Autumn Wrap Up

But how is it November already. That means it’s almost Christmas, right? Not that I am going to get excited just yet. I mean, I love Christmas, I absolutely totally do, but I love it in the way that means I want to concentrate that love into a small time frame so that I can love it really intensely whilst it lasts and then tuck it away for another year knowing I’ll love it just as hard when it comes around again which means I don’t ‘do’ Christmas until December 1^st. I won’t even eat a mince pie, which is pretty hard going actually because holy moly I love mince pies. The only exception I make to this rule I think is the festive coffees. Give me all the gingerbread lattes please. Today I had a spiced cookie latte from McDonalds (Maccies is the only coffee place open before I go to work and actually it’s not that bad), the cup had little foxes on it and I was beyond delighted.

Review: Carry On

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savor his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest, and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he’ll be safe. Simon can’t even enjoy the fact that his roommate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can’t stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you’re the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savor anything.
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.

Rainbow Rowell, let me love you. Goodness gacious. I have such an author!crush you don’t even know. Do I want to be friends with her or do I just want to be her. I don’t know. I just know that actually she can do no wrong. HOW DOES SHE WORDS.

“He’s a book full of footnotes brought to life. He’s a jacket made of elbow patches."

How. Does. She. Words.

Anyway.

In case you missed my prior Rainbow love-ins, I talk about Eleanor & Park here and about Fangirl here. I’ll also be back soon to talk about Landline soon. Right now though, you guessed it (and pull up a seat and flail with me, or if you don’t like Rainbow’s other stuff then you know, don’t because this book is so Rainbow Rowell) I’m talking about Carry On and how it delighted me from start to finish. Seriously. Delighted me. & if you stop here often you’ll know that occasionally I lose all coherency and just shout a little about how much I love a thing. I’m about to do that right now. Sorry not sorry.

I out and out cackled when I found out that Carry On was going to be a thing. I mean a book that originally existed as a fictional book in one of Rainbow’s other books about a girl that writes fanfiction and that is clearly a tongue in cheek look at the whole fanfiction world in general and specifically (or so I thought anyway) the whole Harry/Draco fandom becoming it’s own actual hard-backed fully fleshed story. WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO READ THAT and how gloriously excellent and amusing is it that Rainbow Rowell made it happen. 

GIVE ME ALL THE WONDERFUL META.

Also: insane. This book is fucking nuts I swear and it’s brilliant. It’s like Harry Potter gone batshit crazy and at the same time it’s….I mean you start off comparing to HP a little because it’s a book about a magical school and a war against a Big Bad and this one student that’s The Chosen One even though he doesn’t want to be really, and is sometimes a little bit shit at well, life, so how can you not.

(Just when you think you're having a scene without Simon, he drops in to remind you that everyone else is a supporting character in his catastrophe.)

Ha ha and also ha.

Pretty soon though you forget the whole Potter thing because there is so much going on here, this whole brand new world, these brand new characters, and whilst you still totally gigglesnort a little at the occasional tip-of-the-hat you mostly just get totally swept away in the Watford of it all, in Simon and Baz and spells that reference Bohemian freaking Rhapsody and the fact that it’s so gay. 

And also marvellously diverse in the way that all Rainbow’s books are and everybody else’s books should be. Example one, because I’m nice like that

“I didn’t know someone like you could be named Penelope,” I said. Stupidly. (Everything I said that year was stupid.)
She wrinkled her nose. “What should ‘someone like me’ be named?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t know. Other girls I’d met who looked like her were named Saanvi or Aditi—and they definitely weren’t ginger. “Saanvi?”
“Someone like me can be named anything,” Penelope said.
“Oh,” I said. “Right, sorry.”
“And we can do whatever we want with our hair.” She turned back to the assignment, flipping her red ponytail. “It’s impolite to stare, you know, even at your friends.”

Also. Baz and Simon.

