The Pairing is delicious, intoxicating, and sexy, a beautiful read from start to finish that you'll never want to put down. Hands down CMQs best book yet!

I loved the first half of this book, I was engaged, I enjoyed Theo's POV, the chaos, the yearning, the way they interacted with other people, the way they talked about wine and the dynamic they had within their family, among other things, I just loved Theo.

But then we switch to Kits POV halfway through the book and it was so jarring. First I was confused bc I thought Theo was nonbianry, so why is Kit using the wrong pronouns? Then we find out why, okay, weird way to tell us, why not make it dual POV from the start?

It felt like halfway through the book we were thrown into a different storyline and for me the book never truly recovered. I felt like Kits whole personality was telling us that he would blow up his life for Theo, Theo is ruining him in the best way, he would die for Theo, oh and he hates his job. Other wise Kit doesn't have much of a personality.


I usually love Casey McQuinstons books, but this one is just meh. Dual POV throughout may have saved it, but idk. Anyway thank you for the ARC!

Casey McQuiston has never written a book that I haven’t loved. This book made me ache in the most beautiful way. The way that the main characters truly loved each other but were so afraid of that love - it was perfection. I will say, overall, I preferred the second half of the book to the first. Kit’s point of view just resonated a little more with me. But I loved the love story. I was also very much drawn in by all the descriptions of food and wine. It made me want to go on my own European adventure!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

This book is, as so many people note, extremely horny. In a world where the “doors” in trad published romance feel like they are trending more and more toward closed, this is a good thing. Add on the rise in book banning in America and the fact that this is a traditionally published queer romance about two people who unapologetically like sex? It’s more than a good thing. It’s an important thing. If you are uncomfortable with it, I think it says more about you than the book, so maybe sit with your discomfort for a min.

If you are a traditional romance reader, this book breaks a romance rule, but I think McQuinston does it well and that it makes sense for the characters. The dialogue is sparkling, as it always is in a Casey McQuinston novel, they have truly top notch banter skills. The yearning is also next level. However, while I was glad to have gotten the dual POV, the shift from all Theo to all Kit didn’t work as well for me. I think McQuinston was separating the POVs to provide for a greater unveiling of the miscommunication between the two characters, but I think the unveiling still could have occurred by degrees and the desperate yearning still could’ve been there, or even better mixed in had the POVs been more regularly alternating.

If this book doesn’t make you lust after good food, wine, and travel, you must already have those things, but for me it’s as close as I’m getting to a European vacation this year, so I’ll take it. I will however be perpetually jealous of the trip I imagine Casey McQuinston took in the name of research. Good for them, get that tax write off.

I will be withholding my review of this book in solidarity with the St. Martin's Press boycott.

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin

I began this book but could not get through it. It was sad, because I usually like this author’s books, but I felt like this one was a stretch for her.

Let me start this by saying Casey McQuiston is one of my all time favorite authors and I will read ANYTHING they write. Which makes this even more difficult when I say...I did not love this book. I went into this expecting to fall in love with these bisexual foodie exes and I just didn't. Theo was borderline insufferable with their constant inability to acknowledge their privilege. Kit was more likable and I did enjoy when the POV switched but it became so repetitive that I found myself bored. It didn't show me the usual banter and wit that I normally LOVE in McQuiston's other books. The food and alcohol in such vivid detail was exciting for a while, but slowly became distracting from the main plot. I just really struggled to root for these character to even be together. I really wish I had enjoyed this more than I did.

2.5/5 rounded up to 3

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first time reading a McQuiston book, though her other works have been very popular. I really liked The Pairing! I deducted a star because the endless details of their travel, tourism, scenery, and foods got tedious and I ended up skimming a lot of those. The book's description "two bisexual exes accidentally book the same European food and wine tour and challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they're over each other—except they're definitely not" is a bit misleading in that it trivializes Kit and Theo's journey towards reconciliation. Their competition is only a small part of the novel. The first 40% of the book is a bit slow in a boring way, and the remaining book is still a bit slow but in more of a slow burn tension where you just want to savor the characters and the journey. Both characters are flawed, complex, and quirky. You can't help but like them and root for them.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel via NetGalley.

