This one is a solid 4.5 stars for me. I love Jack and Ellie so much and the art of their snow day on the authors website is so cute and captures them so perfectly. This was one of the first romances where I feel I could see myself reflected in the character. Like I enjoy reading romances but I'm like oh that could never happen to me because of x,y,z but what I love about Alison Cochrun's writing is that she has such diverse and well developed characters that you see yourself reflected back. Also hooray for more discussions about demisexuality! The only reason I knock this half a star is I grabbed this for a fun christmas romcom and there are some serious issues discussed here, it is a very helpful and healthy discussion but it still made me cry and I don't look for that in a fun christmas romcom. I should have also expected it because I remember crying during her last book, but there's such great discussions about mental health! Also even though its discussed throughout the book and makes sense in the plot, the fake marriage love trapezoid that happens is a little weird when you really think about it. But I would definitely recommend this to everyone!

5/5⭐️

Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun is the perfect combination of a romcom and an emotionally complex novel about trauma and fear, all while being a sapphic Christmas romance that I just devoured.

This book starts out SO STRONG and only gets better from there. The meet-cute???? SO. CUTE. Two queer women meet in a bookstore while reaching for the same queer feminist book and spend the rest of a perfect Christmas Eve falling in love? Literally the perfect sapphic holiday romcom meet-cute. I can’t get over it. It’s all the girls and the gays want, myself included.

The characters in this book? Chef’s kiss🤌🏼

Jack is hot. Like capital H O T, hot. And she can cook and is a business woman and comes from a rich family (not that it matters but I’m poor so it kind of does?) and is funny and charming and caring - I need a Jack. Where’s my Jack?

Ellie also has this dry sense of humor that I also use as a defense mechanism which had me laughing the whole book. I liked her as a character and saw a lot of myself in her, especially the fear of failing and letting people down.

All of the characters were super funny and likable (expect the Alan and Ellie’s parents, fuck those guys) but the one who stuck out to me was Meemaw. Meemaw is the SHIT. I’m literally obsessed with her, I wish my grandmother was that cool.

“Miscommunications are for the straights” is probably my favourite line to come out of this book as a queer who hates the miscommunication trope. Facts.

The only qualm I have with this book is the way Ellie was treated by her loved ones after her mistakes were revealed. I get the concept of tough love and Ellie definitely had some problems and made a few (a lot of) mistakes, but I found everyone who claims they love her were really harsh with her in a way they weren’t with Andrew, who also fucked up. Like yes, did Ellie need that speech from Meredith about her fear of failure and how she handled the whole situation with the Kim-Prescotts to get her head out of her ass? For sure. But she could’ve handled that a little more gently considering her best friend is clearly depressed and working through some childhood trauma. I kind of get it though, even I was getting frustrated with her endless attribution of every tiny setback to a personal failure (mainly because I do it to myself), so I’m not that bothered by it.

All in all, this was an adorable sapphic holiday romcom with unexpected depth and insight into what it’s like to live your life consumed by a fear of failure. I can’t wait to see what Alison does next! (DylanxAndrew story??)

Thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Wow. I LOVED Alison Cochrun’s first novel ‘The Charm Offensive,’ last year. Honesty, even though I was excited for this book, I didn’t think it could live up.

I WAS WRONG. I’m pretty sure I loved, ‘Kiss Her Once for Me,’ EVEN MORE 🖤.

This. Book.

Book store meet-cute ✔️
Fake engagement ✔️
Rep for: Bisexuality, demisexuality, and non-binary characters ✔️
Sassy intoxicated grandmothers ✔️

I loved these characters and their growth. Truly loved them, and can’t stop thinking about them.

Out now, this book would be a fantastic Christmas read, though it’s perfect for any time of year!

After making a splash with her debut novel The Charm Offensive, Alison Cochrun brings a festive queer rom com to keep the yuletides gay. Her sophomore novel, Kiss Her Once for Me, follows Ellie Oliver, a young woman who, one year ago, moved to Portland to pursue her dream animation job (shout out to the Boxtrolls shout out). On Christmas Eve, a bookstore meet-cute leads Ellie to fall in love with a woman over a day, but after a betrayal and losing her job after a few months, Ellie’s life falls apart.

Cue the following year. Ellie works as a barista and struggles to make ends meet. When the coffee shop’s landlord, Andrew Kim-Prescott, offers a marriage of convenience, Ellie agrees and will spend a week with his family for Christmas to sell the ruse. However, when Ellie learns the mystery woman is Andrew’s sister, she must choose between the benefits of the fake marriage or the risk of a real relationship.

Cochrun wraps a few major themes into the story, and one that especially jumps out centers on family and its varying dynamics. For starters, much of Ellie’s anxiety and general habits spawn from a parasitic relationship with her mother Linds, which later informs her attachment to Kim-Prescotts. It’s important to note that Ellie knows how the relationship harms her, yet Cochrun emphasizes that it’s that same harm aiding a toxic cycle of Linds asking too much and Ellie struggling to say no. There are few scenes in which the two actually talk to one another, but readers become just as aware of the relationship as Ellie is. Ellie is worth more than what she can or can’t give to Linds. However, much of what readers learn about Ellie’s personality is because of her mother, and Cochrun ensures not to gloss over it.