Everyone knows that hate/love is an excellent trope, right? I mean it’s where the whole Harry/Draco ship stemmed from isn’t it. & it goes back so much further than that. Let’s make a list of the great love stories that stem from this trope. Or let’s not because ain’t nobody got time for that. Point is, I love that trope & this book, it’s the stuff dreams are made of I swear to God. Rainbow takes all that tension and all those misunderstandings and all that anger and all the shitty spiteful comments and makes it all her own and THEN THE CUTE BOYS DO KISSING.  & obviously you know there’s something there because Cath ships Baz/Simon in Fangirl with the fire on a hundred burning suns and it would have been weird for that not to have been a thing here but I didn’t know how subtle a thing it might be (partly because Baz and Simon aren't canon in Fangirl), how much reading between the lines one might have to do *coughRemus/Siriuscough* but, well, nope not subtle at all and it makes me hope for a world where LGBTQ characters are so common a thing in books that it goes without saying.anyway, both boys are excellent in their own right and they're gorgeous together and I swear nobody writes falling in love, being in love, love like Rainbow Rowell. I said it about E&P (and I am still not over that) and I said it again when I read Fangirl and I say it again now: she just gets it and wow can she carve a sentence from your very heart.

Sharing a room with the person you want most is like sharing a room with an open fire.

He's constantly drawing you in. And you're constantly stepping too close. And you know it's not good--that there is no good--that there's absolutely nothing that can ever come of it.

But you do it anyway.
And then...
Well. Then you burn.

 ***

He's still looking in my eyes. Staring me down like he did that dragon, chin tilted and locked. "I'm not the Chosen One," he says.
I meet his gaze and sneer. My arm is a steel band around his waist. "I choose you," I say. "Simon Snow, I choose you.

Also.  This book is funny. . And also also there is dialogue like this:

“I can’t believe there’s a part of your body that grows when you need it. You’re like a mutant.”
“I’m a vampire,” Baz says, “and can you hear yourself?”

***

She told me later that her parents had told her to steer clear of me at school.
"My mum said that nobody really knew where you came from. And that you might be dangerous." "Why didn't you listen to her?" I asked.
"Because nobody knew where you came from, Simon! And you might be dangerous!"
"You have the worst survival instincts."
"Also, I felt sorry for you," she said. "You were holding your wand backwards.

& does Rainbow Rowell have a professional Brit-picker because for the most part this book is so gloriously British and I loved that.

I want, I WANT, I want the other 7 books. I’m not going to lie; I would read every single moment of Simon and Baz’s school experience in the same way I read Harry’s. ALL THE FEELS. One book was not enough even though it’s a long and very pretty book. & holy smokes is it pretty.

Book of the Year: 2013

First of all, Nashville.

No, wait, first off all Happy New Year blogosphere. Here is to a 2014 that is super wonderful.

Second of all, Nashville. I know, I know, I am (always) a little late to the party but this show is immense. Everything about it appeals to my little country loving heart - why yes. I do have one of those. Of you even know how many Keith Urban albums are in my car right now? - and I can actually feel myself getting sucked right in. The story, the characters, the MUSIC. I need that soundtrack man. Even though I have only actually watched the one episode, suddenly the cancellation of Smash seems a little less tragic ;) If you need a show to watch, basically, then Nashville is currently being repeated.

I wonder what it says about me, how easily I get immersed in a fictional world. All the books. Nashville. Glee. Brothers & Sisters. House. Once Upon A Time. Lordy, Once Upon A Time, that show, though. I might even give it a blog post all to itself, because of Robert Carlyle who I have loved since his Hamish Macbeth days. Anyway, the point is that I have begun this year by allowing myself to be sucked into another television show because I cannot stop with the living inside of the worlds that are not real.  Alongside which, Helen and I have just begun The Great Ally McBeal Rewatch of 2014. Yeah, that’s a thing, a really amazing thing. Ally McBeal was such a great show and you know what’s funny? The DVD’s aren’t in widescreen, s’like instagram TV. Ha.

But but but, to the point, which is (thirdly) what were my favourite books of 2013 I hear you ask. Actually, I don't, but 2013 was a GOOD year and so I'm going to tell you anyway.

The Fault in Our Stars introduced me to John Green, who is not only a man who knows how to use his words but who also seems to be a genuinely awesome guy. I want to be his friend. Oh who am I kidding? I have a massive author!crush on the guy. TFiOS is incredible. It broke me, it broke me into more pieces than I can count, it made me laugh, it made me so sad my chest hurt, it made me cry so hard I had wet neck. It hurt, it hurt a lot. & I would recommend it to anybody in a heartbeat.

Wonder is a very special book, it is an important book. It is raw and honest and real. It's a book I am so glad I read and a book I urge you all to read. Now. Go, go, go.

