Carry On (Simon Snow #1) by Rainbow Rowell

Format: Audio (BorrowBox)
Read: June 2025

This was a reread. I think I originally read this around 2019 when I found it in a charity shop. I had never read any Rainbow Rowell before, but I was aware of her work from my time as a school librarian. I had heard of Fangirl (decided I’d not like it, so never read it), knew that Carry On is a spin-off from that, and is in fact supposed to be the Harry Potter-inspired fan fiction that the character in that book is writing.

So with this context, Carry On is a unique novel, and one I wouldn’t have thought I’d necessarily be the audience for. As I said I’ve not read Fangirl, and I’ve also never been a fan fiction reader or writer, although I think I have enough awareness of common traits and tropes though to recognise them here – OP chosen one, magic school, dead parents, enemies to lovers, forced proximity, eternally loyal best friend etc etc and of course most of those are also features of Harry Potter!

What I enjoyed about this is how well it worked so well as a gentle parody of Harry Potter, and it has a tongue-in-cheek ridiculousness to it that just hits my sweet spot. It’s the same kind of silliness as My Lady Jane, and you know I loved that.

There are many blatant Harry Potter elements – the magic school is called Watford (where the movie studies are, if you’ve not been on the tour!), magic and mundane worlds are separated, a faction of magic racists who want to keep blood pure, there is a tragic groundskeeper character who loves creatures (goats), and a mysterious villain that only Chosen One is supposed to be able to stop.

The story of Carry On starts in Simon’s final year at Watford. Everyone knows he is the Chosen One, and he already has a lot of history in the magical world and with other characters. These include his best friend Penny (who’s like Hermione but with Ron’s family) and his roommate Tyrannus “Baz” Basilton Grimm-Pitch. Baz has his roots in Draco, but with dark hair and is a vampire, because why not? The He Who Must Not Be Named analogue is The Insidious Humdrum which, actually, I think is a more interesting concept than Voldemort.

There are plenty of characters that have recognisable origins from HP, and often Rowell’s twist is to make them more true to life. I think my favourite element is The Mage, and I really like what she did with this character. His treatment of Simon really highlights how fucked up a lot of what Dumbledoore does is! Instead of having cruel relatives he has to live with, Simon Snow has no family at all, and The Mage makes him return to foster care every summer, where he isn’t allowed to correspond with his friends at all! He keeps Simon at arm’s length and treats him as a lackey, as a soldier, never provides enough information and is not above some emotional manipulation when needed. He’s also the kind of dick that created his own personal uniform when he became head master, and he has a stupid pointy beard.

I enjoyed Simon too. He’s reluctant and hapless, and has very little social or emotional intelligence. Yet I found him a lot more likeable than Harry Potter (seriously, Harry is the worst), possibly because he’s idiocy is acknowledged by other character POVs, especially by Baz.

I also thought Simon’s girlfriend Agatha was an interesting character! She’s beautiful and powerful and comes from a good family, and she hates the magical world! The whole time she is at school, she just wants to be at home with her “mundane” friends, and she dreams of having a normal life. She hates being dragged into Simon’s adventures!

The romance with Baz is a big flashing sign from the first couple of chapters, because this is fan fiction so what else is the fucking point? I was surprisingly really into this! I found it was enemies to lovers actually written well, and was emotionally plausible… Even if the turnaround, when it comes, happens extremely quickly… especially for Simon (who was not gay), but then it’s pretty well established he is a bit of a thicko when it comes to emotional matters. I still found it satisfying.

There were lots of little silly things in the magical world that I enjoyed. I loved the word-based magic system where popular phrases and songs have magical power (shout out to Bohemian Rhapsody). It’s both an intriguing idea but also a blatant lazy way for a (fan fiction) writer to make up spells without having to make up a magical word!

Overall, I think this novel is really successful at what it set it to do. Yes, it’s insanely derivative, and that is the point! My biggest criticism of it would be that the ending drags and gets repetitive and sickly regarding the Baz and Simon relationship. I was all for them getting together, but once they di,d I didn’t need to linger forever in the mushy stuff.

I also think a tiny bit of introspection from Simon would have improved things. He did learn his hero and mentor was not who he thought, and fell in love with the (male) vampire who had been trying to kill him for several years.

The audiobook – narrated by Euan Morton – was really good, I think I enjoyed it all the more for this format.

I thought about reading the other two books in the series, but they have terrible reviews, so I’ll stick to this one near near-perfect YA metafictional Harry Potter parody.

Which reminds me of Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody, I hadn’t thought about that in years.. I’ve never read the whole thing, only snippets, but maybe I’ll see if I can track down a copy!