Review: Carry On

Carry On
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Published: October 6th, 2015
522 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

Simon Snow is the worst chosen one who’s ever been chosen.

That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.

Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here—it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story—but far, far more monsters.

Carry On started out as a fan fiction Cath is writing in Rainbow's book, Fangirl, We all figured it would be just that - fan fiction - until the glorious day Rainbow announced she was writing it and publishing it. We met Simon Snow and his vampire roommate Baz as they migrated the wizarding world and passing classes. It was pretty much Harry Potter but with some guy on guy action and the snippets we got were wonderfully written and intriguing so I was really excited to pick this one up when it hit shelves. I can't say I wasn't flabbergasted since this book is pretty much Harry Potter. But this one stands on its own to me and I enjoyed every minute of it, though I'd still love a Fangirl sequel too.

Simon Snow has just started his final year at the Watford School of Magicks and it's already off to a rough start. His roommate, Baz, hasn't shown up yet and he's being visited by a couple of ghosts. Not to mention he still hasn't perfected his magic and is pretty sure he isn't the real chosen one. Most wizards have life figured out before they graduate. but Simon has no idea what will happen next, he mostly just really wants Baz back.

This story intrigued me from start to finish. There was a lot of action, some spooky moments, and the love between Simon and Baz was magnificent. I love a good story where two people who supposedly hate each other realize just the opposite and fall in love. These two have such a fun relationship. They bicker all the time, Simon is scared to go near Baz's bed yet can't get enough of him. There were scenes that I remembered from Fangirl that made me smile. I love that Rainbow incorporated what we already knew about this series and this fan fiction and turned it into something real. The characters leaped off the pages and even though they bore similarities to real characters from the Harry Potter series, they still held up as their own people.

I love a good magic slash ghost slash love story and Simon and Baz delivered on all fronts. I love that Simon was able to find out who he really could be and that him and Baz were able to realixe their love for each other. They certainly had some swoon worthy moments and Rainbow knows how to write a good kissing scene for sure. I had a lot of fun reading this and it made me want to reread Fangirl so badly but I haven't really found the time to do that yet. Hopefully soon because I miss Cath and Levi as much as I'm sure I'll miss Simon and Baz soon. I'm not going to lie, I've been fangirling over this since it was announced and even though I'm finished it and have many books since it, I'm still all fluttery about these two, just like I still am with Cath and Levi.

“You have to pretend you get an endgame. You have to carry on like you will; otherwise, you can't carry on at all.”

Review: Landline

Landline
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Published: July 8, 2014
Hardcover, 310 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it's been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply - but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they're supposed to visit Neal's family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can't go. She's a TV writer, and something's come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her - Neal is always a little upset with Georgie - but she doesn't expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she's finally done it. If she's ruined everything. 

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It's not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she's been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts...

Is that what she's supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened? 

Rainbow's books have all been so different that it's hard to compare them. Fangirl's Cath is nothing like Eleanor and Park's Eleanor (or Park) and Lincoln and Beth from Attachments are in a league of their own. So when I met Georgie and Neal, I had no exceptions of them being anything like her other characters and I knew their story would be totally different. They are in a whole different place in life that all her other characters, they are in the part where things get hard and love doesn't come so easy. You have to work at it if you want to make it work and I loved that she wrote a book about a marriage falling apart and trying to pick up the pieces. It hurt to read it, a lot of parts reminded me of my boyfriend and I, but part of me knew if I got through the rough parts, there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. Rainbow captures the downside to falling in love, the aftermath of those cute moments where you finally found someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, and it was sad and it hurt, but it was more real than anything else I've ever read from her.

Georgie is the bread-winner in the family, having her own TV show and letting Neal stay home with the kids. She has always put her job first and she decides to do it again at Christmas, choosing to stay and work instead of going with Neal to visit his family. She doesn't think it will be that bad, until he leaves without her and she can't seem to get a hold of him on his phone while he's gone. Torn between her job and her family, Georgie ends up at her mom's house, eager for some sense of comfort. One night she picks up her mom's landline and tries Neal again. This time she gets through, only she's talking to a Neal from the past, from when they first started dating and were at a point in their lives when they were trying to decide if they would get married. Through talking to him in the past and flashbacks from their early lives together, Georgie pieces together their relationship in a way that makes her wonder if she made the right choice staying with him. The further she falls from Present Neal, the more she reverts to her old self with Past Neal and forces herself to make a decision - stay or go?

The phone calls were my favourite. I love the reminiscent feeling when Georgie begins falling for her husband all over again. Rainbow captured so many feelings in these 300 pages and I had felt everyone of them. In a short period of time, I felt how Georgie fell in love, stayed in love, and ever so slowly, started falling out of it. Then I watched as she tried to fix it, maybe too late, but tried nonetheless. The pace was perfect, the flashbacks were right where they needed to be, and Rainbow made me root for Georgie and Neal the whole way through. This read differently than her other books, but I enjoyed it just as much as the rest. It would be the perfect Christmas book (or movie) and the magic phone gave it just enough extra magic to make me fall in love. It somehow seemed very realistic in the book and I love how Rainbow talked about it, not believing it as much as Georgie didn't. This book captured all the obstacles that couples face, married or not, and those moments where you're not sure you've made the right choice in life. Rainbow's writing is perfect - funny, sad, and heartwarming all at once and I fell more in love with her as I fell in love with her characters. This book may be hard for some people to read, those who are experiencing what Georgie and Neal are going through, but it's worth it to try and find that happy ending.

