The Pairing is a delightful and steamy read that I absolutely loved. The book brims with sexual tension and engaging romance- it's another charming Casey McQuiston romance. Theo and Kit are relatable characters whose dynamic and chemistry keep you hooked, and the angst woven through their story adds depth and intensity to their relationship.

The premise might not appeal to everyone, with a competition where exes sleep with others to realise their true feelings, but I found it entertaining, funny, and sexy. The backstory of their breakup made me root for their reunion even more, and their interactions were on point, building up to a satisfying reunion between them.

The side plots, including family dynamics and life changes since their breakup, add further layers to the narrative, making both characters more sympathetic. The descriptions of food and wine were so vivid they made me hungry. Additionally, the nonbinary representation and related discussions were refreshing and important, offering visibility in a traditionally published romance novel. This book is a must-read for fans of heartfelt and steamy romantic comedies.

After the onslaught of lukewarm reviews, I'm so happy I read it. It's a unique story and I loved how engaging it was.

Many thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press | St. Martin's Griffin for a copy of this novel. ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this one early! I loved how atmospheric this book was- the descriptions of the places and the food and wine were so incredible. The love story- I liked it but I also felt like it dragged on a little in the middle. The chemistry was there but I found both characters to be very frustrating.

The Pairing is the newest queer romance from Casey McQuiston and it might be their spiciest romance yet. Even as the central romance hinges partly on the lack of maturity from the main characters, this book feels like a more mature story than McQuiston's previous work - a reflecting back on the growth that can happen when you step away from someone who has always been a part of your story, and what it might mean to return to old dreams and old flames. The Pairing is a delightful romp through European art and food that will make you hungry and desperate for a food tour (and maybe a reconnection with an old flame). I highly recommend it for queer romance fans.

I tried to start this book so many times and I’ll admit, part of my hesitance was due to some of the reviews I pepped. I made it 60% into this until I finally gave up in agreement with them. A better title for this book would be “horny in Europe” - for two characters who are not 21, I was dumbfounded how everything had to be about sex. I felt nothing for their actual friendship since everything was about sex (with each other or others - every character is seemingly DTF). There is no emotional depth to either character, Theo in particular is insufferable and I’m not rooting for them whatsoever. The fact this relationship broke up so easily over a misunderstanding was pretty astounding - and both leads just move on with it once they realize. I’ve really liked other McQuiston books so this is a disappointing review to write but this book was a slog.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love a road-trip book. Add in food and untried I’ve never visited and a complicated relationship and I’m all in.
I really enjoyed the food/ drink discussions and the trip itself.
I had some trouble connected to our MCS. A lot of their introduction felt like I was being told and not being shown.
Overall, I enjoyed the story but not as much as other books by this author.

I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

It’s honestly disgusting how good this book is. Kit and Theo are a delight to read. Every unraveling of them is so juicy and wonderful. It took me a few chapters to settle into this book but once I did? I fell in love with both Kit and Theo. I love how androgynous Theo is. I love how their love story unwinds. I love the setting in various European cities (is there actually a tour like this? Because I WANT TO GO). All of this was so beautifully told. I imagined myself in the story the entire time. I haven’t enjoyed a book this much in a while. I highly recommend this one.

I loved it. I loved the ending, I loved everything they learned, and it made me want to go on that tour with those people. Like, badly.

The good things: this book made me feel like I was on the bus with the characters touring Europe! The imagery in this book was amazing and all of the descriptions of the food they ate was very memorable.

not so good things: this book felt like it was dragging and I found it harder to read since I wasn’t as interested. It was basically a new country, they eat food, then hook up with other people and brag about it to each other then repeat.

Emotional and raw story by the outstanding Casey McQuiston. I thought nothing would past Red, White and royal blue but The Pairing takes the cake. Theo and Kit are my new favorite couple. The subscription she paints of Europe kept me in invested in the story along with guys romance. Another winner by Casey. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Bi-sexual exes fuck their way through France, Monaco and Italy. Definitely Casey McQuinston’s hottest book. … BUT ALSO THE FOOD AND THE WINE. The Pairing is luxurious, passionate, almost gluttonous.