The Night Rainbow is the prettiest book I have read on a long time, it's a re-read for sure.

The Uncommon Reader has left me wondering why it has taken me my whole life to get to know Alan Bennett.

And finally but never ever finally, Eleanor and Park. AMAZING. The other four are on no particular order but this is absolutely my number one. This book is so good I barely know how to explain it. I want to keep it to myself and I want the world to read it. It's a little piece of magic.

2014 has a lot of work to do if it wants to come anywhere close to any of these. So there, go forth and read. I promise they're worth the time.

in which the internet provides the resources for me to share some more John Green love**

**long post title is long

So you haven't read the books?

“You’ve read the books?”
“I’ve seen the movies.”
Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the books.”
“I’m not really a book person.”
“That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me”

I have quite a lot of feelings about Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. I read her Eleanor & Park earlier this year and I loved it, so much, you don’t even know. It’s for that reason that I had quite high expectations for Fangirl. That’s a thing I do you see, I fall in booklove hard and fast and then set what is probably an unrealistically high bar, that the poor writer in question has to try and reach with all their future offerings. Few do. I’m a little sad to say, actually, that Rowell is not one of the few. Le sigh.

That’s not to say though that I don’t think this is ‘a good book’ because I do. I just don’t think it’s ‘as good as…’ and that’s irrelevant anyway because I’m not here to make a comparison. What I am here to say is that I read Fangirl and it made me feel all the things.

I think the beauty of it is, is that a lot of people will relate to the story and to its protagonist, Cath.

I could. I could because Cath is like an extreme version of me. She’s quiet and she’s introverted; she suffers from social anxiety; she prefers books to people and the written word to the spoken; things that are new make her feel sick and she lived off protein bars for a while because she was so scared of navigating the college canteen. I am that girl. Not to the extremes Cath is but still, so much of the way she feels about day to life made me just ache with familiarity.

Most of the time I let my phone go to voice-mail and then send a text right after because some days talking is hard and I hide from the doorbell and the thought of being in a room full of people I don’t know – or some days even people I know – is enough to make me come out in a sweat. Sometimes I have plans with people I actually really want to spend time with and right up until the moment I am knocking on their actual door I am coming up with excuses in my head, excuses that will mean I don’t have see them, and can instead just be home with my book and maybe fire texts back and forth for a few hours.  It’s not because I don’t love them – I do, I really do – and it’s not because I’m boring or miserable, it’s just because it’s hard. 95% of the time it feels like I imagine a parachute jump would: I have to gear myself up to do it – the being social – and once I do, I love it, and it’s fun and amazing and exhilarating. & then once it’s over I am drained and I have to go home and read a book and recharge. 

& so for that alone, Cath, of the world of Fangirl, LET ME LOVE YOU.

“Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and mildly socially inept, I'm a complete disaster.” ­

And then, there is fandom because, as the title suggests, Cath is a fangirl.

“How do you not like the Internet? That's like saying, 'I don't like things that are convenient. And easy. I don't like having access to all of mankind's recorded discoveries at my fingertips. I don't like light. And knowledge.”

This part of the book was a delight. In a nutshell, Cath writes fanfiction about her favourite YA books, whereby the hero is in love with his nemesis. What Rowell has done here is so delightful it had me squealing; it was delightful because if you try and tell me that Simon Snow is not Harry Potter and this segment of the story was not born of Harry/Draco then I will laugh very loudly in your face. I may or may not have done a fair amount of unattractive snorting because God, it’s so damn obvious that Rowell knows her shit. I would love to know how active she’s been in her particular fandom of choice.

I – and if you know me then you probably know this – have been connected to fandoms previously: I’ve been on forums, I’ve read and I have written fanfiction (go on, judge me. I have not a care!); I know what you mean when you say ‘shipping’ (and that ‘you’re not talking about the delivery of a parcel); and if you ask me who my OTP is I won’t think you’re enquiring after my health. I’ll probably answer...maybe...perhaps. I might even rant at you about my feelings about canon (don’t talk to me please, about Nymphadora Tonks) 

I was never all that excited about Harry/Draco myself but I was active enough in the Harry Potter fandom that they crossed my path and that I recognised the similarities here. I also know enough to be able to revel in the fandom world that Rowell has created for Cath. I know what it’s like to ship a pairing that isn’t canon; to read between every single line,; to grab hold of every single look or glance or word; to wait desperately for the release of a new book and to devour it in one sitting; to send and receive texts along the lines of ‘what I think is about to happen better not happen’ and then figure out my own ways to right those wrongs. I know what it’s like to fall in love with a fictional world so much that there’s never quite enough of it.  I get it. I’ve lived it. Again, not to the extremes Cath does, but I get it all the same. 

