Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

For those of you who don’t know, Carry On is a spinoff of Fangirl, also by Rainbow Rowell. It’s essentially the fanfic that Cath wrote in Fangirl, although the excerpts of that fanfiction aren’t actually in Carry On. I read Fangirl a while ago and reread it before starting Carry On, but as far as I can tell, it stands alone just fine. If you’ve read Fangirl, you’ll obviously already know what the main pairing is and a little bit about the world, but that information didn’t make the book any less enjoyable. With that in mind, on to the actual review.

Carry On felt like a Harry Potter fanfic that was just very AU. That’s honestly the best possible description I can think of. The magic system is really different, and the school isn’t Hogwarts, and the villain isn’t Voldemort, but it still felt like Harry Potter in so many ways. A lot of the characters had a pretty strong resemblance to Harry Potter characters, but not in a way that made them feel exactly the same…. Take a really AU and OOC Harry Potter fanfic, imagine an AU of that, and that’s Carry On.

Simon was actually a really amazing protagonist. He was likable, and yes, reminiscent of Harry, but not a carbon copy. Baz was….. amazing. I loved Baz. So much. And Penelope was great. Agatha was one of those characters who isn’t particularly likable, but is still somehow a character that I became fond of. I really can’t think of any way to talk about most of this book without spoiling it. Mostly because it’s just Harry Potter comparisons left and right and everyone would figure out the plot if I listed off all of those comparisons.

I think Carry On might be a little bit too much like Harry Potter for some people, but if the really strong resemblance doesn’t bother you, then I would highly recommend it. The magic system alone is interesting enough to make the book worth looking into. I loved it, honestly.

Spoiler warning for the rest of this review. For Carry On and Harry Potter.

Rebel Spring by Morgan Rhodes

Rebel Spring is the second book in the Falling Kingdoms series, a fantasy series that follows four protagonists on different sides of a war. I read Falling Kingdoms a really long time ago, (I want to say two or three years, after finding it in an airport bookstore. I have no idea why I remember that.)and since it started getting really popular, I’ve been meaning to continue with the series. I reread Falling Kingdoms before I started Rebel Spring, and I abruptly remembered why it took me so long to get the second book. It’s because I absolutely hated all of the main characters. I spent all of Falling Kingdoms fairly interested in the plot and in the world-building, but also kind of hoping that the four major characters would just fall by the wayside and let the minor characters that I actually liked take over. Honestly, Falling Kingdoms is not a book I really enjoy. Almost every time I started liking a character, they died. And as I said, I found all of the major characters incredibly immature and annoying. Regardless of my feelings towards Falling Kingdoms, however, I already owned Rebel Spring, so I started it, hoping that it would be better.

And it was, at least in some ways. The events of Falling Kingdoms forced Cleo, Jonas, Magnus, and Lucia to grow up a little bit and they all got less annoying for me. The plot was a bit better in Rebel Spring as well, and while some minor characters I liked were killed off, again, I got more invested in some other minor characters. As the second book in a series, it’s hard to say much about it without spoiling the first book or trying to judge unfinished plot and characters arcs, so I’m just going to end the spoiler-free part of this review here. I’d recommend giving Falling Kingdoms a try, as the things that bothered me about it don’t seem to be an issue for a lot of people. If you’ve already read Falling Kingdoms and you liked it, I would definitely recommend continuing with the series. I get the impression that it’ll improve more with every book. I’m not certain if I’m going to continue with this series, but maybe if I happen to go to the library or find cheap copies somewhere.

There are spoilers in the rest of this review.

Alexander the Great Trilogy by Mary Renault

First things first, some context. Last semester, I took a class on Alexander the Great, and I absolutely loved it. Needless to say, I’m still not quite ready to let go of one of my favorite historical figures. I’d heard good things about this trilogy before I even took the class, so naturally I wanted to read it even more once I realized just how much I was enjoying myself. Luckily, someone lent the entire trilogy to me a couple weeks ago. I did enjoy it a lot, although I had issues with some of the choices Mary Renault made regarding which parts of Alexander’s life to focus on.

Some of this review will be very biased because of how much I love Alexander the Great. I cry whenever I read Arrian’s The Campaigns of Alexander. So. There’s that. As this trilogy is based off historical events, I’m not going to bother refraining from including spoilers. From here on out, there will probably be a lot of spoilers and some ranting about historians I don’t like.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

I feel like I’m easy to please, because I keep saying that I really liked books, but then again, I might just be picking good books. A friend told me to read Neverwhere a few months ago, and I finally got around to picking it up. I’m glad I did. I’ve been meaning to read more Neil Gaiman ever since I read Stardust a while ago, and I feel like this was a good place to start.

For one thing, it was refreshing to read a fantasy stand-alone. It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve read fantasy that wasn’t part of a series. As much as I love getting to spend several books exploring characters or plots, it’s sometimes nice to have everything wrapped up in one book. As a bonus, I loved the ending, so I didn’t feel the need for more of a story, even though there was certainly room for more.

Neverwhere is about an alternate version of London that exists below the real London. The protagonist, Richard, is pulled into the other London after he stops to help a hurt girl and finds that his choice to help her is keeping him from his normal life. Richard was one of my favorite things about this book. He spends much of the book trying to get his normal life back, but despite that selfish motive, he constantly chooses to help his friends or even complete strangers whenever possible. I loved that he was so kind the entire time, even in stressful circumstances. It was great to see a character whose defining trait was something other than bravery. Richard isn’t even particularly brave. He does brave things, but I wouldn’t consider him an inherently brave person as much as most protagonists seem to be, and that made him so likable to me.

I also either liked or was interested in all of the other characters. They were all completely different from each other, but yet could all conceivably  belong to the same world. Richard was definitely my favorite though.

The ending was perfect to me, the final choice was exactly what I was hoping for, though I won’t say more than that so I don’t spoil anything for those of you who are, like me, jumping on the Neil Gaiman bandwagon a little bit late.

Anyway, while this isn’t going to be one of my new favorite books, it was very good, I’m glad I read it, and I can’t wait to read more of Neil Gaiman’s writing.