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A review by alexan13
Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
5.0
Initial reaction: I AM NEVER EVER EVER GOING TO BE OVER THIS BOOK MY HEART HAS BEEN RIPPED TO SHREDS can i get the next book right now please i cannot live like this
I finally got my emotions together to figure out how I actually feel about this book, and, as it turns out I think it's a genius continuation of the story. There will be thematic spoilers in this review, though no plot spoilers!
Let me be clear that not everyone is going to like this. Even among fans of Carry On, I'm sure this will be divisive, because the way things are going with Baz and Simon are not the way we as readers want things to be going. There are also certain elements of the plot (the ultimate Big Bad of the novel, for example) that are not quite as well-developed as I would usually like them to be in my fantasy. But the Carry On series has never really been about plot and has always been about character and character arc, so while this part did fall a little flat to me, it doesn't ultimately affect my overall opinion of the book.
Somehow, Wayward Son managed to subvert tropes and expectations and satirize both genre and reader expectations just as much as Carry On did. It was absolutely genius, and the craziest part about it is how much the marketing for this book itself was a part of the creation and subversion of these expectations. (It really speaks to how much online interaction of authors and book fans has increased, that the online marketing can be a tool for telling the story before the book even arrives). From on the internet to on the summary on the novel's jacket, this book is advertised as being a continuation of Simon's story, the "after" of happily-ever-after, a fun road trip novel. It was not advertised (UNTIL TODAY 10/3) that the series would continue beyond Wayward Son but that this would close out the story, answer the unknowns of after (the two titles even for a complete song title, suggesting closure, suggesting an ending).
And then you read the book, with these expectations in mind from the dust jacket alone, and found out that *actually* you were reading a middle book of a series all along. That *actually* ends cannot tie up smoothly. This is such a smart satire of our formal, structural expectations for this kind of series, continuing the self-contained satire of the hero's journey in Carry On and applying it to genre norms of series instead.
Because Simon, Baz, and Penny all start the novel in a certain state of emotional angst, of dissatisfaction with something in their lives, of uncertainty of how to move forward and create new meanings for themselves and their relationships. This is a typical start for a character arc, in which by the end one expects the characters will have grown and resolved their feelings of stasis and inadequacy at the beginning of the novel. (and especially by the end of the ROAD TRIP NOVEL, which suggests a parallel emotional journey) Except in Wayward Son THEY DON'T. There is no character arc, but character stasis stuck in a perpetual state of angst, and the characters end the books mentally and emotionally, and in their relationships (my poor SnowBaz heart could barely take the angst) almost exactly where they began it.
And that's when you realize that the story is not over and, furthermore, is *never* over. I have so much to say about Wayward Son as commentary for how trauma, existential feelings, and general angst cannot be neatly tied up, are not truly fixed in the space of a plot arc in which some external villain is defeated (an internal/external parallelism which our fantasy has taught us to expect), that internal wounds take internal work and spill over and can't be contained.
I want to go more in-depth about all the different tropes that were turned on their head here, but I think I'll need another re-read to do so coherently. It is subtly and intelligently done, so that you don't even quite realize what Rowell is doing until the very end, when you open the last chapter, read it's title, and realize you were reading a middle book all along.
This book is very smart, the angst is ever-present but top-notch, and Baz is, as always, the absolute fucking best.
I finally got my emotions together to figure out how I actually feel about this book, and, as it turns out I think it's a genius continuation of the story. There will be thematic spoilers in this review, though no plot spoilers!
Let me be clear that not everyone is going to like this. Even among fans of Carry On, I'm sure this will be divisive, because the way things are going with Baz and Simon are not the way we as readers want things to be going. There are also certain elements of the plot (the ultimate Big Bad of the novel, for example) that are not quite as well-developed as I would usually like them to be in my fantasy. But the Carry On series has never really been about plot and has always been about character and character arc, so while this part did fall a little flat to me, it doesn't ultimately affect my overall opinion of the book.
Somehow, Wayward Son managed to subvert tropes and expectations and satirize both genre and reader expectations just as much as Carry On did. It was absolutely genius, and the craziest part about it is how much the marketing for this book itself was a part of the creation and subversion of these expectations. (It really speaks to how much online interaction of authors and book fans has increased, that the online marketing can be a tool for telling the story before the book even arrives). From on the internet to on the summary on the novel's jacket, this book is advertised as being a continuation of Simon's story, the "after" of happily-ever-after, a fun road trip novel. It was not advertised (UNTIL TODAY 10/3) that the series would continue beyond Wayward Son but that this would close out the story, answer the unknowns of after (the two titles even for a complete song title, suggesting closure, suggesting an ending).
And then you read the book, with these expectations in mind from the dust jacket alone, and found out that *actually* you were reading a middle book of a series all along. That *actually* ends cannot tie up smoothly. This is such a smart satire of our formal, structural expectations for this kind of series, continuing the self-contained satire of the hero's journey in Carry On and applying it to genre norms of series instead.
Because Simon, Baz, and Penny all start the novel in a certain state of emotional angst, of dissatisfaction with something in their lives, of uncertainty of how to move forward and create new meanings for themselves and their relationships. This is a typical start for a character arc, in which by the end one expects the characters will have grown and resolved their feelings of stasis and inadequacy at the beginning of the novel. (and especially by the end of the ROAD TRIP NOVEL, which suggests a parallel emotional journey) Except in Wayward Son THEY DON'T. There is no character arc, but character stasis stuck in a perpetual state of angst, and the characters end the books mentally and emotionally, and in their relationships (my poor SnowBaz heart could barely take the angst) almost exactly where they began it.
And that's when you realize that the story is not over and, furthermore, is *never* over. I have so much to say about Wayward Son as commentary for how trauma, existential feelings, and general angst cannot be neatly tied up, are not truly fixed in the space of a plot arc in which some external villain is defeated (an internal/external parallelism which our fantasy has taught us to expect), that internal wounds take internal work and spill over and can't be contained.
I want to go more in-depth about all the different tropes that were turned on their head here, but I think I'll need another re-read to do so coherently. It is subtly and intelligently done, so that you don't even quite realize what Rowell is doing until the very end, when you open the last chapter, read it's title, and realize you were reading a middle book all along.
This book is very smart, the angst is ever-present but top-notch, and Baz is, as always, the absolute fucking best.