I found the first half a little slow, but then things got much more spicy and more interesting. Overall, worth the read.

what a great summer romance!! the entire time i was reading, i was like i wish i was in europe right now sitting outside at a cafe reading. casey mcquiston does it again!!

Theo and Kit grew up together, totally in love with each other, but never knowing how the other felt. Eventually they figured it out, for a while anyway, until a fight on a plane over the Atlantic before they ever got to their European tasting tour. Four years later, they are on that tour together and learning all the ways they still love each other while watching each other fall in and out of bed with beautiful people in each new city, and still not truly knowing how the other feels.

This is the book I was looking for when I went to Italy. Immersive and rich in detail, excellent characters, and many steamy scenes make this a tasty summer read.

I was provided a complimentary arc via NetGalley by St Martins Press.

The profound queerness of this romance is only one of the reasons it's so spectacularly good.

For me, as for so many people, I enjoy romance because of the tropes - I know where a book is going, I know I don't have to stress about the ending, so I can enjoy how we get there.

This book has one of the most spectacularly hedonistic premises - pleasures of food, wine, companions, gorgeous scenery - and also manages to throw in nearly every trope you can think of and still make them funny and interesting.

But back to my original point - this isn't a romance that has gayness painted on top of a heterosexual plot. So much of it is profoundly queer, including the sex, which is steamy and delightful.

One of the best books I read this year. Highly recommend! By far the best book McQuiston has written.

I genuinely enjoyed this book, but I do think it's going to be incredibly polarizing- especially if you're familiar with McQuiston's other works. You're either going to find it pretentious, or you're going to love getting lost in the details and the yearning.

There is an abundance of detail in this book, which I feel is important to know going in. McQuiston takes the time to painstakingly describe the tour at each stop along the way, from the places they go to the monuments they see to the food they eat. It's rich and often immersive (I spent so much of this book hungry, oh my god), but a lot of it is cumbersome and unnecessary. I got the feeling McQuiston was aiming to paint a picture exactly as they wanted it to be shown in case it's ever translated to a visual medium. As a writer myself, I get that, but it felt excessive. 40% of the details could have been taken out and the rest would have been sufficient. My advice going into this book is to not get hung up on a lot of the descriptions, because you won't remember a lot of them. The goal is to create atmosphere. Lean into the fun, delicious, artistic, vacation-y vibes the descriptions create and don't overthink it.

Kit and Theo are as fun as they are frustrating, but where they shine the most is in their enthusiasm. They are the most themselves when they lean into the things that make them happy, the things they're good at and know a lot about and want to share with the world. It's this enthusiasm that they love them most in one another- mirror images reflecting in the best sense. The first half of the book is in Theo's POV, whereas the second half of the book is in Kit's POV. This sort of works in places (keeps some of the mystery alive in a way I'm not sure was super necessary), but some of the emotional punches toward the end of the book get a little undercut because the build is paced a little oddly. I think alternating POVs might have served McQuiston a little better here if only to layer the emotional build better and have a stronger impact at the end.

That being said, I did feel like I got sucker-punched in the chest toward the end, because I was constantly stopping to write down lines that got me (and once very nearly cried). Exes to lovers is easily in my top three favorite tropes of all time, so I was always bound to love this book based on that alone. Kit and Theo's love feels genuine, and I found myself rooting for them right up to the very end.

A couple of side notes:
1) Theo's nepo-baby complex really did not get the development it deserved in the back half because of this POV switch-up, which was a little disappointing.
2) This book is far less about the international hook-up competition than I think the synopsis prepares you for, but in my opinion that's a good thing. The focus is ultimately on working its way toward Kit and Theo being friends again, first, and potentially exploring the possibility of reconciliation, second.
3) The cast of secondary characters is delightful, if a little under-developed.
4) Casey, the waterboarding joke wasn't funny the first time; it's time to let it go.

