“bazpitch: He thought I was taking a picture of the view. What an idiot.”

i love these two

I just rated a Rainbow Rowell book a 3. I know. I am waiting for a crack in the sphere to come swallow me whole or for the Humdrum himself to come and suck the life out of me. However, let me explain.

I absolutely with all of my heart loved beyond measure, Fangirl. I was as smitten with Gemma's series, Simon Snow, as I was the story of Cath and Wren. I fell in love with the fictional Simon, Baz, Penny and the Insidious Humdrum. When Fangirl was over, I begged (BEGGED) Rainbow to give us more of this magical story.

And then she wrote Carry On. 

Carry On drops you in to the final installment of Simon Snow, the epic conclusion to a 7 book series created as a fictional story line, in Rainbows fictional stand alone book, Fangirl. Let's be clear, this is not Simon Snow as told by Gemma T Leslie. This also is not canon or fanfic of Simon Snow as written by Cath (MagiCath). This is fanfic, on a fictional set of characters, in a fictional magickal community; as told by Rainbow Rowell. Her story of how Simon Snow would turn out in her world, her canon. The whole time I read Carry On, I felt like I had read this series a long time ago, and now finally the last book was out and it was arcing into it's final, explosive conclusion. In my mind, I must have forgotten story lines, history, magickal family lineages. I kept wanting to go back to my shelf and find the first Simon Snow book and refer back to his first year and the dragon he fought. Or flip to his 5th year quickly and see if I can tell where Baz starts to slip and lets his eyes rest just a moment to long on Simon. 

Every time I started to do that, I had to stop. I desperately wanted background, history, stories from years past. More so, I wanted to know what Gemma wrote, how she ended Simon Snow. I wanted to know what Cath was planning, how she was going to wrap the final installment of Simon Snow, her Carry On. Did Baz have a change of heart, did they fight the Humdrum? Did Agatha turn her back on the magickal community or was she Simon's Ron true and true to the very end? 

We'll never know. And it's not that Rainbow didn't give us a lovely story. She did. It was her story. Her story of Simon's fate. If I were to write fanfic on this fictional group of characters from my favorite fictional book - I might have a different fate for Simon. In fact, I already know what it would be.

So with that, I leave you with my 3 star rating. Still a great book. Still a wonderful addition to a magickal series I wanted so many more details on. I'll leave you with something Penny might say,