Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Pairing

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

95 reviews

gdulecki's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Oh this was MESSY and horny and whimsical and I had a blast with it. Much of this was corny as hell, straight off the cob if you will, and that’s okay!! Theo’s nepo baby internal struggle was annoying, and for as much as they both said they grew since the break up, there were many instances where it was clear that they needed to be in therapy lmfao.

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rmonnin's review against another edition

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emotional informative lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Horny bisexuals in love but hiding it due to miscommunication and 4 years of angst

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levesc17's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This is my new favorite by this author! Can’t wait to reread it and try to pair it with the food in every chapter!

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larrarreadsboks's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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miasinfiniteplaylist's review against another edition

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2.5

not what i was expecting … the characters are not really likeable and i could not root for them… rolled my eyes way too much. lacked heart and overall just way too pretentious and horny for me 🤷‍♀️

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pidgepodge's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I have now read all of this authors books, and this is now one of my favorite books I’ve ever read.

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jgarrin93's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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readingbrb's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

4.5

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kbairbooks's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Pairing is a dirty, messy, beautiful, soul wrenching, stunning queer love story meets Eat Pray Love's love child. It was full of food and drink and merriment and friendship and love and lust and dirty messy feelings and honesty and UGH. ITS SO GOOD. A stunning novel by Casey and I absolutely freaking loved it.

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hannahshriver5's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

i have a lot of thoughts about The Pairing and they are quite all over the place so i am going to make a list (also mostly just for myself, but i love a lengthy review)!

a) 1st novel (let alone romance) i have found that has a nonbinary main character! huge!
b) i got lost in all of the specific examples of food, drink, art, places, etc. i admire the dedication CMQ has to their craft and generally, i love a good, specific reference but this was a LOT.
c) the "TheoandKit" of it all reminded me of I'll Give You the Sun but lacking the fullness - it felt cheesy.
d) very much appreciated the turmoil around what it means to be present in a relationship and the complexities of "giving yourself to a relationship".
e) it felt like a lot of plot points were resolved with sex? this is always disappointing to me as a reader (and an asexual)
f) this book was very much so marketed as being horny! and slutty! and i love that! but 2 things...they did have a lot of sex! but it to me all of the sex scenes were pretty vanilla interactions - this definitely points more to what society says about queer sex than CMQ's branding of their book. HOWEVER, this book was missing the emotion within the sex scenes that i know from CMQ which wasn't really it for me.
g) i love Fabrizio and Orla
h) the plot was incredibly predictable and there wasn't much to make up for that

moral of the story is: i wish i would've loved this book and i just sort of liked it! i don't regret reading it though :) and i am really happy that we live in a time where there can be so many kinds of queer stories

p.s.

i don't know how i feel about the fact that Theo's identity isn't named until halfway through the book. i mostly bring this up because CMQ has talked about how this was very intentional. ofc i am speaking from my own lived experience as a cis person! but i wish that trans and queer authors (and artists) didn't have to take the opinions of others in such consideration when doing their thing! gender is so incredibly relevant in the way that we move through the world and is also entirely made up and i think what threw me about this book is that i feel as though the first point is lacking in the narrative but maybe that's just me.

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