The first half of "The Pairing" is a montage of European cities, food, booze, casual sex, etc. It's charming, but not very memorable.  

Theo and Kit were fine — lovable but not the most memorable characters. I think my primary issue with this book is that all of the emotional development and intimacy happens off-page. They're already in love, broken up and still hung up on each other before we even meet these characters. There's an entire lifetime before this the readers are not privy to and it's not adequately captured in the story for us to catch up. Instead, we're just expected to know how much they love each other and why without enough development to really merit it. 

Their sex bet also failed to serve their arc and instead just cheapened everything. Also, lots of weird "Call Me By Your Name" references? It all feels very "Emily in Paris."

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.