Fun story! I love a good exes to lovers. Thought some of it seemed a bit too good to be true, but it was easy enough to overlook.

Casey McQuiston knows what she's doing. She writes in a manner that allows us to be so connected to fallible and perfectly imperfect characters. This was a beautiful queer story. Buckle down with this book and some great snacks!

Thank you to Casey McQuiston, St. Martin’s Griffin, and NetGalley for an ARC of The Pairing, one of my most anticipated books of the year! All opinions are my own.

4.5 rounded up. I’ve been sitting on this ARC for what feels like forever, and kept putting off starting it because then it would be over. But I’m so glad I finally decided to give it a shot because it really was such a beautiful book.

The entire book just felt so cinematic in every way. The food, the sights, the memories, the love were all so perfect and had me craving more. While at times I did feel like the food and drink descriptions were made for someone smarter or more worldly than I could hope for, overall the entire book made me desperate to leave everything to travel across Europe on a food tour.

McQuiston’s decision to split the book into two POVs, with each character having one half of the book, was absolute genius - instead of a full back and forth between POVs, I thought it was perfect getting to experience Theo’s thoughts and feelings about their breakup with Kit and reunion at the beginning of the book and living in their emotions fully before switching to Kit. It made Kit’s hidden yearning so much more powerful, in my opinion. I’m so glad to have had the opportunity to read this story💕

POV: dual first person

You can expect: exes to friends to lovers, second chance, pining, food tour, sommelier MC, pastry chef MC, forced proximity, only one bed, “it was always you”.

Rep: bisexual MCs, nonbinary MC, French-American MC

Spice: 2/5

Wow! I absolutely loved this romp through Europe with two bisexual disasters! It was so well-done that I didn't want it to end, but I also didn't want Theo and Kit to have to be apart any longer.

Highly recommend!

I can think of nothing worse than being stuck with an ex on a European food and wine tour--but, I mean, at least there's alcohol? Theo and Kit, two chaotic bisexual disasters, in order to survive the trip, challenge each other to a hookup competition because they're soooo over each other (spoiler alert; they're not). I really wanted to love this one, but it was just too horny for me. The Pairing has all of Casey's classic humor and heat, just turned up to a ten.

Also, to be fair, this probably colored my perception of the entire story--I'm demi. I have a hard time relating to/enjoying "hook up" scenes as compared to scenes where the characters already have an established connection. If you've loved McQuiston's other books AND love spicy spice, then The Pairing should be on your menu, I mean TBR in August.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my ARC.

I'm calling it: this is my favorite book of the year. Simultaneously devastatingly horny and achingly romantic, this romcom is full of intense yearning and lush food and drink descriptions. I couldn't put it down!

Had a hard time getting into this one. It got more interesting when the pair begin to have a competition, but ultimately it kind of fell flat for me.

📣 a second chance romance set during a freaking SUMPTUOUS feast of a European tour

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

📖 what’s a food & drink you think pair well together? I’ll say coffee & donuts (very high-brow tastes over here 😆).

I finished The Pairing by Casey McQuiston & was shocked TO MY MARROW that I wasn’t actually on a tour of France, Spain, & Italy.

This book takes you on such a luscious tour of food, drink, & sights that I felt like I was on a sexy, sexy vacation (that wasn’t always super relaxing given the second chance events going on 🤣).

Second chance. You know how I feel about you.

But The Pairing is hard to pin down when it comes down to an evaluation of how it’s carried out. The book is romantic & sexy & I adore how bone-deep supportive the leads are of each other. That kind of friendship is so special.

& yet, there’s an element of their journey on this trip that I found immature, & as another reviewer wrote, Theo & Kit’s journey is “messy.”

But underneath it all, & surrounding it all, is so much love & acceptance & adoration, not to mention such a well of appreciation for food, travel, & what humans have created, & all of it left me with this big feeling when I finished.

So do I have quibbles about this one? Yes, a bit. But also, I will be thinking about this book for a while. Casey McQuiston really did it big.

I think I’m at 5 ⭐️. Out 08/06.

Please a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs.

[ID: Jess holds the ebook while wearing a purple & white striped dress & an aqua cardigan & standing in front of a yellow wall.]

The Pairing is a raw emotional journey that encapsulates bisexual and queer hookup culture, situationships and coming to terms with romantic feelings. Casey McQuiston stunned me with beautiful descriptions of Europe and the food in the tour. But overall, I was wowed the most by the gentle but thrilling relationship between Theo and Kit.

God, this book. Casey McQuiston can do no wrong. My favourite author has given me a new favourite.

I loved everything about this. The romance, the setting, the growth, the joy, the food. Even the sex was beautifully written and I’m someone who usually skims those parts.

What I love about McQuiston’s writing is how earnest and raw it is. You really feel every bit of what their characters are feeling. It’s all-encompassing, intoxicating, and they knock it out of the park every single time.

Theo and Kit are both so vibrant and messy and emotional and god, I adored them both. So much it’s difficult to put into words. I have very little in common with them - I’m aroace, I don’t drink, I’m broke af - and yet I felt such a connection with them anyway.

