Book Reviews

Book Blurb

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.

 

Book Review

‘The Pairing’ is an interesting book in terms of the food and wine the two characters experience on their tour of France, Spain, and Italy. That is the one part of the book I really enjoyed, being somewhat of a foodie myself. Reading about all the interesting morsels the characters got to eat made me very hungry more than once!

 

The main characters, Theo and Kit are involved in a somewhat childish bet about who can sleep with more people, just to prove they are over each other. But I never understood why they love each other in the first place, outside of the fact they have known each other “forever” and are extremely sexually compatible. Everyone they encounter during their tour is young and hot and interested in sex, so for me, this story lacked depth.

 

Theo and Kit hurt each other so often and in so many ways that it made me sad. Yes, the second half gets better when the author switches to Theo’s point of view, but that is because Kit is just a little more mature than Theo.

 

Theo’s struggle to become independent of their insanely rich and famous family is real for Theo, but I felt that, quite often, Theo made it unnecessarily difficult for themself. They are painfully self-destructive because they believe that independence means isolation from family members, rejecting all emotional support and contact. To me, that just shows how immature Theo really is. And that is before considering the lack of sexual honesty, leading to experimentation and even deception of themselves and Kit that I found very difficult to endure.

 

Kit is a little more honest with himself about his emotions for Theo, but that is only a matter of degree. Kit is more settled professionally, as a pastry chef in Paris, but he still enjoys being a “player” – maybe to hide from his feelings for Theo, maybe because he just enjoys all the attention and sex he can get off various temporary partners. For some reason he hesitates to talk about his real feelings for Theo during almost the entire tour, which hurts both him and Theo again and again and again.

 

If you like food and sex orgies, if somewhat immature characters are your thing, and if you’re looking for a hard-won happy ending, then you might like this novel. I would not read it again, but it might appeal to people looking for a light read with lots of food entertainment on the way.

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book was purchased by the reviewer.

 

Additional Information

Format	ebook, print and audio
Length	Novel, 395 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	06-August-2024
Price	$12.99 ebook, $10.46 paperback, $21.65 audio book
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/Pairing-Casey-McQuiston-ebook/dp/B0CKTNK5HP