An utterly fabulous, vibrant trip around France, Spain and Italy following 2 characters and their second chance romance. The descriptions in this were top notch and made me hungry! The way the characters rediscovered each other was so tender and poignant, I’m so glad they got their happy ending🥰🥰

Overall, I really enjoyed this book!

This book will make you wish you were traveling around the world yourself and probably pick up a book on pastries and wine! I want to do this tour of Europe myself now!

I also enjoyed the detail about the trip itself. I will say it made the pacing of the book a little slower for me but I still enjoyed it. I don't believe it distracted from the romance too much.

Love the nonbinary representation in this book!

I don't usually like second chance romances but after they had a talk about what actually happened (communication, who would've guessed!), it was hard not to root for them.

I wasn't expecting the dual perspective at the mid-point. It was great to hear what Kit was thinking the whole time because I had my own version of his monologue in my head while reading Theo's perspective.

Typos:

Chapter Beginning, Loc 20,
"The rent house in cathedral City" should be "the rental house in cathedral City"

Chapter Barcelona, Loc 1984:
"And I'll take the only the orange zest from it", there is an extra "the.

Chapter Nice, Loc 2342
"The crinkled corners of his eyes and salt-and-paper stubble..." Should be salt-and-pepper.

Chapter Chianti, Loc 3463
"Part of wants to move their touch..." I believe is supposed to be "Part of me wants to move their touch..."

It’s no secret that I will read anything by Casey McQuiston, and that this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024. It did not disappoint.

This is a hedonistic love story of the sweetest variety, wrapped in writing that is more beautiful and mature than anything McQuiston has shown us before. I love Theo and Kit with my whole heart. I screamed. I gasped. I hid under a blanket when it all became too much. I doubted the HEA, needlessly. I pined with these two crazy kids, so hard.

This was everything I wanted.

This very quickly surpassed RWRB as my favourite CMQ book - and that's saying something, from someone who has been reading and consuming RWRB fanfic in HIGH amounts for the past year. The Pairing is a rich, lush reading experience that truly puts you right in the height of european summer, and I really loved that.

Theo and Kit are both extremely loveable characters, both in very different ways, that i felt contrasted each other really well. I got so many gender feelings throughout, Theo is so relatable in so many ways. I felt like The Pairing showcased CMQ's growth as a writer - it still felt distinctly them, but it is more lyrically written and has a very strong voice. I especially loved the poetry, art, and sculpture intertwining with the narrative, and thought that piece was very well done - it felt intentional but not overwhelming.

It was also very horny, very sexy, and I really appreciated that CMQ truly let these slutty bi's be as slutty as they wanted to be. The sex scenes felt fresh, too - I didn't feel like it was just another romance novel.

All in all, 5/5 reading experience, and I'm going to be re-reading when this comes out in August so that I can annotate it and put in some visuals of the art and sculpture that's mentioned, while I'm at it.

Thank you to St. Martin's Griffin for the ARC!

I loved this book and think it is McQuiston's best to date! The premise of two exes ending up on the same European food tour was something I didn't know I needed. The food and the scenery were described so exquisitely I felt like I was there. I can't remember the last time I was this hungry while reading a book. This is the perfect steamy summer read!

Another queer love story! 💖

Theo and Kit used to be best friends. After realizing they’ve been in love for a long time, they try their hand at a relationship. It was great, until Kit up and left Theo and moved to Paris. 4 years later, Theo decides to finally use that voucher they have for a European wine and food tour. It just so happens that Kit decided to use his at the same time. Now, they’re on the tour together with a bunch of unresolved feelings between them. When they decide to make it more interesting and hold a hookup competition just to prove they’re over each other, what could go wrong?

I really wanted to fall head over heels in love with this. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I’m not a foodie by any means and I think that’s where this fell apart for me. I love wine as much as the next person, but knowing everything about it has never been a priority. I found myself skipping over all the descriptions of food and drink and going straight to the dialogue. It was all so boring. 😬

I did, however, really enjoy that dialogue and the incredibly sexy chemistry between Kit and Theo. The spicy scenes were hot asf. I also enjoyed getting the story from both of them and how things fell apart and miscommunication destroyed them and how they put it back together.

So, the love story was an absolute yes from me, but the descriptive scenery was not. I think there are a ton of people who will absolutely love this!

