About the Book
-
Author:
- Casey McQuiston
- Genres:
- Adult
- Adult Romance
- NB-Man Romance
- Voices:
- Bisexual
- Cis Boy
- French
- Non-Binary
- Trans Non-Binary
- White
First Impressions: Tourists
What’s Your Type? Second-Chance Romance, Queer Romance, Sleeping Your Way Through Europe, So Much Tasty Business, Seriously, So Much Tasty Business
Meet Cute: Is This Seat Taken?
The Lean: Second—and First—Chances
Dirty Talk: Taste the Continent
We Need to Talk: Packing My Passport
Was it Good For You? Endless Fondue
First Impressions: Tourists
This cover is striking, and I dig the map-print shirts. But I can’t help but wonder why Steve Harrington modeled for it?
What’s Your Type?
- Second-Chance Romance
- Queer Romance
- Sleeping Your Way Through Europe
- So Much Tasty Business
- Seriously, So Much Tasty Business
Dating Profile
Theo Flowerday is the eldest child of a famous Hollywood family and the only member who isn’t in the limelight. Content with life working as an assistant sommelier and cocktail bartender, Theo is happy with life and a long list of casual lovers.
Kit Fairfield thinks Paris is the right place for him and his life as a pastry chef. Half-French, he too has experienced his fair share of sexual partners and lives a life that delights the senses.
Meet Cute: Is This Seat Taken?
Four years ago, Kit and Theo broke up after twenty years of being best friends and many years of being lovers. They haven’t spoken since that fateful day when they argued on their way to a three-week food and wine tour of Europe, and Kit moved to Paris while Theo went home to California. Theo decides to take the very last opportunity to go on the tour and gets a huge surprise when Kit’s on the bus, too.
The Lean: Second—and First—Chances
When they realize they’ll be stuck together for three weeks, Theo and Kit attempt to be friendly. But their friendship quickly turns into a competition to see which of them can hook up with more people along the way—even though both of them want desperately to get back together. Although the competition soon leads them back to each other, the actual romance of the thing takes nearly to the end of the book to come (heh) to fruition. There is so much sex in this book, but the swoon takes a serious backseat, which disappointed me quite a bit.
Dirty Talk: Taste the Continent
So much of The Pairing boils down to the five senses and the gift that is good food and drink. The spice level of the book is high, in every sense of the term.
Émile kneels between our outstretched legs, the gold around his neck and the saltiest bits of his stubble catching the sun as he edges forward on his knees. He holds half a peach, its flesh wet and golden, a raw opening at the center where the pit must have been.
“I want you to show me what Theo likes,” Émile says to Kit. ” On this. With your fingers, and your mouth.”
Ed. note: This quote was pulled from a pre-release edition of the book. The final text might be different.
Ms. Perky’s Prize for Purplest Prose
There’s so much beauty in The Pairing, as one might expect from a book about a sumptuous European tour, but the descriptions of food and locales can veer toward purple territory at times.
I catch glimpses past each landing, tufted blue sofas with scrolls of white flowers on distressed rugs, piles of old books tucked into windowsills and scuffed side tables painted with pink rosebuds. It’s as if some baronet and his family took the horses out to visit the next village over and will be back any minute with hot gossip about wheat prices.
Ed. note: Same as above.
We Need to Talk: Packing My Passport
As much as I felt like I needed a shower after reading The Pairing, it still made me want to take a tour like the one Theo and Kit go on. The food! The drink! The museums! The scenery! The architecture! I’d gain 15 pounds every day from all the rich eating and lose (some of) it thanks to all the walking.
Was it Good For You? Endless Fondue
I love Red, White, & Royal Blue and One Last Stop, so I was eagerly looking forward to The Pairing. Where McQuiston’s other books have a magical mix of swoon and spice, this book leans too heavily in the spice direction, at least for me. I saw a Goodreads review that described it as McQuiston’s “sluttiest book yet,” and this is an apt description. (No shame meant!) I wanted more than a few passages about the love shared between Theo and Kit and needed more than the physicality of their relationship to believe it.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Griffin, but got neither a private dance party with Tom Hiddleston nor money in exchange for this review. The Pairing is available now.
