Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

35 reviews

tobythegoblin1130's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, and Gore

Minor: Blood, Bullying, and Homophobia

eenicem's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Classism, Confinement, Death, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, and Kidnapping

Minor: Bullying and War

katievallin's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

So good! Normally I find multi POVs to be a bit tiring, but I liked the pacing and short sections in this book. I liked the characters and romance and friendships.

It felt a bit like Harry Potter, but like if Harry and Draco got together.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Animal death, Blood, Suicide attempt, Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, and Pregnancy

Minor: Classism, Cursing, and Homophobia

amy_in_the_city's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this book so much! And the audiobook had the best narration I've ever heard! The narrator did an amazing job making every character sound completely distinct. I'm glad they kept this narrator for the rest of the series!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Bullying, Grief, and Violence

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

reinik's review against another edition

adventurous emotional lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Kidnapping, Death, Blood, and Death of parent

Moderate: Cursing and Animal death

Minor: Homophobia, Bullying, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Body horror, Mental illness, and Confinement

danny_fox's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

When I tell you that I ate this book up-

I have never been so interested in a book that I read it in 3 days, especially a book that has 500 pages.

I adored everything about this book. The characters, the world, the plot, oh my gooood.

I cannot believe this book isn't more popular. I NEED this book to be more popular.

Definitely became one of my all time favorites, and can already see myself coming back to it in the future.

Baz and Simon have officially become my new comfort characters <3

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Kidnapping, and Bullying

Minor: Violence, War, Car accident, and Cursing

snackattackisback69's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Bullying, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: Death of parent

nonidude's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.5

I had high expectations, and unfortunately was less than obsessed. I think I'm just not a fan of Rainbow Rowell's writing both her style and choices.

First thing that made me actually upset? That I started this book and felt lost, like I was thrown into the middle of the the story with less than enough information to make sense. I had so many questions! At one point the book happened to flop open and I saw the Author's Note at the end of the book where it starts out, "If you've read my book Fan Girl, you know that Simon Snow began as a fictional character in that novel...." WHAT? I looked it up and it said they were independent of each other, but I wondered... Luckily I had that one in my TBR stack and so paused this reading to read that, and sure enough through the excerpts in that book, it shed light on some of the world of Simon Snow to help me not feel as lost which is frustrating since this is supposed to be an independent read.

I've heard this book described at Harry Potter but gay. Eh I see A LOT of similarities, but idk. I'd love to hear what someone who enjoyed the HP series thinks of this. Imo it's less scary than HP but the kids are ironically more normal (they kiss and cuss).

I was really confused with the romance. It seemed random and all of a sudden, but this is also a book that apparently had many books before it in this fictional series, so I'm sure you don't get the whole picture here.

It was a lot of nothing. The last 150 pages or so were probably my favorite.

Overall, not a bad book, but didn't leave me feeling WOW. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Stalking

Moderate: Homophobia and War

Minor: Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Cursing, and Bullying

bornachoker's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

This was a cute read. I felt like the pacing was a little off, but I enjoyed the characters and the humorous tone. Also, is bisexuality not a concept in this book at all haha.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Bullying, Confinement, Death of parent, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and War

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Biphobia and Eating disorder

squinnittowinit's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book reads at first like an excellent Harry Potter parody, lightheartedly poking fun at the plot holes and loose worldbuilding moments of the HP series as the main character, Simon Snow, recounts his misadventures (a humorously self-aware reskinning of many HP plot points) at his magical school during years 1-7. 

I was ready for this book to be a Harry Potter parody and nothing more the entire way through (and would have loved every minute of it), but I was very pleasantly surprised to find an actual, original plot that played very well with the humorous setting and premise. The plot and the surprisingly complex characters took this book from parody to a genuinely gripping Harry Potter rewrite that successfully delivered a more complex (and plausible) plot, alongside characters that were more flawed yet more understandable at the same time.

I felt like this book was wholly satisfying as a standalone. I don't really feel any need to read the sequels, though I'm sure I'll get to them someday. For now, I'm left with that same soul-satisfied feeling that I get when I've just finished a 100k word fanfic with no tags and I can't remember what it was like to have ever not known about something so wonderful.

4.5 stars because of complete bi erasure and minor racism (not the inclusion of it in the world but rather minorly problematic descriptions/inconsistent descriptions of poc by the author)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Death, Animal death, Biphobia, War, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Classism, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Cursing, Confinement, Stalking, Kidnapping, and Misogyny

Minor: Abandonment, Racism, Ableism, and Infidelity

Bi erasure details:

Once Simon allows himself to voice his feelings for Baz, he almost immediately questions if this makes him gay, an already tired question. He ends up not answering that for himself, continuing to wonder several more times to the end of the book. Never once does he even consider that he could be bi, despite having had a girlfriend before. It is perfectly acceptable for Simon to not know what labels he wants to use for himself, or to never subscribe to using labels, and it would also be acceptable for Simon to determine that he isn't actually attracted to girls after all, but by only including the words "gay" and "straight", it makes it seem as though Simon can only be one of those two things, which is harmful to other LGBTQIA+ identities like bi and pan.

Minor racism details:

Mostly my issue is with Baz's physical description being inconsistent. Baz is described as having red-gold skin before becoming a vampire, as his mother was Egyptian. Most of the time, as a vampire his skin is described as "gray", which is a great way to describe someone being bloodless without changing their skin tone (because skin tone isn't really determined by whether your body has blood in it or not). However, there are a few times where Baz is inexplicably described as having "white" skin in reference to his vampirism. It reads like Baz was originally written to have the race-erasing white skin of classic vampires and then the author decided to update the description to the better "gray", but didn't catch all instances.