Four years ago, Theo, a sommelier, and Kit, a pastry chef, broke up before a planned food and wine tour of Europe together. Now, just before their vouchers are about to expire, they've accidentally both re-booked the same tour.

This second chance romance had lots to love -- some magical setting descriptions, the exploration of the main characters' gender and sexuality, and a nice mix of lovely, supportive dialogue and banter between our main characters. The beginning of The Pairing sucked me in quickly.

But a few factors fell flat for me too. I struggled with the length and the amount of food and wine descriptions, which I admit to breezing through in the back half of the book in order to get back to the romance. The plot was full of background characters, but none were given enough airtime. I wish we'd had fewer secondary characters but gotten to know them better, especially Theo and Kit's family members. Finally, the miscommunication plot is not my favorite, so that gripe might be on me, but I struggled to believe that it took Theo and Kit so long to reconcile what happened with their breakup when they've been lifelong best friends, know each other so well, and talk through everything else.

I enjoyed this one but likely won't revisit it. I recommend as a summertime beach or poolside read!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Perfection. Casey McQuiston has truly outdone themself in this novel. I instantly fell in love with Kit and Theo. The characters were so real and relatable and incredibly charming. All the small details that showed the lifelong friendship of Kit and Theo were authentic and set the story apart. And all of this set on a breathtaking food tour of Europe. I found myself completely immersed in the tour stops and dying to try all the foods and wine the characters were sampling!

I love this story so much! It's so much more than a novel; it's a whole immersive experience. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6194447153

In support of the SMP boycott, I will be withholding my review of this title until SMP speaks out. If the boycott is resolved, I will update with a full review.

LOVE LOVE LOVE EVERY ASPECT OF THIS BOOK. I want to erase my memory and experience it all over again. Beating out Red, White and Royal Blue as my fave Casey McQuiston book is a hard feat, but the experience this book gave me might be my favourite ride to take.

The setting is such a star, it’s freaking LUSH. I’m up to my nips in atmosphere. The tastes, smells, and that euphoric feeling of travel all create a beautiful experience so complete it’s like I took a trip to Europe myself. Kit and Theo have so much passion for food, wine, art, and experiencing as much joy (and lust) as they can, it’s infectious and makes this book such an immersive read.

And PHEW THAT CHEMISTRY I have not read smut this inventive and steamy in a good long minute. So many romance novels feel like cut and paste when it comes to sex scenes, but CMQ is being so creative and using all this sexual tension to drive the characters forward, it adds so much to their relationship and makes the story way more unique than most romance novels I’ve read.

Theo and Kit have a beautiful relationship, their story is one I easily fell for and had no hope of ever getting back up. The queerness is also delightful, the way both characters express and experience their queerness is fresh and yet easily relatable. I loved watching their story unfold and desperately pining along with them. AND THAT USE OF DUAL POV PHEEEWWW I WASNT READY.

This is a perfect book, there is so much love packed into it and I want to experience it over and over again. I’m so grateful for this early chance to fall in love with Theo-and-Kit ❤️

When two bisexual exes accidentally book the same European food and wine tour, they decide to be mature and challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they aren’t attracted to each other. Because they obviously aren’t.
This book is full of chaotic bisexual behavior- in the absolute best way. Full of different culture and hookups throughout the tour, Casey McQuisten does it again. I really don’t know how they do it half the time, it just really impresses me. I flew through this book, eating up all of the plot and character interactions, just waiting for them to get together.
Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Griffin for an eARC of this book.

When SMP addresses the concerns of readers and reviewers I will send my full review. Until then I am withholding my review during the St. Martin's Press boycott.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Casey McQuiston’s work, and this novel only furthers my devotion.

Bisexual star-crossed ex-lovers Theo and Kit take the same European tour four years after breaking up spectacularly. Mouthwatering descriptions of European art, architecture, and wine pair well with pining, longing, and a good, old-fashioned competition for who can sleep with the most strangers in each port city.

I found myself strolling the streets of each city on Google maps as McQuiston described their beauty, wishing I had a glass of good red wine in my hand while reading on my lunch break at work. I couldn’t put it down.

I was a little worried going into this book because I had such high expectations - Casey McQuiston’s other books are so, so special to me and so I wanted to absolutely love this one and worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype in my head. Boy oh boy did I have nothing to worry about!

