Ugh! What a great book. Like everyone, I discovered Casey McQuiston with Red, White, and Royal Blue, which I devoured in like, 2 days. I couldn't get into One Last Stop for two reasons—I was bait-and-switched for a sci-fi book, and I couldn't enjoy it after I was made to read a sex scene on the NYC Subway. BUT THIS BOOK BROUGHT ME BACK! I couldn't put this book down!!! The story was great, the writing was beautiful, and the descriptions of art, flavor, and Europe were so stunning. Would recommend this book to anyone!

I enjoyed the richness of the story with regards to the traveling and food and drink details. However, I think there was so much of it that it became repetitive by the end. If it was done with a little more moderation, I think it would have added more value to the plot. I’m not the biggest fan of second chance romance because I feel like it’s hard to do it well with a justification for why they come back together in the end, and this felt a little like that to me. I didn’t really enjoy that their original separation was merely because of an easily overcome miscommunication. The characters and the romance were just okay. It was nice to see them grow throughout their travels, but I never really grew to care about them. I also wish we saw more of the romance on page because at times I wasn’t sure if I truly cared if they got back together. Also, them just having sex with everyone in Europe and never having any issues with someone wanting them made the story a little too unrealistic. I felt like any scenes around the sex competition were really cringey and not a good look. I’m a sucker for a travel story though, and I did enjoy getting to go along for the journey for that reason even if the romance didn’t really sell me.

🍋✨book review✨🍋

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

Pub Date: August 6th, 2024

5/5 STARS
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Sometimes I think the only way to keep something forever is to lose it and let it haunt you.”

Y’ALL 🫠 I. don’t. have. words.

Casey has done it again, plain and simple. I went into this book with no expectations of what to expect. Casey’s true diversity of characters in their books is unmatched. This books MC’s represent bi/nb/trans/queer individuals. There is truly not enough NB rep in books out there and Casey has truly brought it to life.

This book is about Theo and Kit who went through a breakup years prior and both end up on the Food and Wine tour they both bought tickets to while together but then they broke up and both went to the last available tour before their tickets expired. Walking onto a bus where your Ex is, just like running into a brick wall. YIKES.


Theo stole my heart away, they are everything. Their chaos of living life is just miraculous and melts me to pieces… and not to forget extremely attractive. Kit is sex on a stick and melts anyone he walks by. I fell so and utterly in love with Theo and Kit, their love, growth, and self discovery. Pure MAGIC.

This book as a dual POV which is absolutely one of my favorite ways to read a book. The desccription of the food felt like I was actually experiencing alone side the characters. ALSO this book is adult and IS EVERYTHING

The Pairing made me feel so many feelings and now I wanna book and food & wine tour in Europe and live like Theo and Kit.

Go preorder this book y’all, the first edition is going to have sprayed edges. Im a slut for sprayed edges.

Pairs well with: devastation, tissues, being too real


Super thankful to receive this ARC. Honestly I am between giving it zero stars and five stars, but because it’s an ARC I’ll go with five.

This book is all about pairings, the pairing of Theo & Kit, food & wine, and loves lost and loves gained. This is a second chance romance full of miscommunication and frustration. It’s also full of compassion, the reality of life, and so much more.

My absolute favorite part of this book was how it captured the importance of perspective. How one views themselves may be very different from how someone else views them. All it takes is one moment to shift that perception. The POV switch of this book was incredibly done. Another great pairing pulled off. Most importantly it captured the importance of first person POV and identity.

Finally, I don’t think I’ve ever cried as hard as I did when Kit talked about grief and how Theo got him through it.

Just going to go cry for a while I guess. (I don’t think it was actually that sad, but I was hit so hard but how real it all felt to me).

“I’ve always agreed with the French that a meal should begin with sweetness, but I'm beginning to wonder if the Italians have it right if, sometimes, discovery wants bitterness first.”

This was a beautiful and indulgent romance!!! Sometimes too indulgent……….in some parts…….but mostly I loved it!

You can tell how much research and painstaking care Casey McQuiston put into this book: Every location, meal and drink is vividly written without ever feeling cliche or strained. There are also some really special metaphors about love and art and food.

I think I enjoyed Kit’s perspective most, it felt more developed and original? There were moments that were predictable, but others that felt grand and sweeping. I think my favourite city was Bordeaux!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️/5

<b><I>The Pairing</I></b> follows exes Kit and Theo, who are thrown together in an unforeseen reunion during a food and wine tour across Europe.

Though both Kit and Theo left their breakup completely heartbroken, their forced proximity on their tour has resulted in an armistice of sorts, with both sides tentatively acting as though all is well. They’re acting so normal with each other, in fact, that their multi-city and country tour has turned into an agreed upon sex competition: whoever can bag the most conquests is the winner. Though at first this competition seems all well and good, it soon is made plain that feelings between our two main characters are still involved. Will Theo and Kit be able to get through their trip with their respective hearts still in tact? Or will their compelled closeness cause irreparable damage?

