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A review by theplantsalivesed
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
3.0
I'll start off by saying I enjoyed the book and the characters (particularly Baz) are wonderful, as was the adorable central romance. But there were some things that left it feeling dissatisfying to the point that even though I started out loving the book, it declined to a sort of acceptance at the end. That sounds scary so let me just say that I think the book is still worth reading.
It's just that the character development didn't really happen except with Baz and, less so, Penelope. Simon, the main character, doesn't really grow at all--he has the barest development personality-wise--and this is in part due to the way the author treats key information and who does and does not know it. It also feels like the author could not quite decide how she wanted us to feel about the "big bad" and initial stabs toward the description of a borderline abusive relationship dramatically shift tone, presumably to try to make said baddie a more sympathetic figure.
I've avoided spoilers in the above, but below I'll lay out some of my thoughts with spoilers included.
The borderline abusive relationship I refer to above is in reference to Lucy and the Mage. He isolates her, neglects her, uses her to the point that her life revolves solely around him, and she admits that her situation is so bad that she lies to her mother in all of the messages she sends, and avoids contacting her close friend for fear of her stealing her away on a broomstick. He kills her god**mn chickens. Everything in the relationship centers around his wants and of course she goes along with it because she's so isolated she has no one else to turn to . But rather than addressing the kind of disturbing dynamic created here (again, the dramatic isolation is what sticks out here--isolation when they conceive Simon, and lethal isolation again when he is born), it is kind of swept to the side with these almost platitudinous descriptions of how the Mage "cared for and loved both of them."
Is it supposed to come off as an abuse victim defending her abuser, as so commonly happens? If so, I'm not sure how well it was handled.
Part of the problem with how it was handled is that Simon never really gains any of the information about his parents that the reader has. Simon...well, he's no closer to knowing himself from the beginning of the book as compared to the end. He seems to become more comfortable with his sexuality at the least, and he's in therapy, and the Humdrum and no-magic spaces left by it are wonderful allegories for trauma, but it was still dissatisfying.
He does not and will not know the Mage is his father. Even if he receives the photograph from Agatha in the mail, he'll never realize it is his parents he's looking at. He doesn't have that information. The reader does, the character doesn't. And that lack of information directly contributed to a kind of lack of satisfying development on Simon's part.
Other unaddressed points are Ebb and her brother Nicodemus. He wants to see her, to save her, but she dies and there's no mention of whether he ever gets any closure with his sister or not. He just kind of offers help, gets rejected, then never comes up again.
All of these together tie together to make a messy climax/conclusion...and none of the things characters apparently learn throughout the story really seem to contribute to the events of final climax which made it even more...meh. Baz would have attacked the Mage even if the reader was not already aware he let the vampires into the nursery from about 200 pages prior when we learn of the uncanny timing.
The Humdrum being Simon is also evident from probably 400 pages earlier, and rather than dealing with the emotional significance or complexity of it, in some way (given that it was made extremely clear that the Humdrum was Simon even from the beginning of the book), Rowell instead writes as though the Humdrum being Simon is a mystery throughout, making the "big reveal" at the end less impactful than it otherwise could have been given a different approach. And I strongly believe she could have done a really good job dealing with the desperate connection between Simon and magic (and acceptance, and love, etc.)--just looking back at the first few pages, where he refuses to cast simple spells because he's so scared of it turning out to be false (as well as, of course, the exploding issue), the longing is absolutely raw.
Tying all of these together, then, is the issue of pacing. As I was reading, I felt that the events of the first 350 pages could very well have taken place within the first 150. It wasn't an issue of slow pacing, so much as that things seemed to be happening, but when you pay attention nothing is actually moving forward and despite smaller interesting things happening, it felt like they were somehow stretched. This was, I think, in part because it's the beginning of the year one moment, then it's Halloween, then all of a sudden it's Christmas and the end of the story. We don't really get as much a feel for the everyday rhythm of the world. We get tantalizing glimpses, but there is no space for the characters to breathe. I'm not expressing myself well, I suppose.
Having said all of that, it was a good book, and I do recommend reading it. It just felt unsatisfying in some ways. I loved Baz and Simon together, and the way things ultimately ended up in regard to the London flat, but it could have been so much better.
