We may have been given complimentary copies and/or access for review purposes to any books, products, and/or any other visual or audio media mentioned below. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.
Books: The Pairing and When Hollywood Came to Utah
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston follows Kit and Theo best friends since they were eight years old who spent years in love with each other before eventually getting together. Unfortunately, on the way to their dream European food and wine tour, they broke up. Now, four years have passed and they’ve been estranged ever since, until both of them accidentally end up on that very tour at the same time. In an effort to prove they’re totally over each other, Theo proposes a bet to see who can hook up with the most people over the course of the tour, but the more time they spend with each other, the more it seems things may not go as planned.
I really liked both Kit and Theo as characters. We get Theo’s perspective for the first half of the book before switching to Kit’s. Both were distinct and enjoyable. Casey McQuiston is an expert at writing well-rounded characters, and these two were no exception. Theo was wisecracking, stubborn, and crafty, loved wine and sex, tried to avoid feelings (especially bad ones), and feared giving up something familiar even for the possibility of something better. Kit was thoughtful and eager to please, loved exploring new things, food, art, and sex, and sometimes got so lost in chasing a dream that he forgot to account for reality.
We really got to see and understand these characters’ motivations, interests, quirks, and flaws. I loved that neither was perfect or static; they made mistakes but tried to do what was right. By the end, they had both grown while also remaining flawed people. They felt very real and it made them so easy to relate to and care about. Both of them were also dealing with questions about whether the lives they were living were the lives they actually wanted, and as someone who often feels like I have no clue what I’m doing or where I’m going, I loved watching those storylines play out. I do have to say, that while I loved both Theo and Kit, Kit was my favorite. He was just so incredibly sweet, romantic, and kind-hearted, and I absolutely adored him.
I also loved the romance between the two of them. The tension and chemistry were so good, that I was smiling, giggling, and squealing with delight all throughout the book. The words these characters used to describe each other and the love they shared, particularly in their heads although sometimes also out loud, were simply breathtaking. Their banter was incredible too. I loved that they understood each other so well from random inside jokes and humor to deep thoughts and feelings about gender, sexuality, passion, family, love, etc. Sometimes in stories, couples change each other for the better and I didn’t feel like that was the case here because each of them had done a lot of independent growing and changing during their time apart, but what they did do was make each other bigger and brighter. It was like their best qualities were sharper when they were together and being in each other’s presence made them appreciate the world around them more. I also thought they communicated well. Sometimes second-chance romances brush over the cause of the original breakup too easily, and it leaves me wondering how their relationship is meant to work any better this time, but that was definitely not the case here. Theo and Kit talked in-depth about everything that had gone wrong between them, they shared and listened to each other’s perspectives, and they thought about and also discussed out loud how to avoid making those same mistakes again. I just loved seeing these two together and experiencing their love for each other.
That said, I wish we could have seen more glimpses into their relationship before the break-up, both when they were dating and when they were just friends. Theo and Kit talked about some of their favorite and least favorite memories throughout their history together, but we got very few actual flashbacks or in-depth looks at how their dynamic functioned before their estrangement. I find that another common issue in second-chance romances is that because the author will rely so much on telling the reader that the characters have a history without actually showing it the connection feels disingenuous and isn’t believable. Luckily, that wasn’t the case here, and I fully believed that Kit and Theo had known each other almost their whole lives and loved each other more than anybody else in the world. However, it was hard for me to understand exactly why they felt so strongly about each other without seeing the parts of their relationship during which those initial feelings developed. I think their journey toward falling back in love was depicted perfectly and, again, I did love them together; I just wanted to see and understand more about the way they originally fell in love.
Outside of Kit and Theo, there were some really fun side characters as well. I particularly liked Fabrizio and the “love polygon” between Montana, Dakota, and the Calums. None of these characters were the most complex or fleshed out, but none were significant enough for it to matter either. Most of these characters only existed in each other’s lives for the three weeks of the tour, so it made sense that they weren’t devoting too much time to getting to know each other. I would’ve liked to see a bit more of Kit’s best friend Maxine and Theo’s sister Sloane since they were more important in our main characters’s lives but I still liked what we saw from them.
Going back to the tour, I enjoyed elements of that plotline. However, McQuiston goes into extreme detail about many aspects of their traveling, specifically the food, art, and wine that I often found boring. Travel, food, art, and wine are all very important to the story so I can understand why discussions of them existed but if you, like me, are someone without much of a knowledge base surrounding these topics, prepare for many long-winded and extraordinarily specific descriptions that are at times very confusing and difficult to follow. That said, while the descriptions themselves were slower and less interesting for me to read, I wouldn’t say it impacted my overall enjoyment of the book too much.
The storyline regarding Kit and Theo’s bet, on the other hand, was extremely fun to read about. I loved watching the tension, jealousy, and emotions heighten as these two attempted to hook up with everyone they could except for the only one they actually wanted: each other. Every hook-up was a simple one-night stand and the people they were with knew that going in so they weren’t hurting or using anybody else. I also liked that while the one-night stands were briefly overviewed, the only explicit on-page sex scenes were those involving Kit and Theo together. This guaranteed that the focus of the book remained on the romance and made it clear that although both characters enjoyed the act of sex on its own it was an entirely different experience when they did it together because it became an act of love.
One minor issue I had was that there were many references throughout the book to events that had taken place at earlier destinations on the tour, and it was difficult to keep track of which things happened in which places. For instance, during a heated moment between the characters, one might think something along the lines of “It made me remember that night in Paris” and I’d end up having to flip all the way back through the book because, unlike the characters, I didn’t live through the events of the story, and I couldn’t remember the specific things that occurred in each place they visited. This wasn’t a huge deal, and it didn’t impact my overall opinion of the book, but there were quite a few times when I wished the characters could’ve just referenced the actual moment of significance rather than the city it occurred in.
I can’t end this review without discussing the incredible queer representation. The discussions surrounding gender and sexuality are so real and raw and lovely, and it was a joy to read. I loved that both main characters were bisexual and it was never presented as a problem for either of them in any way. It was just who they were, and they were nothing but confident and proud of it. I can’t speak to the trans/nonbinary rep directly as a cisgender woman, but I will say that as far as I know McQuiston was writing from an OwnVoices perspective and, regardless, the care and thoughtfulness they poured into it shone through every word spoken about the subject.
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