I particularly loved Theo’s coming out to Kit. The conversation about gender was such a small piece of this whole book, but it felt so relatable to me and my experience with gender.

This book NEEDS to be a movie. It’s so cinematic to read and it would make such a fantastic film.

*thank you to netgalley & publishers, for providing the digital ARC*

a sexy, fun, emotional, and heartwarming summer read! if you can't go on a trip to europe like everyone else, this book is a great substitute lol. it had really beautiful descriptions of landscapes and food, and did a wonderful job painting a picture of each stop along the tour.

theo and kit were such great characters and i found the perspective switch halfway through the novel to be really interesting. i think it worked really well, but part of me would have rather had dual pov throughout the book. there also were A LOT of side characters, which were fun! but most of them were easily forgettable/mentioned once and then brought up again 100 pages later and i was like 'who is this??'

overall, i thought it was a really fun summer read and a good read if you love a second-chance romance or best friends to lovers!

rating: 3.5/5 stars

“𝘿𝙤 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙠 […] 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖 𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙠 𝙤𝙧 𝙖 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙤 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙩𝙤𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙮, 𝙞𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚?”

As someone who has fond memories from her own European bus tour, loves food and wine/cocktails, and has some knowledge and appreciation for Renaissance art, I can say that I enjoyed this book. Did I “love” it? No. Do I see some problems and why other people might not enjoy it? Yes.

If you hate miscommunication, this probably isn’t a good book for you. If you hate when MCs hook up with other people, this is definitely not a book for you.

The premise is that Theo and Kit, best friends all their lives, and eventually a couple, had a major fight on their way to a European Food & Wine tour 4 years ago, causing them to break up. Now, 4 years later, they have both cashed in their tour vouchers before they expire, and find themselves on this tour together.

They also take part in a “hookup competition” because…well, because these are very horny people. 😝

I enjoyed the journey. I thought the way the book was laid out with their different POVs was effective. I thought Theo’s journey, in particular, was very good. And the ending was very sweet. Sometimes I felt the two MCs were frustrating, but still, overall, I found myself unable to put it down, and enjoyed myself while I was reading.

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

What this book is giving:
✅ Contemporary Queer Romance
✅ Second Chance
✅ Chaotic Bisexuals
✅ The Horniest European Food & Wine Tour
✅ Hookup Competition

Rating:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
🌶️🌶️🌶️½ / 5

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. A fantastic summer read that gets you itching to travel a bit. The beginning was a bit slow to really pull me into the story, but once I was locked in on the romance I was eager to keep reading. The perspective shift also threw me at first but I honestly think I ended up liking reading from Kit's perspective more! McQuiston has managed to do it again, another great romance.

Overall, I think this book was very good. It was the best for me but I still very much enjoyed it. I liked the plot and characters and it was a fun read

Theo and Kit used to be everything to each other- best friends and lovers. Once on the verge of starting a life together, they now live separate lives. When Kit and Theo use a voucher for a canceled tour through Europe, they are shocked and horrified to realize they’re on the same tour. Can they make it through the two-week tour and possibly regain their friendship?

The Pairing will make you feel like you’re on a delightful tour across Europe and you cannot read this book while hungry. Kit is a pastry chef and Theo is a sommelier, so the food descriptions are mouthwatering. I didn’t love the hook-up competition, though I think some readers will love it. My favorite parts were when Theo and Kit spent time together, untangling the truth of why they broke up and re-building their connection. I also enjoyed the camaraderie of the tour group and the memorable side characters.

The Pairing gave me all the feels! McQuiston does a fantastic job of imparting the sense of evanescence that comes when traveling and you realize that this place will continue to exist long after you leave. As Kit and Theo revisit the relationship that once meant the world to them, there’s a poignant sense of heartbreak and nostalgia. The conclusion was very satisfying!

Readers looking for queer romance, achingly beautiful writing, and hilarious dialogue should check out The Pairing.

Thank you to Casey McQuiston, St. Martin’s Griffin, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc.

Picture the "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," but make it a second-chance romance. The pairing is campy and reverent, with over-the-cop near-cartoonish portrayals of Italians that will nevertheless make you want to jump on the next flight to Rome (or Paris, or Barcelona, or Florence, etc. etc.)

I wanted to love this so much more than I did, but I think my mixed feelings mostly come down to second-chance romance not being a trope that works for me. We are told that Kit loves Theo and Theo loves Kit, but sometimes I had trouble seeing why. As readers, we didn't have the chance to witness the history that Kit and Theo had firsthand, we didn't get to see their love grow, we only saw how it fell apart. So much of their connection throughout "The Pairing" emphasizes their sexual relationship because of the way they are avoiding their feelings, and this may work for some people but it unfortunately didn't work for me.

Theo and Kit are long time best friends turned lovers, who break up on the way to their 3 week European food and wine tour. They don't speak again until they show up to the same tour again, right before their trip voucher expires almost 4 years later. Once they're forced back together on the tour, they start to realize the feelings they had for each other may not be gone like they thought. But instead of acknowledging it, they challenge each other to see who can hook up with more people as they travel around Europe. What could possibly go wrong here?

