Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
FORD’S SIMON SNOW BINGE READ BOOK 3 OF 4:
✅ Fangirl (the meta introduction to Simon Snow)
✅ Carry On (Simon Snow #1)
✅ Wayward Son (Simon Snow #2)
🟥 Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow #3 - releases July 6, 2021)
Ok, this book DRIVES. It’s action-packed. It’s a fish-out-of-water meets metaphor on what makes America American.
Penelope decides that a road trip across America to visit Agatha will break Simon out of his post-“The Chosen One” depression. But in America, nothing is what they are used to. The magic doesn’t work the same. The society of Mages is different and much like the Wild West, America is basically lawless. They get into scrapes at every turn and have to trust a Normal, Shepard, to get them out.
This book has moments of implicit racism towards Shepard, who is Black. It was written pre-COVID, pre-BLM marches of 2020, pre-Anti-Racism and though those moments are small and casual, in the lens of now, they are more glaring. British Imperialism at it’s best?
There could be a very deep conversation had around the metaphor of race/ethnicity being mirrored by Magician/Creature, but really those deeper-welled issues were only briefly and casually mentioned, like maybe the author wasn’t ready to take on a big conversation about other-ness, about protection of spaces from the more powerful group, and the universal thought of needing other types of people while seeing them as inferior. The concepts of this story remained quite surface: save Agatha from Vampires. Fix Simon. Avoid the Hard Parts of Life.
I very much like the twist on Prologue and Epilogue that Rowell does. This book starts with bits of the Epilogue from Carry On and calls the first chapter, Epilogue. The final chapter of this book is Prologue, which sets us up for Book #3, Any Way the Wind Blows. We know that the group (plus, Shepard?) have to save Watford again. Did Simon steal his wings from a dragon and will they want them back? Will Simon and Baz make it? Are we shipping Penelope/Shepard (Penelopard? Shepenelope?) or Penelope/Agatha (Penegatha? Agelope?)? How much shit are they in when they get back to England (my guess, A. LOT.)?
Any Way the Wind Blows comes out on July 6th, so stay tuned for the final installment. -Ford
