 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A novel by a transgender or nonbinary author.
The Pairing, by Casey McQuiston. Nonbinary author Casey McQuiston is a favorite of mine, and this has all the hallmarks of a McQuiston book: a delightfully improbable premise, bisexuality (both main characters, and quite a few others), and friends made along the way. This book is possibly hornier, and boozier, than Red, White, and Royal Blue. Kit (he/him) is a pastry chef, transplanted from France to Los Angeles as a child. Theo (she/they) is a bartender and aspiring sommelier (wine steward) from a Hollywood family. They grow up together, fall in love, and plan a 3-week food-and-wine tour of Europe. They break up on the plane and don't speak for four years. With the raincheck about to expire, each separately decides to take the tour - only to find they're now spending 3 weeks together. They revive the friendship, and Theo suggests a competition for who can have the most hookups. Of course, they're yearning for each other the whole time. The first half of the book is Theo's point of view, the second half is Kit's. We see how well they know each other - and how they don't. There's been much discussion of romance tropes on social media lately, and this book has some examples of how to do them right. For instance, breaking up over a miscommunication often rings false. In this case, the breakup had a solid reason, but a very plausible miscommunication kept them from reaching out to repair their relationship. Second-chance romance works best when both parties change and grow during the time apart; their old selves weren't ready for commitment, but now they are. The friends-to-lovers trope is also used really well: when Theo comes out as nonbinary, Kit realizes he's always intuited this, and slides effortlessly into using they/them pronouns for Theo. And there are two uses of the "only one bed" trope, which always seems improbable, but it's so much fun. The book is loaded with sensory detail: the artwork they see, and the food and drinks they enjoy, as they travel though France, Spain, and Italy. Amazing meals, mouth-watering pastries, and so much wine that it's hard to believe they can have so much sex - but they do, and the sensory detail doesn't stop at the bedroom door.
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