I have mixed feelings about this book. I think it definitely has an audience who will absolutely love it, but I just don't think it's me. I loved the LGBTQ+ representation (Theo and Kit are bisexual/pansexual) and the travel aspects of this book. However I think readers should know that this book is VERY VERY heavy on sex, food, and wine (obviously), and lighter on the love story. Those aspects seemed to overshadow the themes of friendship, forgiveness, and leaving your comfort zone. I personally enjoyed the second half of the book more, when it switched to Kit's perspective. Overall I think this book will be a bit polarizing, but a good read for fans of Casey McQuiston and those looking for a sex positive book with LGBTQ+ representation.

The concept of this book was a cool one. I was all for it. However, after the first couple of chapters, I knew this book was on its way to feeling like a chore. I found it so boring and overly descriptive. It was also very repetitive, and there was so much nonsense that could have been easily fixed if the main characters behaved like rational adults with semi-decent communication skills. Some people might absolutely love the food and travel descriptions, which is fine—that never hurts—but it gets to a point where it occupies too much of the narrative. I did not feel much chemistry between the main characters, and the fact that it takes almost halfway through the book to get to the 'plot' is frustrating. Theo and their inner monologue about being a nepo baby—if you are in a truly difficult position, you know you eventually don't have the luxury to be prideful about your sister offering you money to help you out or help you with rent. The fact that you refuse that help showcases even more how privileged you are. You're just displaying as poor people who have no options, but in reality, you do, especially when you have a good relationship with your family. Theo was constantly making a mountain out of a molehill when they could have just had an open conversation with Kit. Their inner monologue felt endless and repetitive. I also couldn't care less about the side characters and how awfully convenient it was that everyone was hot, young, and wanted them or Kit.

After Theo and Kit brutally break up on the way to a European food and wine tour, they cut each other out of their lives completely. But 4 years late, both of them decide to use the travel vouchers issued by the company and end up on the same tour, trapping them in close proximity for three weeks. Both of them want to prove to the other that they're over each other, but spending so much time together again brings up old feelings.

I wanted to like this more than I did! I haven't read any other Casey McQuiston books to compare this to, but it was a bit disappointing. The pacing was pretty slow, with lots of descriptions of food, etc. along with some flashbacks to their previous relationship slowing down the narration. The POV switches from Theo to Kit about halfway through, which I appreciated to get a different perspective on the relationship.

Pros: the food/wine descriptions were amazing, and felt well-researched and authentic for the areas they were traveling in. The concept of a food tour through Europe sounds amazing and I would love to do that. I also don't normally like second chance romances, but given the compressed timeline of this book (like 3 weeks over the course of the food tour), I felt like that was a good choice to make, allowing the main characters to have previous history/intimacy to build on/rediscover as opposed to an insta-love situation.

Cons (in my opinion): Maybe it's just because I'm not a hot, young bisexual, but I felt like the amount of sex in this book was unrealistic. The main characters are literally having sex with different people in every single city they stop in, everyone appears to be super hot and super into both of them all the time, and it's just a lot. The book is also super tightly focused on the two main characters and some of the secondary relationships we sort of see (Kit's dad, Theo's sister) feel really underdeveloped to the point they shouldn't have been mentioned. Some of the other people on the food tour sounded fun and I would have liked them to be rounded out a bit more. (Also, this is more nit=picky than anything, but the tour company gave them 4 years! to use their travel vouchers for this tour which felt like an unrealistically long time.)

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

If I had to review this book in one word, it would be: INDULGENT.

(Or slutty, but I'll say that's a close second.)

But really, in the best way, this book is indulgent: in its length, in its descriptions of place and food, in its prose, and of course, in its level of spice. It's a LOT, but really enjoyable ways.

Casey McQuiston is just SO amazing to read, not only because their books are fun and sexy, but also because they're so incredibly well-written. Casey is an author masterclass in writing that is so smart and sharp, while also being SO immensely funny, warm, and hot. The characters, sense of place, and emotional beats are so well-developed and feel so authentic -- almost familiar. Like, truly the most perfect blend of *everything* you want in a book, and in a reading experience. I read Casey's books having the BEST time, but also in complete AWE. They are one of a kind, and as readers, we're so lucky to live in a world where we get to enjoy the McQuiston-verse.

THE PAIRING is mostly a low-plot, mostly (horny) vibes book following ex-lovers Theo and Kit, who reconnect unexpectedly on a food tour around Europe. It's so lush and visual, and again, very slutty. The two try to out-slut each other basically, and I didn't hate it. It's hilarious and outrageous, while also managing to be very tender and emotionally resonant. Just so so so well-written and enjoyable.

And I have to imagine the research trip that Casey took for this book was insanely epic, and I'm jealous. But the next best thing to actually taking a delicious tour across Europe is reading this book, so!

Hope Casey eventually does tours in Europe that mirror the book 'cause I'll be first in line! (A girl can dream.)

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest, unbiased review. THE PAIRING is out 8/6/24.