sometimes it feels like a book was written just for you, and this was one of those times for me. this is beautiful, powerful, and different, and i can’t wait to make everyone i love read it. Casey has really done it again - and in my opinion, the best yet, though it is very very different from their previous books. This is a book for adults who are capital-Q Queer, not just gay, to finally finally see themselves represented. Also, long live sluts!!

Casey does it again! I have loved every single book by this author, and this one was no different.

Second chance romance? Give me! But second chance romance by Casey? A NEED!!!

Such a beautiful story between these two and I can’t wait to read more from Casey!

As someone I remember hearing this from said, if Casey McQuiston has millions of fans, I am one of them. If they have only one fan, I am the one. - If they have no fans, I am probably dead. On second thought, they probably didn't say Casey McQuiston, but you know :)
After reading the other reviews of this book and seeing some people disappointed with the promiscuity of the characters, I do agree that it is different from some of the other books Casey has written. However, from my point of view, this isn't meant to be realistic. This is fiction. No person in existence is so attractive that everyone loves them, but for the sake of the plot, most people love Theo and Kit. And honestly, that's perfectly fine with me because the plot is just THAT GOOD. Anyways, like it or don't, but I certainly do. McQuiston does it again :)

Theo and Kit are friends turned lovers who suffer a break up only to reunite on a food tour across Europe they had once planned to do together. When they reunite sparks fly as both realize they are still in love with the other!

I was sold on this book as soon as I read the words “food tour around Europe,” but the food descriptions and the terminology is something that most people won’t get unless they watch baking/cooking shows or are those kinds of foodies (the kind who like multiple courses and expensive wines). I will say all the food and restaurant scenes made me feel like I was on the tour with them (which was nice for someone who would love to go to Europe but hasn’t made it there yet).

The first half of the book is from Theo’s POV. They are a non-bionary bartender trying to become a sommelier with an insecurity complex a mile wide and a “nepotism chip” that leads them to self-sabotage anything and everything that makes them happy. I found Theo to be rather whiney for someone who comes from a rich and famous family but feels they have to tough it out on their own or they didn’t really earn any of their achievements.

The second half of the book is from Kit’s POV, which honestly saved it for me. His longing is visceral and just punches you right in all the feels. I had already guessed from clues in Theo’s POV that he never fell out of love (come on Theo how could you have not known he was still painfully in love with you!!!!) so to read his feelings throught art and poems and food was just lovely.

The miscommunication between them was a trope I could’ve done without. Not only did they both assume what the other wanted out of their fight (aka the break up) but they go on the whole tour assuming they will be satisfied as friends, then friends with benefits, then lovers, only to happily seperate again? Also it led to the bet and all the casual sex, which seems pretty counterproductive when the objective of the plot was to get the mains back together again. The sex for the sake of sex just seemed out of place when there weren’t any emotions behind it and they were both dreaming of/remembering each other. And don’t even get me started on wanting to have a threesome with Fabrizio even after they both admitted they were still in love!

Casey’s McQuiston’s writing is still full of vivid descriptions, well researched settings, and the wonderfully nerdy little references that make us all smile. Second chance romances are not my thing but I found myself mostly enjoying this one. Overall it was a fun time that had me laughing out loud at some parts and cooing at the tomance in others. I would definitely reccomend it to my friends.

This was such a fun and steamy book full of bisexual angst and heart. I really liked Casey's writing and how descriptive and lush the food and art was. I think the main characters had a lot of depth and were horny babies that just wanted to love and be loved. I liked seeing Kit and Theo reconnect, their past friendships, and how they moved away from each other. I wanted a little more development with the characters but overall I loved the banter, romance, and steam. Thank you, SMP for this arc.

I mean… it was sweet and definitely fun (and easy) to read, and I appreciated the art embedded in! The author definitely poured their love into this book. At the same time, I found the ending pretty redundant, and the last 15% seemed to draw out the conclusion unnecessarily. There was definitely a lot of appreciation for food and architecture, which I didn’t mind as much as other reviewers seemed to mind - it was a nice break from some of the more serious stuff! Still, some of it felt a little unnecessary. Overall, fun for me, but definitely not for everybody. I normally like some miscommunication, but this was pretty excessive for my taste. You might love it, you might hate it :)

I really think that this is Casey’s best book yet, and I’m so glad that I have a copy preordered already.

