Though I had my reservations about Carry On, I itched to read Wayward Son. I requested it at the library, and voilà, here we are.

What happens after you save the world? What happens when your destiny is over? Depression, turns out. Baz and Penny enroll in a Normal (aka Muggle) university, while Simon rolls around on the sofa, trying to find the energy to care. After a semester of no improvement (Simon’s therapist is shit), Penny decides to take drastic measures: USA road trip. Everyone get in the Mustang: we’re confronting our problems.

Rowell describes Wayward Son as a discussion of what happens to the Chosen One after he saves the day and I think it’s almost that. Most of the book fell woefully short of its intended goals and would have benefited from a more rigorous editor. Clearly, Rowell wanted the characters to slow down and think about who they are and what they’re doing with their life. You know, confront their flaws, and deal with mental aftershocks of surviving a cataclysm. However, she poured these desires into the fast-pace mold of the previous book. The results were disastrous. Despite being on a road trip with seven hour stretches of Nothing, nobody talks to anyone. Nobody listened to each other. At first, British people not realizing the breadth of the United States was funny, but then it was like Rowell didn’t know the distance. I nearly lost my mind when the story jumped from Reno to San Diego in the space of three paragraphs. 

The fast-pace spilled over to confusing scenes and conversations. Characters constantly talked over one another. It was like being in a confused group chat, and I wanted to tell everyone to shut up. Like in Carry On, scenes would ping-pong between point of views. This technique worked great for kissing, but was distractingly terrible for fight sequences. I think Rowell was trying to convey how confusing brawls can be—that message would have been better conveyed with a single, confused POV.

Racism took new, bizarre forms in Wayward Son. We again have Rowell’s little asides that mention racism, but don’t think too deeply about it. At one point, the gang attends a Renaissance Faire. Their confusion about the event and its purpose is charming and fun. That is, until Penny decides that the Faire is “cultural appropriation” of…what? British history? The magical community, which Normals don’t know exist? Listen. You can’t culturally appropriate a global superpower. British culture is a dominate hegemony: they appropriate a minority’s culture. Penny should be way familiar with this phenomenon, because she’s British Indian. This moment threw me so hard I landed in next Tuesday.

Then we have the fantasy racism against Normals. During the adventure, our trio meets Stephen, a Normal who befriends magical creatures as a hobby. Stephen is kind, charming, and ever-helpful—and the trio treats him like shit. Despite their magic depending on Normals, despite Stephen having a Mary Sue level of all the answers, our “heroes” insult, ditch, and beat him up. Penny is especially terrible to him, and Rowell sets her prejudice up as a source of potential growth. Early on, Penny realizes she’s not right about everything, so I settled in for some lovely growing pains…only for her to change nothing. Penny does nothing different until the very end of the book. Listen, it’s fine to have character flaws and fantasy racism. It was the lack of Dealing With It that bothered me, especially since they’re on a road trip to Deal With It.

Let’s end with some positives. The world-building continued to be such fun. I love the idea of Quiet Zones, which are places where there’s not enough humans to power linguistic-based magic. Some USA states literally do have more cows than people, after all. I’m a sucker for cool magical creatures. Stephen is a fantastic character. It’s awesome that he’s Black. We need more charming Black men in fantasy fiction. If I had to quibble, I’d say the Hoover Dam littering scene was in poor taste. You know some happy-go-lucky’s are going to throw paperbacks into the Dam “for the water spirit.” 

While everyone else drove about, Agatha’s character continued to be an awesome dismantling of the damsel archetype. She realizes she’s can’t simply run from dangerous places—that’s a stopgap to a larger problem. Further, she can’t rely on wealth and privilege to protect her! I was pleased as punch with everything about the NowNext group. I predicted the twist! Baz’s interior journey was equally rewarding, and I appreciated the free parenting offered by a certain debonair immortal.

Overall, my experience with Wayward Son was uneven. Rowell displayed solid skill on some fronts, but others were bumped along like pot holes. When I described Wayward Son to a friend, they said it sounded like Rowell hadn’t read a lot of road trip stories. Maybe that’s the crux of it—Wayward Son is a road trip without a road trip. We go places, but the characters, awkwardly, don’t.

Review of Carry On: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/175a42c6-618d-412a-9178-d20104035b8b

Review of Any Way the Wind Blows: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/98e43c19-ad87-4d1a-846b-65d48667c627