I have been on a YA reading tear as of late and this installment of Le Noir Auteur Reads, I actually picked up books with protagonists who have the same name. They also happen to be behemoths in the YA world, so let’s dive in:
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
I can see why Rainbow Rowell has become so popular; she can write characters like nobody’s business. Carry On is a very character driven story and I liked that she allowed more than just her protagonist to Carry the story. I think what captured me so much with this is how real everything felt, from the characters to the stakes of the world and its ramifications. Though I slightly called what would happen near the end, I was so taken by Simon, Baz, Penelope, and the Mage, that I felt like I was discovering everything anew. Add to the fact that she tried to VE Schwab me near the end and I’d say Carry On was a pretty fun read.
Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Alberti
To quote a character from Young Justice, I was just whelmed by this book that came highly reccomended. Not over or under, just whelmed. While there were many things that sucked me in (I finished the book in two days), there seemed to be something lacking for me. Which kinda bummed me out cause I think the author wrot some great characters and the setting (Georgia) was fun for me to read seeing as how I went to college in Atlanta. I think what I felt I missed most here was the kind of crazed emotion of being in the head of a character that was being blackmailed about his homosexuality. The book proceeds pretty quickly to an earned conclusion but something about Simon’s journey didn’t fully connect.
Interesting Analysis (with spoilers)
It was kind of kismet that I read both of these books back to back becuase I feel like they both shared a similar fatal flaw that they managed to overcome with varying degrees of success. In both books, there’s a kind of twist on who the love interest ends up being and both authors, in my opinion sort of let me down. On the one hand I love the complexity that’s shown, sometimes you don’t realize your feelings or don’t notice your crush or understand your sexuality. On the other, I felt slightly cheated in both cases cause I was searching and scanning for answers in every line for some kind of sign, to quote Hamilton. In Carry On, it was the kiss between Baz and Simon, who at this point were mortal enemies. Even though Baz was hopelessly in love with Simon, having him literally try to kill the guy multiple times, and in one horrific moment, try to steal his voice, is going far past the pulling of pigs tales. I like how Rainbow tried to show that their intensity for each other = caring, but I was just completely unmoored by their relationship development becuase it felt like it was generated out of nowhere.
With Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda, it felt very cinematic to have the guy on our list of suspects that no one assumed could be Blue and have him pop up as Blue. But that’s just it, he wasn’t even on the list of suspects because he didn’t even register in the world we were presented. I mean my foolish ass read the whole way and missed the line where it was stated he was Black, that’s how far removed he truly was from the action. This would normally be fine, but I felt like she created a vacuum with this character that didn’t have to be there. Sure Simon is highly preoccupied and could miss the signs that someone was digging him. But I never got a sense of Bram’s place in Simon’s orbit enough to be like “oh yeah it TOTALLY was him! Look at case XYZ”
Because we are so in the heads of your characters who can’t see the forrest for the trees, WE can’t see the forrest for the trees. Unlike in film, where a brief interaction can linger (mostly because we spend much less time watching movies than reading a book), interactions in books might have to carry you across hundreds of pages. It might just be because our first person narrators are blinded to certain things, but I just wish both of these books had given me a tiny bit more before upending my preconceived notions.