It's just that the character development didn't really happen except with Baz and, less so, Penelope. Simon, the main character, doesn't really grow at all--he has the barest development personality-wise--and this is in part due to the way the author treats key information and who does and does not know it. It also feels like the author could not quite decide how she wanted us to feel about the "big bad" and initial stabs toward the description of a borderline abusive relationship dramatically shift tone, presumably to try to make said baddie a more sympathetic figure.
I've avoided spoilers in the above, but below I'll lay out some of my thoughts with spoilers included.
Spoiler
First, I have mild distaste for stories with fridged moms and asshole dads--who are always, inevitably, the reason the mom gets shoved off the mortal coil to begin with. In this case, we have the infamous death-by-childbirth style of fridging.The borderline abusive relationship I refer to above is in reference to Lucy and the Mage. He isolates her, neglects her, uses her to the point that her life revolves solely around him, and she admits that her situation is so bad that she lies to her mother in all of the messages she sends, and avoids contacting her close friend for fear of her stealing her away on a broomstick. He kills her god**mn chickens. Everything in the relationship centers around his wants and of course she goes along with it because she's so isolated she has no one else to turn to . But rather than addressing the kind of disturbing dynamic created here (again, the dramatic isolation is what sticks out here--isolation when they conceive Simon, and lethal isolation again when he is born), it is kind of swept to the side with these almost platitudinous descriptions of how the Mage "cared for and loved both of them."
Is it supposed to come off as an abuse victim defending her abuser, as so commonly happens? If so, I'm not sure how well it was handled.
Part of the problem with how it was handled is that Simon never really gains any of the information about his parents that the reader has. Simon...well, he's no closer to knowing himself from the beginning of the book as compared to the end. He seems to become more comfortable with his sexuality at the least, and he's in therapy, and the Humdrum and no-magic spaces left by it are wonderful allegories for trauma, but it was still dissatisfying.
He does not and will not know the Mage is his father. Even if he receives the photograph from Agatha in the mail, he'll never realize it is his parents he's looking at. He doesn't have that information. The reader does, the character doesn't. And that lack of information directly contributed to a kind of lack of satisfying development on Simon's part.
Other unaddressed points are Ebb and her brother Nicodemus. He wants to see her, to save her, but she dies and there's no mention of whether he ever gets any closure with his sister or not. He just kind of offers help, gets rejected, then never comes up again.
All of these together tie together to make a messy climax/conclusion...and none of the things characters apparently learn throughout the story really seem to contribute to the events of final climax which made it even more...meh. Baz would have attacked the Mage even if the reader was not already aware he let the vampires into the nursery from about 200 pages prior when we learn of the uncanny timing.
The Humdrum being Simon is also evident from probably 400 pages earlier, and rather than dealing with the emotional significance or complexity of it, in some way (given that it was made extremely clear that the Humdrum was Simon even from the beginning of the book), Rowell instead writes as though the Humdrum being Simon is a mystery throughout, making the "big reveal" at the end less impactful than it otherwise could have been given a different approach. And I strongly believe she could have done a really good job dealing with the desperate connection between Simon and magic (and acceptance, and love, etc.)--just looking back at the first few pages, where he refuses to cast simple spells because he's so scared of it turning out to be false (as well as, of course, the exploding issue), the longing is absolutely raw.
Tying all of these together, then, is the issue of pacing. As I was reading, I felt that the events of the first 350 pages could very well have taken place within the first 150. It wasn't an issue of slow pacing, so much as that things seemed to be happening, but when you pay attention nothing is actually moving forward and despite smaller interesting things happening, it felt like they were somehow stretched. This was, I think, in part because it's the beginning of the year one moment, then it's Halloween, then all of a sudden it's Christmas and the end of the story. We don't really get as much a feel for the everyday rhythm of the world. We get tantalizing glimpses, but there is no space for the characters to breathe. I'm not expressing myself well, I suppose.
Having said all of that, it was a good book, and I do recommend reading it. It just felt unsatisfying in some ways. I loved Baz and Simon together, and the way things ultimately ended up in regard to the London flat, but it could have been so much better.