[NetGalley was kind enough to provide me with an ARC for this title.]

Page references for some of my favorite lines:
285: "peace"
301: "he wanted to join her forever to history"
314: "even the parts you don't think you deserve"
317: "I never stopped"
347: "The only thing I'd regret more"
348: "with all the momentum of twenty years and a hundred thousand miles"

I genuinely wanted to finish this because I love CMQ’s work so much but found myself terribly bored halfway through because its the same thing happening every. single. chapter. and it gets old fast.

The Pairing was one of my most anticipated reads for the year, but unfortunately I didn’t love the book. All we’re told in the beginning is that Kit and Theo were friends as kids, started dating and something happened four years ago that caused them to break up. We were not given enough backstory and scenes between the two early in the book to make me understand why they should be together or why I should be rooting for them to end up together. I seriously considered DNF’ing this book about a third of the way in. Both characters felt very immature to me (despite their current ages) and their friendship after their breakup/not seeing each other for years felt strange to me (like… there are other people on this tour, you don’t have to hang out with each other). I also did not understand their rules for hooking up and I felt the majority of the book was about their hookups rather than character building or developing the plot further than eating and drinking a lot of alcohol. There was a sweet moment between the characters later in the book, but it wasn’t enough to redeem the entire story.

2.5/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

You know those movie screenings where they give you food and drinks represented within the film? I need that for this book. Yes, it may take days, but I will gladly sit through it. The descriptions in this book were absolutely divine throughout, but the food and drinks? I was salivating, begging, wanting to immediately hop on a plane to experience all of these myself. My Taurus heart was happy.

I loved this with every fiber of my being. I was immediately hooked by Theo's voice and storytelling, flowing between past and present. Second chance is one of my favorite tropes, but it's also one that can be a complete miss with a lack of truly feeling the history between characters; this was the absolute opposite of the case here. The way Theo absolutely ached for not just the relationship but the friendship they had with Kit bled through each page, each word, and I was aching right alongside them. The switch halfway through...even more so. I loved every step through this plot and the character development I was able to witness. I gobbled up the writing style, the way McQuiston wove this story in such fine threads that created an elaborate, detailed picture. It was beautiful, it was intimate, and it was the romance that I feel like I've always been seeking.

Mixed feelings. I loved the first half that was from Theo's POV. The shift to Kit's POV felt abrupt and unnecessary. Almost like I was starting another book. His voice didn't feel quite as developed as Theo's and I found myself imagining scenes from Theo's POV instead. Regardless, it was a sweet and tender story with way more bisexual representation than I've ever seen elsewhere.

First off, this book is a wonderfully queer friendly book with representation from the community throughout. I loved the naturalness at which queer characters were included - never just a caricature. Theo and Kit are lovely people and truly love one another. I enjoyed McQuiston's writing and attention to detail of character development. For that, this book deserves praise!

Where the book lost me was all of the meaningless sex with other people while they were clearly pining for, and in love, with one another. Maybe at first the bet was silly, albeit a bit immature, but a reflection of their insecurities around one another and not knowing the depth of the other's feelings. But once the two of them started to come together and their feelings started to be obvious to the other, the shenanigans continued and it just created an ick factor for me that I couldn't get past. I didn't enjoy read about Kit kissing another person in front of Theo and that was the name of the game for a good portion of the book. Their juvenile competition didn't make me committed to hoping they would find a happy ending together. It truly ruined the romantic notions I had for these two and their trip through Europe.

Well written and developed but just not the plot development for me.

One of the better romances I've read this year. I felt like the problems were more realistic and reasonable than past romances novels I've read. Absolutely loved the descriptions of the European cities they were in and the mouthwatering descriptions of the food. I was reliving my trip to Italy! While this was enjoyable and a great summer read, I think I still love Red White & Royal Blue the most from this author.

Casey does a good job of writing people and their mental/ emotional states. This continues with this series but still doesn't bring back the magic I felt reading red white and royal blue for the first time. Will continue to support them