"Neal didn't take Georgie's breath away. Maybe the opposite. But that was okay - that was really good, actually, to be near someone who filled your lungs with air."

Review: Attachments

Attachments
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Punslished: April 14, 2011
Paperback, 336 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?

When you work at a newspaper office, there's only so much you can do to entertain yourself. Go on Facebook, take a lot of breaks or send out emails to your co-workers. And if you're friends with someone you work with, why not chat through emails even though you aren't supposed to be sending out personal ones? Ya, someone is monitoring it, but you really need to talk to someone about your day or your love life. Jennifer and Beth love to email each other and they get as personal as it comes. Lincoln, the new email security officer has been reading their emails for a while. He should have flagged them the first time one popped up, instead he just read it, and read the next, and now there is mention of him in the emails but it's too late to introduce himself to Beth, whom he's falling for. The more he reads, the more he wants to say something and as their lives drift slowly together, maybe there's a chance of finding a love that they didn't even know could exist.

Rowell has a fantastic way with words. I fell in love with her teen novels, Eleanor and Park and Fangirl, and I'm happy to say I loved this one just as much. It started off different than most books I've read. Jennifer and Beth conversations are solely through their emails so what we know of them is the same as what Lincoln knows. Lincoln's story is written in narrative and we quickly learn about his past and how he ended up working overnights at the newspaper. We see exactly how Lincoln thinks about these girls, knowing more about their love lives than most others might. He knows that Jennifer doesn't want kids and that Beth isn't as happy as she could be. But the more he reads them, the more invasive he feels, especially once he decides he wants to meet Beth. I was waiting and hoping for the moment that they would finally meet. There are few parts where they see each other but don't know it, and the dramatic tension is perfectly written. The events that transpired made me think they may never meet and I was worried about how it would all play out. There were funny moments and sad moments and moments that made me want to re-read the sentences because they were beauitful. This is a book that proves that not all relationships are created equal. We all meet people different ways, there is no right or wrong way to fall in love. And though this one was a little out of the ordinary, it felt real and gave me butterflies. 

Rowell writes uncommon romances, the kind that stick with us long after we've closed the book. They feel real because they happen in normal situation to normal people. Lincoln is not gorgeous and has been dumped. Beth is in an unhealthy relationship and doesn't feel as loved as she could be. Jennifer is happily married but that does not mean all is well. Real people with real problems just trying to get through life. And when love comes along, there is no side pointing you in the right direction, there are no guidelines or rules as to how it will all play out, it just happens, maybe in an instant, maybe over a few years, but when it does, you will never forget the moments leading up to it. And trust me, it's always worth it. Rowell has easily become one of my favourite authors and I can't wait to read her next book, Landline, which is due out in July 2014.

“There are moments when you can't believe something wonderful is happening. And there are moments when your entire consciousness is filled with knowing absolutely that something wonderful is happening.”

Top Ten Tuesday: New to Me Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we talk about a bookish topic in the form of lists!

This week's topic is: Top Ten new authors to us of 2013

I love discovering new authors, and this year was full of them!

1. Rainbow Rowell: Fangirl, Eleanor & Park
2. Richelle Mead: Vampire Academy
3. Chelsea Pitcher: The S Word

4. Stephanie Perkins: Anna and the French Kiss, Lola and the Boy Next Door
5. Daisy Whitney: The Mockingbirds
6. Rachel Alpine: Canary

7. Jenny Han: The Summer I Turned Pretty, It's Not Summer Without You, We'll Always Have Summer
8. Tiffany Schmidt: Send Me A Sign
9. Kasie West: Pivot Point
10. Holly Black: White Cat, Red Glove, Black Heart

I hope to discover more amazing authors in the new year (though I have no doubt I will!) Who have been some of your faves this year?

Review: Fangirl

Fangirl
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Published: September 10, 2013
Hardcover, 433 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . . But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.


Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.


For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

There are not enough words in the english language to explain how much I adored this book. Everything from the characters to the plot were unique and real. Cath is a lot like most of the people I know - scared about change and takes solace in reading and writing and escaping the real world. She's a fangirl. She loves Simon Snow and writes fan fiction after fan fiction about Simon and his nemesis, Baz, where she can create a world of her own within a world already made for her. Cath and her twin sister, Wren, used to write the fics together, but then college starts and everything changes. Wren decides she wants to branch out and not be roommates with Cath as promised. So she ends up on her own, not sure if she can handle everything that goes along with it. She isn't sure if her roommate, Reagan, even likes her, and Reagan's boyfriend, Levi, is annoying and always seems to be around. Classes start taking their tole and the only thing that keeps Cath going is her fan fiction and the anticipation of the final book in the Simon Snow series.

