I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

The Pairing is McQuiston’s return to adult romance after their recent YA release, and I was super excited for it. I’ve been following McQuiston’s writing since Red, White, & Royal Blue was released, and each new release continues to show their skill and range when it comes to writing. 

While I’m not sure if I can say this one is my favorite book of theirs, I really enjoyed this one overall. Something about this book just fully gripped me, to the point where certain parts of it made me extremely anxious (showing I was fully invested in the story!) There were just so many layers to the story for me to sink into, from strong emotions Theo felt about themself and their ex to the exploration of gender. There were points where it felt like a book written especially for me, with so many of my fears and emotions reflected in the characters (and especially Theo).

The setting of Europe honestly felt like a set dressing to me, because my focus was always more on the internal journeys of our characters than the actual physical one they were taking. For that reason, the characterization or stereotypes of the places they visited didn’t really affect me that much, even though I can understand the criticism of it afterward. I think your experience with this part of the book will really depend on what parts of the story are most interesting to you and what you end up focusing on more.

The one thing that keeps me from giving this book a perfect 5 stars is the POV shift that occurs halfway through. On the one hand, I loved the sudden shift itself and it felt like it hit me really hard in the moment to see it. However, I ended up disliking that the shift was so complete, and losing Theo’s voice and narration really hurt my enjoyment of the final half of the book. I still really enjoyed it, but I felt like I’d connected strongly with Theo, and losing their POV felt like losing a lot of my favorite parts of the book. Even though I enjoyed the surprise shift, I think I would’ve enjoyed the book more overall if the story was more consistently split POV instead. 

Overall though, I really enjoyed The Pairing and the comfort and understanding I could find in its pages. I can’t wait to see what’ll come next!