Carry On was one of my reads for Pride month and I was pretty disappointed if I'm honest. I loved Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and it will probably always be a favourite, but Rowell's works beyond straight, white, cis-gendered characters seem to be pretty problematic.
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As much as I loved the idea of Baz and Simon, the execution of their relationship I felt was lacking. When Simon suddenly realises he has a thing for Baz, Rowell immediately jumps to him identifying as gay. She entirely rules out the prospect or even consideration that Simon could be bisexual given his past relationship with Agatha, as if there isn't an option between straight and gay. Obviously people do change from being straight to gay, but it was like there was no consideration about his past relationships or history. The erasure of bisexuality as an option for Simon left me feeling uncomfortable. It just felt like Rowell gave no nuanced consideration to Simon's sexuality or his relationship with Baz. There was no real building blocks to their relationship, it just suddenly happened and throughout the whole book Simon was still convinced Baz was going to end him. Hardly the basis for a good relationship.
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I also didn't like that Baz's Egyptian heritage got wiped out because he was a vampire. Rowell just entirely whitewashed the only non-white person in her book which I felt entirely uncomfortable with, but nobody seems to have noticed that.
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Beyond the problematic relationships and characterization, I just wasn't really a fan of the plot. The concept of jumping into a "Fanfiction" world at the end of the series, which appears to be a rip off of Harry Potter just lacked all originality and cohesion for me. It felt difficult to jump into the character narratives and relationships so late in the game and I found many of them quite irritating.
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Overall I was very disappointed with Carry On and won't be picking up the rest of the series.