From the entirely lovable cast of characters, to the incredible descriptions of food, wine, art, and European towns, this is the first book I’ve read in a while where I actually felt like I was living this story. Even when the MMC and MFC were trying to be tall themselves out of their feelings or being dumb twenty-something’s, there was never a point where it made me irritated or annoyed that they were being so dumb, which a lot of romance books tend to do. The story is as perfectly layered as a perfectly laminated pastry.

I really think this is a contender to be my book of the year this year, and I can’t thank the crew at St Martin’s Press for the ARC of this. I can’t wait to have my physical copy in my hand later in the summer.

okay so admittedly this book did improve when it switched to Kit's POV halfway through but I think that might have been less about the POV itself and more that the endless cycle of tour a new place, eat, drink, hook up with a local, avoid having a single conversation that could have resolved the situation between Kit and Theo, rinse, repeat finally came to an end. I thought I would be so here for the whole hookup competition shenanigans between pining exes thing but in practice I found it very repetitive and boring.

I did enjoy some parts of the writing but I felt like there was basically no depth to the side characters and the past conflict between Kit and Theo and their subsequent growth and reconciliation was very told not shown. I like a second chance romance but this one didn't feel super earned to me. idk, overall I suppose I'm glad for more queer romances existing in the world even when I don't vibe with the book and props to Casey McQuiston for getting a food and wine tour of Europe written off as a work expense I guess

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
Wow. This book is so freaking beautiful and queer and sexy and absolutely romantic.

The Pairing follows Theo and Kit on a European food and beverage tour, they just happen to be exes who haven’t seen each other in four years.
McQuiston is such an amazing author and I love their ability to create these amazing authentic characters. I fell in love with and my heart broke for both Theo and Kit. There is so much pining and angst but also sweetness and acceptance; it’s perfectly balanced like some of the pairings in the book.

I feel so lucky to have been able to go on this journey with them. There is so much character growth and I loved how their past and present selves are reconciled. I also came out of this experience very hungry for European pastries, which is only sort of a euphemism. This book is hot. I was afraid the hook up game might take away from a relationship between Kit and Theo but everything is so well crafted and aids in helping them figure out what they want and need.

I love this book. I want everyone to read it. It is gorgeous and shows two beautifully queer characters being beautifully queer.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, all opinions are purely mine and freely given.

What an absolute delight!! I am convinced that nobody writes with more heart or has more fun while doing it than Casey McQuiston. They have truly come into their own with this book while keeping every ounce of magic from their previous novels. It is a joyful excess of earthly pleasures, and WOW is the horn section strong in this orchestra! (I say that as the highest compliment!) A fortunate series of events led to me finishing this book while drinking wine on a terrace in Madrid, so it is the ultimate contextual sandwich for me. However I feel very confident that anyone who loves the humor, compassion, and escapism of Red, White, and Royal Blue will be equally as enthralled with this book. If at all possible read it in the sunshine with your favorite drink and some delicious food, and enjoy every minute!

First a huge thank you to netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read one of my most anticipated reads of 2024, early.
I’ve only read a few books that have transported me into the world of that book. I felt like I was in this book watching Kit and Theo grow and love. I felt like I was on that food and wine European tour. This book made me feel every emotion out there; I cried and laughed and felt everything. Kit was by far my favorite character, he captivated me from the beginning and I loved getting his POV and hearing how he talked and loved so deeply.
Casey you’ve got it again, this book was amazing!

I love Casey McQuiston's books so I really wanted to love this, but I just couldn't. I did not vibe with the characters at all. It was definitely not a favorite from McQuiston.

This is a lot spicier than Casey McQuiston’s other books. Definitely more adult. I really enjoyed it. There were a lot of references to food I have never even heard of. I think I’ll need to take my own food tour. Several scenes that had me chuckling. Scenes that had a lot of heart and feeling in them. I cried a little. Overall I think this is a good read.

I really wasn’t expecting that many pegging references.

The Pairing is my first Casey McQuiston novel & it was so good! I loved the theme of food & wine & the European travel...the details were perfect.

The love story was sweet although the miscommunication was frustrating but overall it worked. I would 100% watch this if/when it's made into a film 🙂

Foolishly I decided to vlog this experience so when I get around to editing that footage into something that won't ruin the book before its publication date I'll edit that in.

