Carry On

3.5/5 stars

This was fun! But I do have thoughts.

Overall, I really loved the romance—Baz and Simon were soooo fun to read about, and Baz was great, and Baz and Simon together was just so great to read. I found myself smiling a lot. They were so great.

However! There was a major issue I noticed throughout: massive bi-erasure. Simon doesn't once consider that he might be bi, even though he'd had a girlfriend. He repeatedly wonders if liking Baz means he's gay, and when he discusses it with Baz, Baz never suggests (or even considers, for that matter) Simon might be bi, either. We get through the entire romance without the possibility of Simon's being bi mentioned once—which, I mean, I'd be okay with Simon deciding he's gay (not bi) because that's totally legitimate, but he should have at least considered the possibility that he might be bi.

On a totally unrelated note, I also found the first 100 pages or so kind of slow, so it took me longer than usual to get into it. I also thought two of the POVs (one used frequently, one not) was mostly unnecessary, which didn't help the pacing issue.

That said, I really enjoyed the magic system set up (it was so different from anything I'd read before!), the world building was fun, and I really, really liked reading an m/m narrative in a fantasy setting. I definitely enjoyed it overall despite the stuff I noticed above, and I thought the ending fit really well.

Cute romance. Fun world building. Totally perfect-for-the-book magic system. It was totally worth getting through the slow-ish opening, to me. :)