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Oof, quite a few of these reviews aren't passing the vibe check. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that a lot of people took issue with a very queer book that was also a very slutty romance novel, but hey, I guess some readers need to look inward at their own puritanical views of sex and problematic notions of what constitutes a "proper" romance novel � and read more self-published romance and fanfiction. (The pearl-clutching would border on comical if it weren't a harbinger of much more dismal societal trends.)

I've talked in the past about how certain big romance releases move the genre forward even if they aren't "liked" or understood at large or discussed in the same way as what's already on the market. A prime recent example of this is Akwaeke Emezi's 2022 book You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, which broke a lot of people's brains as far as not following typical mainstream romance conventions.

I believe The Pairing will eventually fall into a similar category. I enjoyed it (Casey McQuiston's banter is always *chef's kiss*) but think there are some solid critiques around pacing and repetitiveness, which is par for the course with a lot of travel-related romance novels. That said, I'm excited that this book is out there and offering something different as far as traditionally published queer love stories. Hey, sometimes people are slutty!!!