Title: Carry On

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Rating: 4/5

Are there LGBT characters? Oh hell yes. This is a delightfully gay book.

Brief summary / book review: Ok, this is a meta-meta book. Rainbow Rowell wrote another book called Fangirl, where the character wrote fan fiction set in world of Carry On with the same characters (though to be clear, this is not that same fan fiction story; Rainbow Rowell considers this to be canon: https://www.tor.com/2015/02/20/rainbow-rowell-carry-on-fantasy-tropes-harry-potter-fanfiction/). And it’s meant to be an obvious homage to Harry Potter. So that makes it doubly meta. Either way, all you really need to know is that it’s pretty damn good. And gay. It doesn’t shy away from the gay angle, either – it completely embraces it, which is a great thing to see in a YA book.

About the series: Being a gay reader, I am interested in LGBT books, but I haven’t always seen reviews clearly note if there are LGBT characters and how significant they are. These mini reviews are my way of addressing this problem.