WAYWARD SON by Rainbow Rowell

Rating: A classic muscle car on a dark deserted highway with a radio playing a commercial-free rock station.

Highlight of note: Magic-wielding Brits on a roadtrip across the US.

Will you read more in this series? YES! As soon as more is published.

Several years ago, I was at a party in Pennsylvania where an enthusiastic Englishman told all assembled of his plan to drive to California via the Grand Canyon then back via Mount Rushmore in time to spend a day or two in New York City before flying home. "Sounds great!" we said. "So how long are you here for total? A month?" The man blinked and told us he was planning to do all of this before the next weekend. He clearly had absolutely no idea how far from each other any of these places are. I thought of him during this book when our heroes suddenly realize that driving from Chicago to LA is going to take them more than a few hours. "How was I supposed to know all those little states are the size of France?" the mastermind of the plan exclaimed. "I've never even heard of Nebraska!"

This book takes off after the conclusion of Carry On, which you may remember I enjoyed. Simon Snow has defeated the big bad guy and saved the world! (Or the wizarding world anyway.) He hooked up with the vampiric wizard he's been denying being in love with years. And he grew a set of nifty wings. But he also lost his ability to use magic and any sense of purpose he possessed, leaving him a depressed couch potato who has stopped bothering with his classes at uni and lounges about drinking cider all day while he waits for his boyfriend, Baz, to have enough of this and break up with him.

Enter Simon's best friend, Penny. She decides the best way to cure Simon's funk is a change of scenery. She's a bit worried about their friend Agatha, who is attending school in California. So what could be better than whisking Simon (and his hot vampire boyfriend) to the States? They'd land in Chicago, pick up her boyfriend even though he'd told her not to come visit, and take a roadtrip to the West Coast.

As you may be expecting, things don't go smoothly. Not only is the US much larger than the kids realized, but our loveable wizards are hopelessly lost. Physically, culturally, and even, at times magically. You see, the spells in this universe are powered by local non-magical usage. The spells are all common phrases with results that make sense based on meaning. So "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" would help you find your lost keys whereas "Spotless!" will clean its target. The kids know this, so would expect their spells not to work in China, but Americans speak English, right? So why isn't "Sod off!" doing anything to repel those attacking vampires? And even worse than the words of spells sometimes needing to change, there are sections of the country were magic doesn't work at all because there aren't enough human beings saying anything in the region. Oh, and Penny was right to be worried about Agatha. She needs rescuing ASAP.

It's the humor of the book that really made me happy with it, but it came with a good deal of cutting pain as well. Simon and Baz are deeply in love, but not happy. Each of them are convinced they're on the verge of both causing and receiving heartbreak, certain their beloved is about to leave them, and confident that they are going to be destroyed by either this relationship or its ending. In fact, in the opening chapter, Simon comes within half a sentence of dumping Baz to save Baz the trouble of dumping him, completely unaware of how scared Baz is of losing him. They probably just need a really long and deep talk, but they're both too terrified to start one. While the situation could easily have felt melodramatic and manufactured, it actually read as organic and honest.

And on the subject of pain... As someone who breaks out in painful rashes when exposed to sunlight, may I just say that I really felt for the poor vampire forced to drive through the heartlands in an open convertible? It really was a thoughtlessly cruel choice of vehicle, although in Penny's defense, she apparently thought the trip was going to be about three hours long and probably didn't understand how sunny it gets in America.

I remembered loving the first book, but when I reread my review of it, I'd ranked it merely as "like" instead. This one is a solid "love" though. I think the difference may be that I've already been introduced to this universe and am already invested in Baz and Simon's relationship. Also, Baz has narration from the beginning this time, and as he remains my favorite character this may have been a factor. I also think that the new bad guys may have helped because while I wasn't too surprised by them and they were fairly shallow, they were less like Voldemort ripoffs than the opposition in Book One.

There will be at least one more book in this series, which is evident from the ending. While all the main plotlines from this episode get tied up, new things are introduced in the closing chapter that point toward the start of the third installment. I'm really looking forward to it.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers. 

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Notes

1% Simon Snow saved the world. And is now seriously depressed. But somehow I feel worse for Baz.

5% I got a really bad feeling about this Josh guy. If nothing else, why is he dating a socially awkward teenager? Sure, she's college aged, but...

11% 'everyone in America seems to drive a military transport' Snort! Indeed.

16% Brits never do understand the size of this country.

17% Yeah, making a vampire drive across the US is ridiculously cruel.

39% OMG. A wereskunk!

45% I like Shepard. I wonder how he'll make it back into the narrative. Since he got his own POV chapter, I assume he will.

48% So, I'm guessing Braden knows Agatha is a magic user and is trying to figure out how to modify genes so that anyone can do it. Or trying to steal her abilities or magic. Or something like that.

53% Yay Shepard! Although I'm really questioning his name. It's too on the nose...

54% I can totally buy that some mountains are sleeping dragons.

81% Lamb's the King of Los Vegas. Nice. I figured he was someone impressive.

85% You know, now that we've established vampires don't usually kill their prey (at least in the US) the slaughter of several of them at the Renn Faire seems pretty awful.