This book was such an adventure. I was completely besotted with the descriptors surrounding the food and wine that was experienced in the trip our characters were on… it made me so nostalgic for my time spent in Europe. The sensory overload of how everything tasted, smelled, looked, felt… it made the experience of reading this story such a joy. On top of this, the exploration the characters go through not just in regards to their own sexuality and genders, but also with their relationship in general, was an incredibly compelling and fascinating story. There is something so modern and forward-thinking about removing gender as a determiner for love and relationships… it was so freeing to read and, I can only imagine, powerful for someone who might specifically identify with these characters. I had not read a story like this in a long while—one that struck such an emotional chord and hit me right in the heart.

I highly recommend this book. Period. I don’t think it’s even fair to say that you need to be a lover of a specific type of story for this to hit home. It’s a romance, it’s a love letter to European food and wine, it’s an opportunity for the reader to root for something as simple as a second-chance love.

Tropes in this story:
✨ Forced proximity
✨ Only one bed (several times!)
✨ Second chance for a first-time love
✨ Exploration and fluidity of sexuality and gender
✨ LGBTQIA+ love

I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book via NetGalley, but my review is all my own.

what a wonderful rich reading experience! every moment of the pairing is filled with indulgence from the food and landscape descriptions to the romcom ingredients that sneak their way into the plot. this is going to be such a great book to read this summer, sweating in the sun with a chilled drink and a delicious snack.

This is soo cute 😻. There is a lot of growth in Casey McQuisten’s writing from Red, white and royal blue to the pairing. Red, white and royal felt a bit like fan fiction and much younger writing, whereas this felt cleaner, more mature and like a seasoned professional. The characters were developed well and the comedy moments were actually funny. I think the pacing was good and it’s just such a fun read. If you’ve enjoyed their other books or just want some good queer romances I recommend this!

Hi! I am so desperately sorry but I am not going to finish or review the book. I was so beyond excited to have a chance to read the ARC because I absolutely loved RWRB (which I read twice and would give 10 stars to each time if I could) and I think Casey is a very talented modern author. The story summary for The Pairing seemed something that I would really appreciate reading however, in reality this book did not connect with me at all. I think I was expecting something a little lighter, plus I think the book is weighed down with too much discussion and detail about food and wine in such an overwhelming way that it actually takes away from the story the reader would want to hear. I found no connection to Theo and found them to be almost an unlikable character. I also just did not appreciate the challenge of hooking up with random strangers as a competition amongst the exes. I thought it was a little gross and also unsafe. I truly thank you for the opportunity but I think it's best that I do not review the book at this time. Thank you.

This book was frothy, decadent and exactly what I wanted! Completely fantastical, this version of Europe is one for the ages.

I’m a big fan of Casey McQuiston novels, but this was a giant miss. It didn’t even feel like it was their writing. Here are some enjoyable moments. I did appreciate that the book was broken up into the different tour stops the characters make on their wine/food tour. However, this made chapters very long without a good stopping place for a break. The description of the food and wine consumed was spot on-even pretentious at points, but I appreciated the knowledge of pairings that McQuiston painted. However, the big downfall of this novel was the lack of progression. Every chapter droned on. The characters were flat with little personality. At times it was written as if the characters had side jokes that only they understood and the reader was left in the dark. It could have easily been 200 pages shorter because each chapter was identical to the previous. I was sad that this was so disappointing. I’ve never struggled to read a McQuiston novel, but this was borderline tortuous.

I liked this book, I didn’t love it.

I had **such high hopes** this was going to be my queer book of the head! It has all the right ingredients - Casey McQuiston, European summer trip, and queer love and hookups (yes it’s steamy!),

And the first half of the book ACED IT. I was immediately taken in, I loved getting to know the two main characters Theo and Kit, and I was excited for their adventure. The descriptions of various spots in Europe and the food was a super fun (and delicious sounding) backdrop to their story. The first 50% of the book is told from Theo’s perspective which was fun (although at times frustrating as Theo would self-sabotage).

The back half of the book is told from Kit’s perspective and this is where it go boring for me. I started to feel like the descriptions of food, and European cities was too long, too much filler and not super interesting. I was really looking for the bits of the story about Theo and Kit and some times full pages would go by with just descriptions of the city. I guess it sets the mood but I found it boring. I was invested in their growth, their self-learning, their reationship… and the food and city info felt boring. I also felt like the book wrapped up a few of their challenges super quickly and almost too easily at the end. I waited so long and travelled through so much with them for a simplified ending. A happy ending but a simplified one.

4.5 rounded up. Theo and Kit are exes. It's not that they just used to date, they were very much best friends and first loves that finally confessed in college. On the eve of a European food and wine tour on the plane ride over, Theo breaks things off with Kit. Now, 4 years later they both inadvertently opt to use their tour vouchers on the same tour. Theo wants to project that they have their life together and are over Kit. What can they do, but perhaps compete to see how many locals they can bed along the way.

