BRO
bro
Meyer Month (more like Meyer Months now) is on PAUSE
that is right, it is P A U S E D
There are only two reasons I would pause it, and that is if I got lazy, or if i read a book that needs to be talked about NOW. Let me tell you it is not the first reason, but because I have read the most FANTASTIC two books I must blog about. One of those books i will talk about later, and as soon as i've got them all nicely written about i'll go back to Meyer Month. But as of now, i have bigger books to talk about. Starting with our first, Carry On!
18-year-old Simon Snow is the chosen one everyone's heard about. He's the great mage who's come to save the world of magic as we know it, the magician who's magical abilities exceed all other's. Despite the whole "chosen one" prophesy, Simon is far from a great mage. Sure, he has more magic than any other magician he's known, but that magic seems to make everything explode with even a simple spell. Even Simon's only friend Penelope and his mentor, The Mage, the headmaster of Watford School of Magic, think there's something wrong with him. To make matters even worse, Simon has to put up with Baz, his evil roommate who has it out for him. Oh, and Simon is convinced Baz is a vampire.
Simon is expected to be the greatest mage ever lived, as well as take down the magic-sucking creature threatening Watford. It's almost too much for a guy to take, but that all changes when Baz goes missing and his mother's ghost leaves Simon a Message: "my killer walks". Now the two sworn enemies must join together to find Baz's mom's true killer, a case thought to be solved years ago. They may have no idea what they're doing, and they might end up killing each other along the way, but if there's one thing for certain, the two magicians might just find more than a murderer on their journey.
My Thoughts
Looking through many DeviantArt pages, Tumblr accounts, and Goodreads forums,
there appears to be one thing everyone who's read this book focuses on. The GAY. The gay is so dominate in this book there is no way not to address it. I am not against homosexuality, as i am bishreksual myself, but BOY does this book give a lot of fanservice. As a reader, you could practically hear my squeals of delight during the forest scene, and my jaw dropped when Baz said he was "hopelessly in love with Simon Snow". Let me tell you how surprising it is to read about this character that is presented the whole book so far as a villain, someone who would do anything to kill Simon, and then watch it be revealed that the villain is actually in LOVE with Simon?? Who would have guessed? Definitely not me. (in some communities there's a word for someone like Baz; tsundere!)
The relationship between Baz and Simon grows ever stronger after the forest scene where Simon kisses him for the first time. The only words for how I describe that chapter is agdikuygeduywg, because that's what your brain and heart feel like after reading it. But even while I adore their relationship in this book, and even in the sequel, there's one word we must come back to. Fanservice. Have you ever heard of yaoi? Yaoi is basically a form of manga that portrays the story of two men in love. While most yaoi is harmless kissing and such, a good majority of it is sexualization of gay relationships, making the relationship between two males seem "sexy" or "hot". Almost all yaoi is written by girls, with the audience for this kind of manga also being females. The whole purpose of yaoi is to make female readers feel like they've been let on to this "dirty secret".
I'm not saying Carry On is a yaoi, because it's a 100% not, but I did see some similarities between the audience of this book and the audience of yaoi. The author of this book is a female, or at least I presume, and this book is about gay men. Also, from what I've seen, the majority of people who read and enjoyed this book were also girls. You see what I'm saying? it's like weird men who think lesbians are sexy. Ahhhh I'm probably going to offend so many people, but in order to redeem myself I must admit. I'm one of those female readers who like Baz and Simon's romance. No, I don't think it's sexy, I just think it's cute. It's what I think is pretty good representation of gay people, at least in a fantasy world, and I find myself honestly thinking the gay is one of the better parts of the book.
Also, you have to remember the whole idea of Carry On was spawned from Rainbow Rowell's other book Fangirl, a book surrounding a woman writing gay fanfiction about Simion and Baz. So, duh, Carry On is going to have fanservice.
God I feel so bad writing this.
I hope the negative 3 people reading this don't get offended.
But GOSH is Carry On a good book. It's like a darker and more relatable Harry Potter. Magic school, chosen one, all Harry Potter needs now is to have gay characters. But hey, that's what we have ol' JK Rowling trying to do now, right? All jokes aside, i really do think Carry On is one of my new favorites. The whole reason i even picked it up was because some girls from my school said it was good, so i guess i had my fate already set out for me. Maybe after I'm done with Meyer Month I'll do a review on Wayward Son!
Keep Reading!
-Valkyrie
(also I'm running out of title ideas if you can't tell help)