A review by inked_in_pages
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

3.0

Review: The Pairing by Casey McQuiston
Genre: Romance, LGBTQ Romance

Synopsis: Theo and Kit were best friends long before they were lovers. But once they realized their love for one another, it was a love for the books...until it wasn't. When the two realize that they've both shown for the couple's trip around Europe that they had booked years before their tragic break up, they feel there is no choice but to enjoy the trip. And, maybe have some fun along the way. If fun includes sex, sex, healing, and ....oh, did i mentioned sex?

My Thoughts:
I've said it before, and I'm willing to double down on it now, I'll ready anything that Casey McQuiston writes. For those of you that really know me, you'll know that I fell in love with Jane immediately upon reading One Last Stop giving credit to the characters that Casey writes. I appreciate their stories about belonging, exploration of sexuality, and I ALWAYS fall in love with the found family that they write into their novels. The Pairing was no different. The setting of the European food/wine tour was absolutely perfect and you could easily see how much effort McQuiston put into the research while writing this novel as the locations jumped off the page and I suddenly found myself wanting a glass of wine (spoiler alert: I am not a wine drinker).

I very much appreciated the focus on bisexuality as a part of the LGBTQ+ community and loved that it was not a tool for fetishization in most cases. With that said, the amount of sex and the way it was depersonalized for the game did at times make me as a reader feel that there was some bisexual fetishizing and that McQuiston leaned into the "sex fiend" stereotype that many people in the bisexual community are burdened with. There was a lot of steam.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot. I loved the travel and I loved our main characters. The found family and additional side characters were a perfect addition but I felt it was a little long at times. Definitely high on the steam scale so if you're looking to feel hot and bothered, this is your read!