closing author's note) wanted to try her hand at writing a Snow novel -- "What would I do with Simon Snow?" It's all a delightfully tangled question of literary ontology and ontogeny.

What matters here is that this is a cracking good tale that begins as the same Harry Potter pastiche we all expected -- the equivalents of Harry and Draco are roommates! there's a brilliant and powerful witch who fills Hermione's shoes! there's an eccentric and vaguely fatherly headmaster who keeps throwing our hero directly into trouble! there's a clique of powerful old wizarding families who don't like the inclusive reforms of the forward-thinking headmaster! -- but quickly carves out its own space in the crowded "magical school" subgenre, and establishes its own tone. As my friend Marlene pointed out, after flipping through the first few pages, the narrative voice is a bit manic -- breathless, rushing along in clipped sentences and fragments and exclamation marks, making only a token effort to distinguish between wildly different perspectives. But once you're into it, and provided you don't lose interest at any point, the writing is swift and engaging. (I must confess, I kinda did lose interest for a bit, after -- spoilers -- Simon and Baz consummate their romantic tension with a kiss in the midst of a literal firestorm of angst, which seems like it should have been the climax of the book, but wasn't.) The romance is well-handled, particularly the aforementioned kissy-facing in the firey woods, and while the magical elements aren't particularly fresh, I feel Rowell held her own with them. And the actual climax, while predictable, was satisfying, and the epilogue was miles better than Harry Potter's.

I did wonder whether Simon's musings on whether he was now "gay" constituted bi erasure or not: Is this an oversight by the author (going from dating the prettiest girl in the school to dating the dangerously sexy vampire boy doesn't necessarily mean you're no longer interested in girls, after all)? Or is this an oversight on the part of the character, who may not have ever been exposed to the concept of bisexuality? I'm leaning toward the former, which is kind of a shame.