brooke_the_shnook 's review for:

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

3.5

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3.5 stars. Ok, so this book was pretty fun and was really easy to keep reading, but I did have some problems with it. The main one being that the reader is dumped at the climax of the story. Because it is obviously based on Harry Potter which is told over 7 books, that feeling of just showing up at the end is even stronger. There is a lot of history the characters reveal throughout the novel, but you kind of feel disconnected from it. I recommend you read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell first, which is where this story originates as an meta series, and you get a ton of context via excerpts from the Simon Snow books (which exists in Fangirl as a 7 book series). I absolutely love the concept of an author creating a fictional book series within a novel, and then just writes that story for real, but Carry On just wasn’t quite as full as I was hoping. I think in order to really enjoy this book, you need to have read Fangirl, and be familiar with and enjoy fan-fiction. It honestly just made me want to read like 100,000+ word Wolfstar or maybe Drarry fics because those are the tropes Carry On is built on, just not nearly as in depth 🤷🏼‍♀️ all in all, pretty fun read. I’ll be reading the next two in the series, for sure!  READ BETWEEN THE SPINES APR 2023