Wayward Son | Rainbow Rowell | Review
The story is supposed to be over.
Simon Snow did everything he was supposed to do. He beat the villain. He won the war. He even fell in love. Now comes the good part, right? Now comes the happily ever after…
So why can’t Simon Snow get off the couch?
What he needs, according to his best friend, is a change of scenery. He just needs to see himself in a new light…That’s how Simon and Penny and Baz end up in a vintage convertible, tearing across the American West.
They find trouble, of course. (Dragons, vampires, skunk-headed things with shotguns.) And they get lost. They get so lost, they start to wonder whether they ever knew where they were headed in the first place…
Come on, Simon Snow. Your hero’s journey might be over – but your life has just begun.
This was the sequel we knew we wanted but thought we'd never get. It's the continuation to a story we thought we wouldn't see again.
Carry On was supposed to be a stand-alone novel when Rowell released it back in 2017, but here we are, two years later with a sequel in our hands. I really enjoyed Carry On and the world and magic and characters that Rowell created (you can check out the review I shared here on BB, or head on over to Sophie's review for a slightly different opinion), so picking up Wayward Son was a dream.
The story continues, with Simon and Baz now out of school in the real world, with Watford School of Magicks behind them. Penny is with them in England, while Agatha has skipped the country and is living in America. On a sudden whim, Penny gets Simon, Baz and herself plane tickets to America where they plan to surprise-visit Agatha. However, like you'd imagine, it doesn't all go to plan, and the three end up running into vampires at a Renaissance Faire, being chased down by a Normal, loosing their magic across the country, and discovering that Agatha might not actually be having the time of her life.
This was such a fun story! It's quite a bit smaller than Carry On, and quite a different feel. Moving from a British boarding school of magical education to the wide open spaces of America's highways is going to be a different story, but it was just as brilliant as the first book, if not more so.
As soon as I started reading I was reminded of each character's personalities and quirks, but the additional people that they meet in the US were their own kind of crazy (in the best way). If you've read Carry On then I probably don't need to tell you to pick up Wayward Son, but if you haven't read either, then they are a really fun read, full of magic, friendship, love, monsters and floral suits.
Rainow Rowell also dropped the news this past month that there was going to be a third book! From a stand-along to a trilogy! It's called Any Way the Wind Blows and while there's no word on when that'll be released, I hope it's sooner than two years away.
Have you read Wayward Son? What did you think?
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