This is just a book following the first year of college for a girl who doesn't make friends easily. There is nothing special about Cath. She is not drop dead gorgeous, nor does she wear nice clothes and go out to parties. But even though this is an ordinary tale, it left me feeling like I'd just entered a magical world and didn't want to come back to reality. Rowell has a way with words and just as in Eleanor & Park, those words took normal lives and made them unforgettable. I related to Cath in more ways than one. The feelings Cath goes through are ones I've been feeling all my life. School is hard, especially when you need to go through it on your own, and sometimes making friends isn't as easy as they say it is. It's easy to hide behind a computer and a screen name and write about a world that you know people will love. Fan fiction is Cath's escape, and we all have one of those. 

The secondary characters are just as strong and likeable as Cath is. Wren goes through the change of being in college the opposite way of Cath, drinking and partying, which is a completely normal way to try and find your own identity. Cath makes friends with a guy in her writing class, Nick, who helps her venture out of her writing habits as they teach each other new skills. Then there's Levi. Levi is the perfect counterpart for Cath. He is friendly with everyone he meets and forces Cath to leave the shell she's put around herself. He enjoys her writing and lets her read to him. Their relationship starts out like most real relationships would - as friends. But there's no looking past the chemistry between these two and the moment they finally get together is a breath of fresh air. 

This book is not all fun and games though, it's realistic in many ways. Cath has a lot of mother issues and her father isn't very stable, especially with the girls at college. It's heartbreaking one page, then fills your heart right back up on the next. It captures the essence of college, of finding out who you really are, and how change can be a good thing. This will be the book of a generation, a book for girls who hide behind books until their brave enough to enter the real world. And, hey, it's not so bad most of the time, but I'll never leave my books behind. 

“She didn't have words for what Levi was. He was a cave painting. He was The Red Ballon. She lifted her heels and pulled him forward until his face was so close, she could look at only one of his eyes at a time. "You're magic," she said.” 

“Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. “It’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.” 

Review: Eleanor & Park *Book 50!*

Eleanor & Park
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Published: February 26, 2013
Hardcover, 328 pages
5 Gold Stars

(summary from Goodreads)

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under.

The characters in this book by no means have perfect lives. They are labelled as misfits, but I think they are just ordinary. A lot of us felt like misfits in school, maybe because we were different and didn't fit into the stereotypical cool crowd. I certainly felt like a misfit in high school. Eleanor is a bigger girl with bright red curly hair and a wild fashion sense to match. It's 1986 and she's just moved back in with her mom and siblings after living with a foster family for a year. Starting a new school is hard enough, but it's worse when you have to take a bus and can't find a place to sit. Enter Park, a half white, half Korean boy who has been accepted in school even though he feels he doesn't fit in. He lets Eleanor sit beside him, against his better judgement, putting a start to what will soon be a love story about star-crossed lovers with a love of all things nerdy.

It starts out slow, this relationship between two unlikely kids. Eleanor spends her days trying to get through school and wishing she didn't have to go home to her abusive step father. Park tries to avoid his father who is pressuring him to drive and be someone he's not. But on the bus, he reads his comics and Eleanor reads over his shoulder. Their relationship begins like this, no words, just comics. Soon Park is giving Eleanor comics and more and more words are being said. Every interaction between them gave me the shivers and I couldn't wait for something more to happen. It's simple how they fall in love, realistic and how many teenagers in real life probably would. And when things do start to happen, it's wonderful and made me melt. These two are just perfect, on their own and for each other. The story is told by both Eleanor and Park, sometimes whole chapters, sometimes just paragraphs. I loved when Rowell would have the point of view switch during a scene, allowing us readers to hear both lovers's thoughts as they trailed through the unknown together. 

The love in this book flies off the pages. When Eleanor and Park are alone together, everything is perfect in the world. Nothing can stop these two from giving each other their all. There is so much love that it's hard to know that they must leave each other and go back to places they don't want to be. And where the love makes my heart flutter, the abuse and bad family life makes me shutter. It's all too real when the love Eleanor feels for Park is the only thing keeping her there. There were wonderful moments in this book, but then there were terrible moments, moments I wish I didn't have to read because I wish moments like this didn't happen in real life. But they do and this made the book even more real. Every word gave me a new emotion. Every page left me wanting more. Every thought from Eleanor made me fall for Park and every way that Park described Eleanor made me smile. These two are unique, and maybe they are misfits who listen to The Smiths and make each other mix tapes and hold hands like it's the most important thing to do in the world, but that's what keeps them in my mind long after I've read the book. Rowell is a writer. She knows how to make you feel and fall and wish you were on that bus, watching these two teenagers find the love we all hope to find in our lives. 

He set his forehead against hers. She didn’t know what to do with her eyes or her hands. “Nothing before you counts,” he said. “And I can’t even imagine an after.”

“You can be Han Solo,” he said, kissing her throat. “And I’ll be Boba Fett. I’ll cross the sky for you.”