As for my actual thoughts on this book, I think it's McQuiston's worst book to date. At least that I've read, so Ms Shara Wheeler is safe for now. In some ways I'm not surprised since their sophomore outing, One Last Stop, was almost painfully not for me. While my re-read of Red, White & Royal Blue happened months before I ever requested a copy of this I think I might have still had some lingering goodwill, hoping that the third time could be the charm and even something of a return to form for McQuiston as an author.

This is the story of Kit and Theo. It's important that you know these two were lifelong friends that dated seriously for roughly a year. Four years before the start of the book the couple flew to London to embark on a European food and wine tour only they got in a fight on the plane and when they landed they went their separate ways. Kit went to Paris and Theo booked the next flight back home to California. [ I'll save my nitpicky thoughts on the way SoCal was represented because in the grand scheme of life it's not that important, but I will die on the hill that no one in Southern California would talk about the Coachella Valley or the greater Palm Springs area as simply "the Valley"... that's just not how anyone would ever talk. ]

Time heals all wounds and so with the voucher for the missed tour set to expire Theo [and Kit] each decide that this is the year that they'll cash in the voucher and make the most of that missed food and wine vacation. Of course this leads to an awkward moment where our leads are reconnecting after all these years apart and Theo decides to tell some white lies as to have Kit be impressed with what they've been up to in the intervening years since the last time they were together. Eventually these two strike up a bet about how many people can have the most hookups on the tour because why not and the story is off to the races.

The early leg of the tour is in France and so we spend a lot of time meeting characters that Kit has some kind of relationship with; seeing their life fleshed out in a way that the few chapters we spent back with Theo in Palm Springs never received. If anything that should have been an initial warning of things to come yet I somehow managed to ignore those red flags and kept chugging along. This book is eventually dual POV, but both are told from a first person perspective and it's a pain to be in both of their heads. It's quickly apparent that Theo is still hung up on Kit. It's the kind of second chance romance that feels more like it was the right person and the right time but that fight was so catastrophic that it's what our characters need to resolve in order to move on.

Spoiler alert, even that was an incorrect assumption on my part.

You'd think that as this was a group tour of Europe some of the other people on this tour would factor in more. Especially given the reader is meant to think that Kit and Theo aren't all too thrilled to be spending all this time together. While the other people are named, and the ultimate goal of the sex bet is to seduce the head guide, the people on the tour have nothing to do. Instead we get a series of characters that only exist in each city to be sex objects for our leads (view spoiler). Instead Kit and Theo spend almost every page of the book together despite this idea they've been avoiding one another all these years and that initial meeting was super award for the pair of them.

Oh, and that fight that broke them up all those years ago? The fallout from that fight is quickly explained thirty percent into the book. So almost immediately it feels like we have no reason to have these characters not get together then and just cut our losses, why keep up the charade of them only being interested in a quasi friendship as they sleep their way through Europe when we could just cut to the chase a little early.

Instead the book continues on its slow pace, eventually swapping over to Kit's head halfway through. Normally I'm a proponent of dual POVs, but when both characters are on the same page mentally and are practically attached at the hip for the entire story I do think that the case for including both perspectives does become a little harder. Since both are pitiful we really should be cutting our darlings. As much as I hated being stuck in Theo's perspective they just had more to offer. So much of the conversation around identity and gender came when we were in Kit's head and so much of it just felt gross? I'm cis so I'm really not the one to call it out, but Kit was having some weird thoughts that never felt like they were being articulated in a way that I think they were meant to be come across? At least for me they didn't.

As for the fight that happened? We do eventually get to learn what it was all about at around the eight percent mark. That combined with the foolishness of the fallout it definitely wasn't something that needed four years to move on from. The end of the book sets up the characters to be in a similar place to where they were when that had that argument but now they've grown as people so they can almost do it all over again and have different outcomes. It feels like something that should be applauded for the literary merit of it all, but honestly it really just felt like a story that didn't need to be told. If the whole book could just not exist if two people had a conversation four years before the story began is there really a story to tell?

So much of the forward momentum of the book feels like it should be based in the reader being invested in the wager our leads make, but it's just not something I cared about. It was so clear from the beginning that none of these people that were being used as a one night stand were going to be fleshed out and neither were any of the characters that hung around the periphery. For as much time as we spent in Kit and Theo's heads and saw their memories of the past and how they were tying those memories to ones being forged in the present, they still felt like entirely flat entities and not fully realized individuals. Though maybe their continuous geographic fuck ps of life in SoCal might have prevented me from really investing.

