Three different people bought me this book over the holidays, three, obviously my love for Rainbow Rowell is well known and after this book, so well deserved.
I loved this book, all anyone had to say was gay wizards and I would be interested but add Rainbow Rowell and it just became one of the funnest and cutest books I've read recently. It is told from alternating perspectives, but mostly Simon and Baz's and the whole book is very hard to put down, except for the first part in which Baz is missing from school and so we don't hear anything from him for about one hundred pages. Even though the main plot of the book is about defeating the Humdrum the relationship between Simon and Baz is really what drove me to keep reading the whole time, it was so well done and I had so much fun and anticipation reading it that it's basically all I can remember from most of the book. My favourite character was definitely Baz, there is no question about my undying love for the sassy, self-described queer boy who one summer tried to masturbate his crush away. His perspective was my favourite, he always made me laugh and I just can't even articulate why I love him so much but I do. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Rainbow's books, people who like a good adventure book with romance, or anyone looking for a good book with LGBTQ characters.
It's Simon Snow's last year at Watford's School of Magicks and once he arrives he is unnerved to learn that his roommate, Baz, hasn't arrived. He basically goes nuts wondering where he is for the first month of school or however long Baz is gone for, and while Baz is gone the ghost of his mother tells Simon that since she can't find Baz he has to give him a message, that her killer still walks and he should ask Nicodemus about it. Baz returns and you learn that he's been in love with Simon for years so when Simon tells him the message from his mother they make a deal to work together to find her killer. When Baz goes home for Christmas Simon learns who Nicodemus is and travels to Baz's house to tell him that he learned he's a vampire and is Ebeneza's brother. They go to find Nicodemus and when he won't tell them anything except that someone hired the vampires to attack the school when his mother died, Baz becomes frustrated and lights a forest on fire around him because he wants to die. Simon kisses him in the middle of the fire and Baz puts it out using Simon's magic and they basically start dating. They realize that the Humdrum is a vacuum of magic caused by Simon's own magic but the Mage is insane and wants to sacrifice someone with a lot of power to try to stop the Humdrum. He kills Ebeneza and tries to kill Simon but Simon gives all his magic to the Humdrum to fill the vacuum so when the Mage realizes he has no magic left he starts yelling at Simon, Simon and Penelope accidently kill him when she casts a "Simon says" spell and he says to stop hurting him. Simon is then stuck with no magic but with red wings and a tail from when he flew to the Mage and the Humdrum, he doesn't finish school but he goes to the graduation ball so he can dance with Baz. Simon and Penny end up sharing a flat in London while Baz lives nearby and he and Simon are cute as hell.
