Carry On review
Apr. 18th, 2018 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearAfter reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, I couldn't wait to get my hands on Carry On, which is a sort of companion novel, in that it's set in the world of the fictional novels the protagonist of Fangirl write fanfiction for. In the author's note in the back, Rowell explains that she felt able to leave the 'real world' characters of Fangirl, but struggled with abandoning the fictional world she had only half-created to give Cath's fanfiction a basis. So, she decided to write the end of that story.
And, having read Fangirl, and very much enjoyed the references to and quotes from the Simon Snow novels, I found Carry On immediately compelling and intriguing.
Unfortunately, there were several aspects of it that disappointed me. First of all, coming straight from Fangirl, it's difficult to know what Carry On is trying to be. It's definitely not the last novel in the 'official' Simon Snow series, but it's also not the epic fanfic Cath is writing in Fangirl, even though it shares its title. This is because it necessarily has to contain a huge amount of background detail, to cover the seven books in the series that don't actually exist. And, while this information is important in allowing the reader to understand what's going on, it results in a very artificial introduction to Simon's world. It also combines way too much exposition, with a feeling of having missed out on all the stories that should have come before it.
That aside, I also found the rapid switching between about eight first person narratives very off-putting. Each section was topped by the name of its narrator, but the voices weren't distinct enough for me to be able to keep track of that within the text, and I kept getting confused by who was saying what, and whose head we were in.
On top of that, I initially found Simon himself very stupid and annoying, particularly in his very demeaning attitude towards his girlfriend, Agatha. I liked Penny immediately, and things definitely picked up once Baz finally arrived, but that took 150 pages, which was way too long to wait for him.
For a 517-page book, not that much actually happens, and I found it hard to connect to the characters because I continually felt as if I was coming in on the end of something and missing all the significant history.
Still, it really ramped up in both the action and emotion stakes in the last 100 pages, and the climax was excellent. I loved the way everything got resolved, and the sense of a continuing future for the surviving characters, even if the summarising in the epilogue went on a bit too long.
Overall, it's a great idea, and it's intermittently very enjoyable. But, for me, it doesn't work in the way it's put together, or in what it's trying to do. Give me the whole series of eight Simon Snow books, written in consistent close third person, and I would absolutely be on board. And I guess that's what fanfiction is for...
And, having read Fangirl, and very much enjoyed the references to and quotes from the Simon Snow novels, I found Carry On immediately compelling and intriguing.
Unfortunately, there were several aspects of it that disappointed me. First of all, coming straight from Fangirl, it's difficult to know what Carry On is trying to be. It's definitely not the last novel in the 'official' Simon Snow series, but it's also not the epic fanfic Cath is writing in Fangirl, even though it shares its title. This is because it necessarily has to contain a huge amount of background detail, to cover the seven books in the series that don't actually exist. And, while this information is important in allowing the reader to understand what's going on, it results in a very artificial introduction to Simon's world. It also combines way too much exposition, with a feeling of having missed out on all the stories that should have come before it.
That aside, I also found the rapid switching between about eight first person narratives very off-putting. Each section was topped by the name of its narrator, but the voices weren't distinct enough for me to be able to keep track of that within the text, and I kept getting confused by who was saying what, and whose head we were in.
On top of that, I initially found Simon himself very stupid and annoying, particularly in his very demeaning attitude towards his girlfriend, Agatha. I liked Penny immediately, and things definitely picked up once Baz finally arrived, but that took 150 pages, which was way too long to wait for him.
For a 517-page book, not that much actually happens, and I found it hard to connect to the characters because I continually felt as if I was coming in on the end of something and missing all the significant history.
Still, it really ramped up in both the action and emotion stakes in the last 100 pages, and the climax was excellent. I loved the way everything got resolved, and the sense of a continuing future for the surviving characters, even if the summarising in the epilogue went on a bit too long.
Overall, it's a great idea, and it's intermittently very enjoyable. But, for me, it doesn't work in the way it's put together, or in what it's trying to do. Give me the whole series of eight Simon Snow books, written in consistent close third person, and I would absolutely be on board. And I guess that's what fanfiction is for...