With two bisexual leads, a lot of spice, copious food, wine, and tourist descriptions, this book is a feast. That said, go in eyes open. Self described as sluts, Kit and Theo are diving in fast and there's a lot of sex. Compared to Casey's other works I've read (Red, White, and Royal Blue and One Last Stop) I would say you could expect double or more in terms of spice. The Pairing is part foodie tourist trip, part millennial coming of age/self discovery, and messy romance. Is the story line realistic? I would say no, but then, is that what you are looking for? There's plenty of joy and adventure to be had in this travel romance.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for an ARC on NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

thank you so much to netgalley and st martin’s griffin for the arc of the pairing! genuinely every time i read a casey mcquiston book i am chasing euphoria that red white and royal blue gave me and let me tell you the pairing gave me that!! this one took me a minute to get into but once i was hooked i couldn’t put it down. second chance lovers on a European vacation? that is my bread and butter right there!

this book is equal parts food, wine and romance in the best way possible. i loved the way mcquistion showed us how kit and theo started, how they grew apart and together and most importantly how they loved each other. this was such a raw heartfelt novel, my sappy heart was overflowing. kit and theo truly have this deep raw love for one another and its so devastatingly beautiful. it is messy, it is tragic, it is magical, it is real and i loved it so much! seeing them travel from place to place and what they learn every part of the journey was phenomenal. i love the way mcquiston divided their dual pov’s, it allowed us to dive in to try to fully understand both of our main characters.

also the bisexual representation is amazing, i love love love how normalised and accepted it was in the novel! the non-binary representation we stan! they were portrayed with such care in the novel.

i love kit and theo so much i just want them to be happy forever!! i really loved this book!

This book beat out my expectations by a mile, and after enjoying the world building and wild ride that was “One Last Stop,” they were pretty high. The Pairing combines a delicious vacation setting ripe with a constant sensory overload of food, wine, pastry, scenery, and sexual tension that makes it not just an ideal beach read, but one that you’ll keep on your shelf to let friends borrow in the future. A friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers vibe is the best way to encapsulate this trope, though I feel like this rises above being boxed into most of the standard romance tropes. I laughed, I cried, I thought about my purpose on this earth, and as a baker and lover of wine, I soaked up all the knowledge and references sprinkled throughout. Be transported to a gay European vacation with your friends and be so glad you went.

I.... have no words for this book. It was so RAW and LYRICAL and horny-- delicious and filled with sparkly drinks and dripping with delicious food. It gave me a serious case of wanderlust and made me swoon.

Read if you love second chance romance, friends to lovers, spice, BEAUTIFUL writing.

Utter perfection--could not recommend enough.

"The Pairing" by Casey McQuiston is a deliciously indulgent and emotionally charged romantic comedy that serves up a delectable blend of second-chance love, travel, and culinary delights. The novel follows Theo and Kit, estranged exes who find themselves unexpectedly reunited on a European food and wine tour after a tumultuous breakup.

McQuiston expertly navigates the complexities of Theo and Kit's relationship, from their childhood friendship to their passionate romance and eventual breakup. As they embark on their solo journeys to rediscover themselves and heal from the past, fate intervenes, bringing them back together on the same tour bus.

The backdrop of stunning European cities, luscious flavors, and romantic vistas provides the perfect setting for Theo and Kit's journey of self-discovery and reconnection. McQuiston's vivid descriptions bring each destination to life, immersing readers in the sights, sounds, and tastes of France, Spain, and Italy.

The dynamic between Theo and Kit crackles with tension and chemistry, as they navigate their conflicting emotions and unresolved feelings for each other. The author skillfully explores themes of love, forgiveness, and the power of second chances, as Theo and Kit grapple with the realization that their connection is still as strong as ever.

The secondary characters add depth and humor to the story, from the charming Italian tour guide to the quirky fellow travelers they encounter along the way. The banter and camaraderie between the characters provide moments of levity amidst the emotional turmoil of Theo and Kit's journey.

At its heart, "The Pairing" is a story about the transformative power of love and the importance of embracing the unexpected twists and turns that life throws our way. With its engaging storyline, witty dialogue, and heartwarming romance, it's a book that will leave readers smiling and satisfied. McQuiston has crafted a deliciously addictive novel that will appeal to fans of contemporary romance and travel fiction alike.

*DNF-ed at 60%, skimmed the other 40%*
I was so genuinely disappointed with this book. I went into this reading experience so very excited because I love the author’s other books; however, the main character, Theo, was just very unlikeable. Also, the writing was just very cringey at times and seemed over dramatic. Truly, the only redeeming qualities to me were the descriptions of food and Kit.

Sometimes, you need fate to be the one to bring you back together after 4 years of growing.
I fell in love with Casey McQuiston’s writing when Red, White, and Royal Blue first came out but The Pairing is on a whole other level. Theo and Kit have the most beautiful and tragic story. I laughed, kicked my feet, and cried so much throughout the entire book. Their banter is absolutely golden and the longing is so deep. You can tell just how entwined their lives are from the beginning and how much heartache each of them have endured from their breakup.
The entire story was poetry made into a painting at the same time a painting was made into poetry.
I’m so grateful to have received this book as an ARC! Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this story ahead of time.

Usually such a fan of Casey but this one was just alright. I think the overall concept of the story was so clever and made me want to read it of course, but kinda turned off about how every secondary character was just down to have sex with Theo/Kit. I get that it's fiction it's not supposed to be taking soooo literal, but it was just doing a lot at times.