Theo and Kit are soulmates, but their four years apart were so crucial to their growth and development. They were not ready to be together forever at 22 and now their frontal lobe’s are fully developed.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC! THE PAIRING tells the story of exes Kit and Theo who accidentally wind up on the same European food and wine tour. I quite liked the descriptions of all the food, and loved both POVs but especially Theo's.

🩵🍷💙 The Pairing ARC Review 💙🍷🩵

Thank you so much to Casey McQuiston and St Martin’s Griffin for the opportunity to read and review this book!

The Pairing is a standalone queer contemporary romance. After losing their partner and best friend 4 years ago, Theo is going on vacation to prove once and for all that they’re over the breakup. But their dream European vacation is interrupted when they realize that Kit - their ex - has booked the same trip. Can they make it through the next few weeks surrounded by the one that broke their heart??

This book was a fantastic read! Theo was such a wonderful character and I loved their confidence in this book. Kit was amazing and I loved how their relationship evolved in this story. The food & wine references within the European setting was so vibrant and well done

This was a fantastic five star read for me! I loved the characters and their chemistry throughout this book. This book does have some potential triggers, so please check if you’re sensitive. This book had some fantastic spice throughout so overall three flames for spice

If you’re a fan of second chance romance with fantastic banter and European adventures, then absolutely pick this one up!

*Thank you to St Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

I had a freaking field day with this one. It's emotional, it's provocative, and it's queer as fuck. YES PLEASE.

We get a lovely tour of Europe as Theo and Kit rediscover (and then promptly fight) their feelings for one another. Between the bars, the food, and the art, European culture really felt like a character in the book. Reading it made me feel like I was in a movie, honestly. The setting was just that lush! It was complemented well by how Casey McQuiston utilized descriptions. This book was all about sensory experience: the sights, the smells, and the taste. Also it is hot as fuck (literally featuring a body-count competition) so there's that too.

I also really enjoyed how they split the book in half. For the first part, we get only Theo's PoV. Then we switch to Kit! It worked perfectly and I haven't seen a PoV switch like that in recent romance novels. It got a liiiil confusing in the epilogue, but you can figure it out based on context clues. My copy is full of highlights of quotes, banter, and the like. (Is this book secretly Gimle x Legolas fanfiction? Maybe!)

Unsure what the perfect wine pairing for this book would be, but I need it yesterday. (Sweet, spicy, robust, and European for sure. Maybe a nice Chianti Classico?)

ty to netgalley and st martin's press for this digital ARC!

i truly do not know how to feel about this book. i really liked the premise of it-- two exes end up on the same food tour and having a hook-up competition. the descriptions of the food were mouth-watering. the events in the book were interesting to read. despite this, it felt flat.

i wasn't really rooting for the characters and i think it's partly because theo's POV, which starts off the book, was a DRAG. i started and restarted this book multiple times and it took a 12 hour flight with no internet and no other books to get me to get past the first few chapters and finish. i think theo is a good character but they were hard to empathize with and i disliked being in their thoughts. kit's POV starting halfway through was the saving grace and was when the story really picked up for me.

i knew this was a second-chance romance and i LOVE second-chance romances, esp when done correctly. theo and kit's tension and unresolved feelings from their break-up is definitely there, especially once we get to kit's POV. however, i feel like their relationship had little to no emotional development. instead, we are told that the characters love each other but tbh, i never saw how they'd work out when considering their new places in life. this is kind of touched on towards the end but even then, i feel more could have been done.

honestly, now that i think about it, this book was more about being horny than actually feeling things. i still liked it but eh, not my fave of mcquiston's work.

This book earns four starts for the amazing writing and the awesome location/food descriptions. I didn't love the main characters as much as I wanted to, but it wasn't enough of an issue to make me not enjoy this book a lot. I think this is a great summer read, especially if you want to read about travelling around Europe.

2.5-3 stars for the first half, 3.5 stars for the second half.

A fun, indulgent beach read, though definitely my least favorite of Casey McQuiston’s books. I’ve four-starred all of their other books, but this one didn’t quite do it for me like their others did, especially the first half. It gets better in the second half—a deeper dive into the character dynamics, better banter, and more of the yearning that McQuiston is known for. The yearning teeters between delicious and ridiculous—you’ll have a character breathlessly waxing poetic about Botticelli and Rilke, but it’s hard to take this earnestness entirely seriously in a frothy beach read with dick jokes. Yes, I know highbrow art and dick jokes are not mutually exclusive (see: Shakespeare), and I normally like books that are both funny and serious, but this one didn’t quite gel for me.

