Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Title: The Pairing
Author: Casey McQuiston
Genre: Fiction / LGBTQ Romance
Setting: A Food and Wine tour of Europe
Month Read: September 2024
Book Type: E-Arc
Publication: August 6, 2024
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 432
*Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Griffin for my advanced E-copy. It has in no way influenced this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
TRIGGER WARNING-
Sex / Language
"There’s something so admirable about his directness. I like you. Stay in my life. It’s perfectly simple, when he says it like that."
No Spoiler Summary:
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.
Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all.
Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.
All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.
It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?
But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.
Review:
I'm so glad I finally had the time to pick up this novel because truly it is one of Casey's best books. I am kind of a sucker for a second chance romance, and you never stop rooting for Kit + Theo to get the hell out of their own ways and get back together despite everything that has happened since their first almost-trip to this food and wine tour. I think loving someone, falling completely out of touch, becoming a new and (improved?) person, and then gettin ghte chance to fall back in love knowing everything you know now, and knowing yourself as a solo unit it so important and did so much for me.
The food and drinks described in this book were insane, and I was so hungry the whole time. The food porn in this book was incredible, and my five senses tingled the entire read between the beautiful settings, Casey's eye for descriptions, and for the beautiful people really transported me to the European cities I've always wanted to go to and haven't gotten the chance to visit yet.
The supporting characters were lovely, and I miss them so much. I wish I could spend another several hours with everyone else on this tour, and the many many lovely faces we met during the journey.
I know not everyone loved this book, but I did and that's what matters to me. I think it's some of Casey's strongest writing to date, and I enjoyed myself the entire time. It was a really special, fun read and exactly what I needed when I read it.
Recommendation:
Colton Gentrys Third Act by Jeff Zentner (if you love reading about really good food)
You, Again by Kate Goldbeck (second chance romance)
Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly
"Love took root in me before I learned its name, and I've sat in its shade for so long now without eating its fruit. This feels as if I've finally taken a piece into my hands and split it open. It's so sweet inside.
Sour too, slightly underripe — but so, so sweet."
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