These characters gripped me in such a powerful way and I was absolutely captivated by their journey together and as individuals. It made me laugh, it made me cry, I could not put it down. I cannot wait to read it again when I can get my hands on a physical copy and hold Kit and Theo (and all the other delightful side characters) close to me.

McQuiston has a way of making you feel for their characters and hoping for the best outcome for them. They've done it again with The Pairing. This book is delicious and sexy and just fun! I'll never look at peaches the same way again ;) I know this one will become a favorite of book lovers everywhere and i'm sure many will see themselves in the main characters. I cannot wait for the rest of the world to meet dear Theo & Kit!

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this eARC!

Oh to be young and on an impossibly fabulous tour of Europe (for real, I thought a lot about how expensive this trip would be)!

Theo and Kit broke up en route to an incredible European food and wine tour four years ago, and apparently this is the best tour company on the planet, because they each have vouchers from their last-minute cancellations that they're using for the last possible trip (neither knows that the other will be there). During the course of the trip, these pansexual babes embark on a hook-up contest between wine and pastry tastings. This sound like a total ROMP, and it is sometimes, but as usual, there is more angst than the marketing would suggest.

There was a lot to savor here - I liked both of the main characters and their connection makes perfect sense, even before we know their whole story. The writing about the scenery and the food and the drinks is lush - I could feel the sticky gelato on my fingers and the sun on my shoulders. This is very much a vibes book, and like all of McQuiston's titles, the vibes are good (for the most part)! Their writing is as engaging and lovely as usual.

There were two things I didn't love as much. Writing an ensemble of friends is such a strength for McQuiston, but this book had much less focus on the ensemble, especially in the first half. I missed their deeper focus on the group, and I loved the pieces at the end of this book when the tour group came into sharper focus. I would have loved this earlier on. Second, since this WAS a vibes book, the tension between the main characters felt like it drew out for a long time. I get it, they were apart for a long time, they each had a lot to work out, but at a certain point I just wanted to bang their cute lil heads together (to be fair, this was also the opinion of some other characters in the book)!

THAT SAID, were there moments when I audibly awwwwed? Yep! Did I enjoy this ride? Absolutely. I also really admire McQuiston for seemingly following their heart to the books they're passionate about after the success of RWRB, and I would presume, pretty massive pressure to produce a sequel. I love seeing what they'll write next, and I'm in for future adventures, European or not!

I have too much to say about this book that it's honestly going to be hard to find the words for it. "The Pairing" is easily my favorite Casey McQuiston book. They really put everything into this book. It was laugh out loud funny, heartbreaking, healing, incredibly sex positive, and overall just a gorgeous display of their writing talent when it comes to creating relationships between characters and pulling the reader into the pages.
"The Pairing" is rich in beautiful language and descriptions; it was impossible not to crave going on my own European food tour while reading.
I am absolutely obsessed with Kit and Theo. From childhood friends, to lovers, to exes, to maybe something more... their chemistry is incredibly well written, and even when they're with other people, the thread between them never fully disappears. I laughed, I cried, I immediately started rereading it the day after I finished.
Casey is a miraculous writer and if this is the direction their books keep going in, I'll never stop reading them.

My teen and I were both so excited to read this novel as we loved One Last Stop and Red, White and Royal Blue. Unfortunately, if fell short for both of us. While the setting and food descriptions are gorgeous, the characters were static, and the plot did not make a lot of sense. This novel did not feel like a romance in the way McQuiston's previous books did. We'll look forward to her next one. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

There was so much to like about this book, it felt rich and lush and hectic in the way that a fast-paced cross-continental food tour should. I also enjoyed that McQuiston did something narratively different than their other works by constricting the actual story to a tight timeline (with some flashback). Unfortunately, it ended up being a little bit of a miss for me. Part of it is definitely personal preference, second-chance romance doesn’t pop for me in the same way that other romances do, I like to see the characters discover love on the page. This also had some heavy miscommunication trope that meant a lot of the “issues” weren’t really issues at all which made the resolution feel a bit underwhelming. McQuiston will continue to have a huge audience and delight fans, and I will still recommend this book, but it just isn’t quite a 5 star for me. 3.5 rounded up to 4.