Author Crush

Ok, I know that Jen did an author crush on Rainbow Rowell over a year ago, but I wanted to describe my own crush on her because I feel like a lot of new Rainbow things have happened since that post!

Rainbow writes coming-of-age stories that explore themes like family relationships and romance. Her writing is engaging, funny, and often bittersweet. Rainbow's characters are realistic, flawed, and witty while her stories are hopeful. Her books are often enjoyed by readers who like John Green, E. Lockhart, and Robyn Schneider.*

Rainbow is perhaps most well-known for her teen novel- Eleanor and Park. Please tell me you've read Eleanor and Park. If you haven't, run (that's right, run) to the library right now and get yourself a copy. In addition to E&P, Fangirl is another teen book by Rainbow while Attachments and Landline can be found in our Adult Fiction section. Let's also take a moment to say hip hip hooray for Landline as it won Best Fiction for the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards. You can see Rainbow thanking her readers for their votes in the picture above. Additionally, I hope the "this is a Teen book and that is an Adult book" thing doesn't deter you from exploring all of Rainbow's writing. I'm a big supporter of reading whatever you want despite where it's shelved in the library. I haven't been able to call myself a teen for quite.some.time. but I'm still drooling over all of our great offerings in the Teen collection as an adult. So go read the books. You be you.

Now on to the exciting news! Rainbow has a new book coming out this fall! Carry On will be released on October 6th! I've already ordered it for our Teen collection and I think you should put it on hold. There will most definitely be a queue. Such is the awesomeness of Rainbow. Here is a brief synopsis of Carry On from her website:

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who’s ever been chosen.

That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.

Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here—it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story — but far, far more monsters.

I should also note that Carry On is sort of a companion novel to Fangirl, although I don't think you necessarily have to read one to enjoy the other. But I imagine you would have a richer Carry On experience if you read Fangirl first. So go do that. Read all the books.

*Special thanks to NoveList for helping me with all of those adjectives and read-alike suggestions.