Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow

Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is the third young adult novel by the American writer Rainbow Rowell, published in 2015. It grew out of the story one of her earlier characters was writing, and it follows the final year of magical schooling for Simon Snow, the Chosen One of his world.

Simon is meant to defeat the Insidious Humdrum, a creature that eats magic, and his spells keep failing at exactly the moments that matter. His roommate and rival, Baz, has not come back to school, and Simon and his friend Penelope spend much of the year trying to find him while the political conflict outside the school moves closer. The book is a fantasy that knows it is a fantasy and plays with the expectations of the form.

Rowell wrote the novel after the fictional author in Fangirl invented the characters, and it can be read on its own. It was followed by Wayward Son, and it is the book of hers in which the school setting matters most.