86% Yes, Penny. You should totally have called your mum. You were supposed to be smart.

88% Yeah, I guess it was silly to believe Lamb didn't want to know how to cast magic. He obviously has series beef with mages. Why help rescue one?

88% Of course there are guns. It's the US. Duh.

97% They're taking Shepard home to try to cute his curse. I really hope there's going to be a Book 3 about this.

98% Cliffhanger ending. So, yeah, there will be a Book 3. Yay!

FANGIRL by Rainbow Rowell

Thing of Note: Needs a trigger warning for anxiety. 

The main character's social anxiety is described accurately enough for me to have a panic attack in response to it. This is also the reason I'm marking the book Did Not Finish and moving on in the third chapter. The book isn't bad, but I can't handle this level of triggering right now.

I didn't read enough of this book to feel that I should give it things like ratings. It's probably a good book; a lot of people think it is anyway. And it's the book Simon Snow was born in and I quite liked his book, Carry On. But this girl is me.

To be fair, Cath's not reacting as poorly as the me who's reading about this is. (I'm crying as I type this, but think it's important to get out. Both for my mental health and to help others understand.) But she's doing things I did in my high school dorm. The only reason I survived there with my anxiety was that I had a room to myself after the first month. (That month was HARD. I was with my sister, who doesn't actually trigger my anxiety, but she had a constant stream of friends, many of whom were there to play games on my computer since this was before most students had one. I spent a lot of time huddled in the corner of my bed hiding in a book as I struggled not to sob until I was alone. My fellow dormies weren't bad, scary people. They weren't toxic or anything. If anything, they were unusually nice people in general. But even when I had my own room, my anxiety was a constant. More than once I'd cower next to my door desperately needing to pee but waiting until I couldn't hear anyone in the hall to sprint to the bathroom.)

The spot I broke off in features Cath sitting at her computer. She wants to write but can't because there are Other People moving around behind her. She's starving, but can't eat. Why? Because she hasn't managed to force her way to the cafeteria yet (I spent two years not eating meals because I couldn't handle mine) and she doesn't want to break out her jar of peanut butter in front of the roommate and the roommate's boyfriend.

Maybe Cath pulls out of this, although if she does it for any reason other than obtaining a proper diagnosis, suitable medication, and an excellent therapist, I'd call it abilist bullshit. As she doesn't even seem to recognize she has an anxiety disorder, I'm not optimistic. It's also possible she winds up in a hospital, but my money is on she makes some friends and suddenly everything is better because that's the sort of inane thing people have advised me to do. It's the exact same crap as telling someone with depression that they'd be better if they watched more comedies.

The cover material describes Cath as "outside of her comfort zone" which I feel was a significant understatement. If it had been more honest about the degree of "discomfort" I probably would have avoided it, or at least not tried to read it while I was going through a period of increased anxiety.

I'm not going to bother adding my notes because I've shared most of what was in them anyway. I related to Cath. Then I related too much. Then I couldn't breathe or see the screen through my tears. Then I was meditating in the dark trying to calm down enough to possibly go to sleep.

This morning, I told someone, "I think I have to abandon the book I'm reading. It's triggering my anxiety." She stopped me there and said, "Do it. You're crying just saying that much and no one is forcing you to read this thing."

So... Yeah. I'm going to post this, cry a little, and start a cheesy hockey romance novel I bought a while back because everything in my library reading queue is too serious and dark for today.

And maybe tomorrow I'll review the book I read before starting this one. I renjoyed it and it didn't make me cry at all.

CARRY ON by Rainbow Rowell

Rating: A magically procured cranberry scone with extra butter

Highlight of note: What could easily have been a shallow Harry Potter rip-off actually took on life and substance in its own right.

Would you read more by this author? I plan to, yes. Although I am sad there's nothing else set in this world.

This book was recommended to me in an article of LGBTQ+ stories not to miss and I started it without knowing its background. That background is kind of important though. In another novel, Rainbow Rowell has a character who is obsessed with writing fanfic. Rather than use an existing fandom, she created one around Simon Snow, a wizard who goes to a school of magic and who is very hard to tell from Harry Potter.

While I haven't read that book yet (Fangirl) I've read other books that use imaginary fandoms that left me really wishing the thing were real, so I think it's pretty cool that Rowell went on to write an actual Simon Snow novel.

We start off in his final year of magic school with plenty of references to exciting things that have happened in the past, so it really feels like the final book in a series. I would almost ask why not tell the whole thing, but I think that would just be too much. Also, this final installment is largely a romance. One of the pair realized he was in love years ago, but the other one didn't even realize he experiences same-sex attraction until partway through this book, so early books would have had a different focus and Rowell appears to be like me in that she really only wants to write romances.

