So I read The Pairing... oof

Casey McQuiston has been one of those authors where I read one of their books, Red, White and Royal Blue, and then just completely dropped off. I, like loads of other people, really enjoyed RWRB, the movie too, and then just never bought another one of their books. Although, I’m sure I owned One Last Stop at some point but never read it.

The blurb says that Theo and Kit have been childhood best friends, crushes, lovers and, after a brutal break-up for years ago, estranged exes. It’s not until they’re trapped aboard a tour bus that Theo and Kit realise they’ve accidentally booked the same European food and wine tour. And now they’re stuck with each other for three weeks of the most romantic sights and sensuous flavours of France, Spain and Italy. But it’ll be fine. They’re absolutely over each other. So, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is game. In fact, why stop there? Why not a full-on European hook-up competition? But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can’t have.

We open on Theo in London, on this trip that they’ve paid for on these travel vouchers that were about to expire, and they’ve promised themself that they’re going to do it properly, not sloppily, and not in the least wishing it was with Kit. But Kit is, painfully, on the trip, but after a little back and forth, they agree to be civil with one another for the remainder of the trip just to make it bearable.

My biggest issue with the book was that I just didn’t fall in love with the characters, so I ended up just not really caring about them and what happened. There was nothing inherently wrong – the writing was good – I just didn’t connect with it. I sometimes think about this tweet I saw once where a literary agent gave a list of reasons why they’d passed on books, and just how violently subjective that list was. I think one of the reasons was literally like “It just didn’t have the vibes they wanted”. I often think about that as well, if the vibes don’t hit, they don’t hit. I feel this more with fantasy more than anything else, but I do feel it in other genres – clearly like this book. And that’s the whole thing, Theo and Kit had a deep backstory and history. They had their whole previous relationship, and you do see how and why they broke up, but my ultimate issue was that because I didn’t care about Kit or Theo, I didn’t care why they’d broken up in the first place.

I think the most interesting part of the book was Theo’s gender journey which, for the most part was being told they used to be more feminine as a child, but as they aged they started playing with androgyny until the tabloids started picking up on them – because they’re a nepo baby with famous parents – and then they started going more femme again until they had aged and gone more androgynous before ultimately realising their non-binary identity. But even then, that part of the book was so miniscule, most of Theo’s issues in this book were about them still being in love with Kit and refusing to admit they were a nepo baby and trying to do everything themselves to the point they’d blown their life up.

To be honest, Kit was very much just there for me during this book – even when the second half of the book was his POV. Like he worked a job he allegedly hated… Okay. He also loved art, but in that, I felt like all the book contained was either sex, looking at art and getting horny over it, eating food around Europe, sweating, and complaining about problems. I’ve mentioned that I don’t have a problem with books where things just happen, but the things need to at least be compelling. And they just weren’t for me. I’ll admit that I definitely found myself skim reading towards the end, and when I got to yet another sex scene, I’d just skip it completely. I know the blurb literally mentions what is essentially a hook-up tour around Europe, but even outside of that, the sheer amount of sex in place of what could have been some form of depth or interesting content was ridiculous.

In the spirit of my last point of skipping parts, I think I would have preferred had the book focused on fewer places. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the concept of a food tour around Europe, but I think had it been a food tour around a smaller part of Europe, like maybe had it only even just been France and the cities around there. We could have had a more in depth look around the cities, rather than just the fleeting snapshots the book actually gave. The book talks so much about food and art, but at some point, when are you just writing a travel blog post, rather than a novel? Because this book really just felt like a highlights reel because it wasn’t focused on certain settings.

I truly think this might be one of, if not, the shortest piece I’ve written about a book I’ve read, but I don’t really have anything to say about it. I just… didn’t care. That was my issue. It wasn’t bad enough for me to DNF it, but I just didn’t care about what was happening – which I suppose could have been argument for me to DNF. Oh well. I’ve read it now, and I never have to touch it again… Even if my copy of the book is signed lol.

Okay, bye.