Carry On

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell                     Audio Book:  13hours 30 minutes    Hardback Book:  528 pages            

My first thought of this book was, “Does J.K. Rowling know about this book?”   There are so many similarities to the Harry Potter series, young man who is an orphan or mysteriously is without parents attending him as a baby, with ultra magic in him, goes to a magical boarding school, has a head master with a long beard who takes a major interest in him, he has a sneering enemy at the school who comes from a long line of witches, he has a female friend who is brilliant in all her classes and is able to cast spells with the best of the best, the main character has hair that gets mentioned a lot, etc.  at first I was like, “Plagiarism!”   But the more I  hung in there with the story,  it went in many new directions and not everyone is who they seem to be nor do they stay who they were.   You’ll understand when you read it.    Also these characters curse quite frequently and I don’t mean in a magical incantation kind of way.    I mean in a Kings of Comedy Def Jam kind of way.    The plot and the dialogue will hold the reader’s interest, there are magical creatures a foot and a few Game of Thrones references, romance that will pop up and make you say, “Wait, what?”   Your attention will be set on alert thereafter and the book really takes off then and the writer brings the reader along for a fun adventure the rest of the way through the story.   After being skeptical at first I really enjoyed the story once it got going and once you hit the grabber part you won’t want to stop until you get to the end.   I stayed up late last night just to finish it because the story is just that good.   Imitation is afterall the sincerest form of flattery, but, Harry Potter and Simon Snow are truly two different guys.   It just goes to show there is some good in all bad guys and some bad in all good guys and that is what makes the story sweet and lively.  Very good, I truly enjoyed it.