As sad as One Last Stop might have been for me, at least over there you had side characters so fleshed out they were continuously pulling focus and a lead character trying to defy the laws of physics to be with their love interest. Here we had no conflict for over four hundred pages for people that never really had a reason to be broken up in the first place. It reads like a series of contrivances because that's all it will ever be. At no point did the narrative actually try and be a story that a reader could really invest themselves in.

While this is creative and inclusive, I do not like the type of romance book where we jump in and are already supposed to know how much the characters love each other.

this book was a masterpiece. roughly paraphrasing jane austen here but if i loved this book less, i might be able to talk about it more.

this book made me want to travel the world, take on multiple lovers, learn about wine and food. a taurus’ dream book. would 100% recommend!!!!

I've got a review written up for this that I love, now I just need the SMP to acknowledge the ongoing boycott before I'll share it.

The Pairing follows two ex-lovers four years estranged as they meet again on a European wine tour by total serendipity. They decide to hold a competition whilst on the tour: whoever hooks up with someone in the most amount of the cities they visit wins—to prove they’re totally and completely over each other, of course.

The novel contains themes of self discovery, second chances, and sensuality.

The characters. Firstly, I liked both of them. Most of the time in romance novels I’ll only like one or maybe neither of the main love interests, but Theo and Kit were both equal ground for me (Kit being a bit above Theo in my opinion). I think having them split the novel half and half with their POVs was a smart choice on CMQ’s part. Especially the way each part begins with their versions of their beginning and “end”. I liked this method more than the usual switching POV every other chapter thing a lot of novels do. At least for this one I did. The side characters seemed a little caricature-y to me.

Maybe light spoilers ahead, tread carefully: Theo’s gender was something I found myself questioning around 20%-ish through. It had me speculating, but it was finally confirmed shortly after Kit’s POV begun that Theo has discovered they’re nonbinary (the closest label that fits them) since they’ve broken up. I’ve been wanting to read more books with nonbinary main characters, especially love interests. I love that this was a reveal, and that we got to see it through Kit’s POV. I don’t have the words to really articulate what I like about the choice to make it a mid-book reveal, but I HIGHLY recommend everyone read CMQ’s blog post about it. (https://caseymcquiston.substack.com/p/gender-reveal-party-for-theo-flowerday) I really enjoyed the read.

I also liked the MCs’ families. CMQ always has interesting family dynamics in their books, and this is no exception. Theo is the older sibling of two famous child-stars-turned-superstars, and Kit’s father is a ghostwriter. There are some really interesting things between them.

No spoilers here: I’m not usually into the miscommunication/misunderstanding trope, but I think it was handled swiftly enough and at an early enough part in the story that it didn’t bother me.

While in my opinion the plot did tend to lull in certain places, it never dragged, which made me increasingly confident that each lull would be followed up with something big happening. That being said, it’s honestly kind of conflict free? Other than tension between Theo and Kit and some misunderstandings here and there, the stakes didn’t seem very high to me. I know CMQ can write pretty high stakes situations, so it was a bit of a surprise.

I will say, even though it is the focus of the plot, the amount of sex scenes in the back half was almost comical. I lost count of them and it started to make their purpose feel a little stale.

Despite my previously mentioned confidence in and experience with CMQ’s writing, I actually went into this with lower than normal expectations. Not expecting bad things, for sure, not even expecting to dislike it. But sometimes an author’s previous work can make you think, “Well, how can the new stuff get any better? They have to hit a low point eventually.” I was pleasantly surprised how invested I got in this book. It exceeded expectations, and is certainly not a low point in CMQ’s career. Will be picking up a physical copy!

I received an ARC from NetGalley for a review, thank you!

This was an interesting, fun ride. I enjoyed all the food and wine, and really felt like I was on the train touring Europe along with the main characters. It was scrumptious to read the descriptions of all the meals they enjoyed.

In terms of the actual plot, I didn't really enjoy the "will they, won't they" that took up about 80% of the book. It felt a bit overwrought and drawn out, as did their sex competition. I would've loved some more on-page character development, rather than discussions of how much they'd both changed.

I don't know how to comment on the excessive number of sex scenes besides that they were a bit weird? I felt like the author was pushing super hard for the two characters to have this unbearable chemistry that I didn't think they had. I did enjoy a lot of the queer representation in this book.