The settings are vibrant but very much portrayed from a tourist’s-eye view. Nothing against tourism, I enjoy being a tourist, but for foreign settings I find it more interesting to read a local author’s perspective. Similarly, the book relies on cartoonish portrayals of bilingualism.

In general, I don’t automatically hate fictional characters just because they’re rich—in fact, I often enjoy reading about rich characters—but I found it hard to sympathize with these characters. Theo has been rich their whole life, they have their dream job and a loving family who offers to give them $200k at the drop of a hat, they’re conventionally attractive enough to sleep with almost anyone they want. Kit is like “oh no I feel ennui while working as a pastry chef and having a whole stable of fuckbuddies and living in the Paris pied-à-terre that I inherited from my uncle.” Both main characters are effortlessly hot rich white 20-somethings who almost never experience rejection. If you enjoy escapist fiction about aspirational characters, you might like this book; if you want your characters to be more relatable, this one’s probably not for you.

Every time I am reading a Casey McQuiston book I just want to climb inside and live there. Although I didn't fully connect with the main characters and found them somewhat annoying, I admire how Casey effortlessly represents fluidity in gender and sexuality across all their characters. They do such a fantastic job or representing queer joy and fun! I wanted nothing more than to be there with Kit, Theo and the gang as they ate, drank, and shagged their way around Europe!

(I was so excited to receive an arc of this book as it was one of my most anticipated releases of the summer! Thank you so much to the publisher!)

The first half of "The Pairing" is a montage of European cities, food, booze, casual sex, etc. It's charming, but not very memorable.

Theo and Kit were fine — lovable but not the most memorable characters. I think my primary issue with this book is that all of the emotional development and intimacy happens off page. They're already in love, broken up and still hung up on each other before we even meet these characters. There's an entire lifetime before this the readers are not privy to and it's not adequately captured in the story for us to catch up. Instead, we're just expected to know how much they love each other and why without enough development to really merit it.

Their sex bet also failed to serve their arc and instead just cheapened everything. Also, lots of weird "Call Me By Your Name" references?

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was very excited to read The Pairing (release Aug 2024). Theo and Kit have been best friends since they were children. Eventually they pair up and it is great for a while. The two break up on a flight to Europe where they are going on a food and wine tour of France, Italy and Spain. Theo returns home and Kit continues on to family in Paris. Four years later they both use their expiring vouchers for the tour they never went on and end up together again. Kit has gone to culinary school and is a pastry chef in Paris. Theo returned to the restaurant they worked in since being 19, and is a talented bartender and is hoping to pass the upcoming sommelier test.

This should have been right up my alley. Food tour going through some of my favorite cities and countries in Europe. But I was so bored during the first half of this book. I can tell McQuiston did a lot of research on food and wine and differences in flavors for differing regions. But all that only works if I like the main couple. The two realize fairly early on that there was a lot of miscommunication during their break up. But instead of working on a more mature friendship they decide to have a contest to see who can hook up with the most people during the trip. It is all consensual but is childish and made me like the pair less.

Theo comes from a wealthy and famous family and her unwillingness to accept help from them even gets called out by her sister. Theo has symptoms of being ADHD but I don’t think it was ever mentioned as a reason they can’t see things through to completion. Theo's “woe is me” complaining is tiresome because their family is loving and supportive. Kit is more likable personality wise but he still is willing to let there be misunderstandings and participate in the hook up contest.

The last 30 percent got more interesting and I liked where the story ends. I’ve given high marks to McQuiston’s previous books but this one wasn’t quite there for me. I did like some of the other people on the tour that brought a little humor to the story. And I liked the bisexual and non-binary representation MCs.

Special thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was not a fan of this book. I didn’t find the relationship to be particularly compelling. I wish there was more of a look into the first time they tried a relationship. In addition I felt like this book lacked the fleshed out characters (both side and main) that other books by this author have had.

This book wasn’t for me but I’m sure that many people will absolutely love it.