The parallels to Potter are many and I think it's inevitable that a reader would start off comparing the two. Oddly enough, it didn't take me very long to get sucked into this though. (Heh. I said "sucked." That's funny because one of the main characters is a vampire.) The characters seemed truly genuine and fully formed, the plot moved along nicely (especially after Baz's appearance), and the conclusion was satisfactory. I'll admit I foresaw some things that were probably supposed to be surprises, but I think most of the clues were subtle enough that someone reading more casually might have missed some of them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Much more than I expected to a few chapters in while I was still going, "OK, so it's Harry Potter except Ron's a girl and is dating Harry? And Harry and Malfoy are roommates.... Gotcha." This could very easily have devolved into mediocre fanfic, but I was pleasantly surprised to really like it. In fact, I wish this was more in this universe about what happens after the novel's conclusion.

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Below you'll find the notes I took as I read. Clearly, they contain major spoilers. (Although the 4% update is simply a catalog of similarities to Harry Potter  if you want to see what I mean about those.)

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Notes

4% So, they've dropped us into Harry Potter Book Seven... Or I guess maybe eight as they spend eight years at this school rather than Hogwarts' seven. Although it's established that weird exciting things have been happening since he started the school, we begin in Simon's eighth year.

The Potter parallels are many and obvious. An orphan of unusual power, an English school of magic, and an old wizard mentor who insists on sending kids home every summer even though they're in the middle of a war and thinks suffering in the non-magical world every summer is going to help our hero...

There's a Big Bad Guy. Apparently he can summon Simon and did just before summer break last term but not since, because he also works on the school schedule.

Simon has two good friends he hangs out with all the time. They're both girls, one whom is super-smart and the other of whom he's dating.

His favorite things about school include magically awesome food and sports, although at least he plays football rather than some weird made up sport with broken rules. (If you want a rant on the importance of game balance, we can have a discussion on how the snitch breaks quidditch.) Also, he's not a sports super-star, although his roommate is.

The roommate comes from an old magic family with snooty attitudes and a belief that people with inferior bloodlines and less magic power shouldn't be mixing with them. He's wanted to kill Simon since they met but apparently hasn't gotten around to it yet despite living with him for seven years.

And Hagrid is female and keeps goats instead of weird and dangerous magic critters.

So basically, it's Harry Potter except Harry plays football poorly, rooms with Malfoy, and dates Ron, who's a girl in this universe. Oh! And is willing to use the word "fuck."

I'm not sure how I feel about all of this. I think it's supposed to be a humourous take on everything, but it doesn't feel comedic.


5% Simon just beheaded a goblin can driver. So, certainly a higher level of violence than Potter. Also, the spells are apparently all based on song lyrics and movie quotes, which is interesting.

9% Chapter 6 is three lines from the perspective of someone named Lucy. We have no idea who she is.

10% The Mage says that the Humdrum only attacks while Simon is at school. Also, the Old Families are threatening to rebel against his rule. (He is not only headmaster of the school but whatever this universe is calling the Minister of Magic.)

12% The veil between life and afterlife is thinking and ghosts are crossing it. I'm guessing this explains Lucy.

13% Chapter 10 is one page from the Mage's point of view and is about how he's trying to figure out how to protect Simon. But he says "I could hide Simon from the Humdrum itself." Which implies he's letting the Humdrum find Simon over and over. Perhaps he's hoping Simon will come into his full power if threatened enough? Which leads to the question of what he wants that power for. (Also itself. Not himself. It's seeming more like the Nothing from Neverending Story than Voldemort. Although sometimes it looks like Simon.)

25% "I can't break up with Simon for a Tory vampire. My parents would disown me." Lol. And I'm sitting here wondering which is worse, the Tory part or the vampire bit? Because I could make an argument either way.

28% I don't think the Baz's mom's ghost came back. I think that was Lucy. And I think she's Simon's mom. Also suspecting Davey (aka the Mage) might be his dad. I'm less sure about that. I don't trust him though.

29% I can't tell if I'm supposed to or not, but I like Baz.

29% Baz just narrated that the Minotaur was trying to cow him. ::Snicker::

33% Baz is in love Simon! That's pretty excellent.

40% I've been wondering about these raids the Mage is conducting. Penny's mom connecting them to the Nazis helps solidify this distrust. I am far from convinced the Mage is the good guy. When you add in Lucy calling his rise to power a revolution, I'm starting to wonder if he killed Baz's mom... I'd suspect him of controlling the Humdrum too if it weren't for Chapter 10. The way he said he could hide Simon from it didn't sound like he was commanding it.

52% Um... The magic peeps at my know anything about Christianity and celebrate Samhain. So why do they observe Christmas? (And we did it take me so long to question that when it's been referenced before?)

57% "Kiss him? Kill him? Improvise?" Lol. I love Baz.

66% That was a fantastic first kiss!

72% " ...but their whole love-triangle dynamic is so persistently stupid, you can't blame me for blocking it out." Lol, Penny.

79% Arresting Ebb seems like it's going to cause the Mage a lot of trouble...

82% I think I'm understanding the link between Simon and the Humdrum. Simon is super powerful because he drains the energy from places. I'm not sure why the part of him that drains things seems to have a personality though.

85% I was right about the Mage being behind Baz's mum's death. Go me!

98% THE END It's a really sad that Simon never got to hear any of what Lucy was trying to tell him. He doesn't even realize who his parents were... But the rest of the ending made me happy. :)