Cath’s fandom life however, will it kind of eclipses her ‘real’ life – she has more friends online than off, her latest fanfiction has a worldwide following – people are wearing it on t-shirts, are accepting her version as canon – and if she has to choose between going to class/eating/seeing her sister-roommate-boy she likes and Simon Snow, then she’ll chose Simon Snow every time. Real life doesn’t hold the same appeal for her as this world she has created for herself on the internet and what started as a way to continue to let these characters she loves so much live on outside of the pages of the novel they were born of, has quickly become an escape: somewhere she can exist whilst real life carries on without her.

You only have to visit LiveJournal or Archive of Our Own or Fanfiction.net to realise there are probably millions of people in the world like Cath and that’s what really struck me: Cath is just a girl, she’s a girl that people will read about and think ‘she’s just like me’ because she’s normal and flawed and she makes mistakes; nothing out of the ordinary happens to her, there’s no great revelation or dramatic, well, anything really. There’s just this girl, like all these other girls out there, and she gets to write her fanfiction and eat her protein bars and fight with her sister and worry about her Dad and freak the hell out about growing up and branching out into the big old world and then, she gets to fall in love. 

What its saying this book, is ‘you’re ok. You keep doing what you’re doing and that’s fine, but look, do the other stuff too, because there are people out there who will enrich your life and they don’t live behind a computer screen, and, I know it seems scary but you can have it both ways and that’s OK You will be OK.’ & for people like Cath, like me, like those other girls reading this book – and I suspect you will only read this book if you’re a Cath yourself – that’s an important message. It’s nice to know that it’s OK to live in a world you’ve created or that has been created by other people like you; that it’s OK to find real life hard; that you don’t have to be like your extroverted sibling/lover/friend, because being like you is pretty fucking awesome. You don’t have to change, you just have to be. And also, you know, write your fanfic if you want, just don’t go all EL James all over the place.

It’s like Rainbow Rowell is writing to me, to you, to us and her insight is incredible.

Or maybe it’s not saying that at all. Maybe it’s just a book and I am over-analysing as per.

The point is, the message was there for me and I think I'd have loved the book a million times more if I’d read it ten years ago!

“Real life was something happening in her peripheral vision.”

And then there is the love story and as evidenced in E&P, Rowell writes first love really freaking well. Seriously though guys. THE LOVE STORY.

Ha. Honestly, I’ve just wanted an excuse to put that ^^ on my blog. Howeverrrrr, the lovely love story is lovely and Cath and her beau are adorable and the slow unfolding of their relationship is pretty damn sweet. It’s so refreshing to read a love story that’s real. It’s not OTT and dramatic, nobody watches anybody sleep in a creepy and inappropriate way, which, wait – I have a quote:

“Reagan was sitting up at Cath's desk when Cath woke up.
"Are you awake?"
"Have you been watching me sleep?"
"Yes, Bella. Are you awake?"
"No.”

There are no dramatics, no overwhelming declarations, promises, heartaches. It’s all so refreshingly simple. Girl meets boy and to quote Kurt Hummel - damn, I’m totally still a fangirl aren’t I? – a touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets. Pretty much. The touches of the fingertips, the smiles, the glances, the holding of hands, those are the parts that matter at least. I loved it in E&P and I love it here: Rowell has this ability to write real, deep and intense attraction without the characters even needing to touch. In E&P the scenes where Park played with Eleanor’s sleeve made me feel like my chest was caving in. It’s the same here:

“…he tugged on her sleeve and looked down at their not-quite-touching hands. ‘It’s OK if you’re crazy’ he said softly.

‘You don’t even know-‘

‘I don’t have to know,’ he said, ‘I’m rooting for you.’”

WHAT IS AIR?

It’s all about the slow build and that’s what makes it real because it feels real: it’s not ridiculously fast and on the other side of the coin it’s not overflowing with angst. It’s just life and it’s super.

“You look so blindingly cute right now, I feel like I need to make a pinhole in a piece of paper just to look at you.”