But the relationships aren’t all toxic, as demonstrated through the Kim-Prescotts. While the marriage is fake, every ounce of kindness and warmth the Kim-Prescotts extend to Ellie is entirely genuine. Ellie notes it within the book, but something Cochrun does especially well is hit on the nostalgia of Christmas. Whether readers can identify with it or not, they will experience a similar longing that Ellie does, wanting to be wrapped up in the silly and loving traditions of the family. Cochrun immediately draws a stark contrast between the K-Ps and Linds, again emphasizing the damage while also giving Ellie a space to feel welcomed and loved. She has a great dynamic with Andrew and Jack, his sister, as she finds ways to connect with both on various levels.

Individually, Ellie holds her own as a protagonist. With a first person POV, Cochrun delves into Ellie’s psyche and gives readers a chance to gain a deeper sense of how Ellie’s anxiety and art-geared brain operates. From the art perspective, it was interesting to read how Ellie processes the world around her as she notes how she would draw people or places. While she uses it as a coping mechanism, Cochrun brings a certain sense of wonder with Ellie; she’s cynical and struggles with her ideas of failure, but she still captures beauty in anything that holds some meaning to her. Moreover, when things fall apart, she acknowledges her part in it rather than try to pin full blame on someone else.

Kiss Her Once for Me is a cozy story that shares its warmth with readers. Cochrun brings the cheer that many often associate with Christmas yet never disregards the cons that may come with it. She offers compassionate examinations of failure and its root in anxiety, providing affirmation to readers who relate and insight to those who don’t. Her characters are messy and compelling and burst off the page in a tinsel-fueled blaze of glory. Even in the tougher moments, it’s a celebration of demisexuality and queerness, of found and chosen family, and of finding strength in vulnerability.

Kiss Her Once for Me is one of my favorite novels of 2022. I was spellbound by Jack and Ellie as they navigate a complicated holiday season. One year ago, Ellie met Jack on a snow day. They spent the day together and haven’t seen each other since. This year, Ellie gets roped into a scheme to help the beautiful Andrew collect his inheritance as his fake fiancée. Upon arrival at the family cabin for the holidays, Ellie is stunned to realize Andrew’s sister Jaqueline is actually Jack. Shenanigans ensue as Ellie and Jack uncover what truly happened on the snow day last year…

This is such a beautiful queer romance! I related so strongly to Ellie and loved the bi and demisexual rep. It felt extremely accurate and I loved how Ellie talked about her sexuality and how she feels attraction/love. Alison Cochrun was so artful in how she interspersed the flashbacks between then and now. I enjoyed how the story behind their first meeting slowly unspooled in tandem with their present day interactions. The romance between Jack and Ellie is searing hot, Cochrun nails the impact of every casual touch and stolen glance. Their reunion is aching and slowburn, filled with heat, and I couldn’t stop reading! Needless to say, I ship them and can’t wait to re-read Kiss Her Once for Me!

I could see and appreciate the references to When You Were Sleeping, but Kiss Her Once for Me is an original and clever romance. I would recommend this to anyone, but especially to fans of Casey McQuiston (One Last Stop) and Written in the Stars (Alexandria Bellefleur). Thank you to Alison Cochrun, Atria Books, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

kiss her once for me: a sapphic christmas romcom sprinkled with a little bit of childhood trauma (for funsies, of course).

this book!!! i don’t think a romcom has made me feel and swoon the way this one has made me feel and swoon in a good long while. i also haven’t stayed up (genuinely) all night to read a book in a good long while either. so, i feel like that should tell you exactly how much i’ve adored this.

ellie and jack, andrew and dylan, and their absolutely shenanigan-filled fake-dating love-quartet situation… it was truly a wild ride and i loved every second of it. from the humor and discussions of mental health all the way to the exploration of toxic family. it was all so well crafted.

let’s not forget to mention, it is so unapologetically queer. trans, enby, and poly side characters bracket our aspec and lesbian main characters. and beyond that, they interact (mostly) with family who are accepting of their identities without much question. it’s always so refreshing and heartwarming to not only see characters confident in their queerness. but also to not have to worry about any backlash with their identities. it allows for readers to escape solely into the love story. and i highly appreciate that that’s what happened here.

and after adoring both of alison cochrun’s releases, i can without a doubt place her onto my authors’ list to always read from in the future. i know that i can trust my time with their work, and that’s a rare thing to come across. i cannot wait to see what’s next.

ps. i highly recommend the audiobook for this one! the narrator does an incredible job conveying the tone of the scenes and the humor.

Didn’t realize this was Christmasy but pleasant surprise. Love any alternative love story but this felt deeper. Also loved the highlighting of friendship vs just love!!

This was a perfectly heart-warming, romantic holiday read that had all of my favorite tropes and more!

First off, I absolutely loved the characters in this story. Elle is stuck in a forced proximity situation with her fake fiancés family and what a fun crowd of personalities they were! While not all likeable, it was such a good cast that made for super entertaining family scenarios.

And the romance?! *SWOON* This is a second chance f/f love-story and the tension between these two was so undeniably fierce. And I definitely think this one stepped the steam up a notch in comparison to The Charm Offensive! I was undoubtedly fanning myself at parts.

And lastly, the amount of holiday spirit in this book will fill your Christmas cup. From skiing to baking cookies to caroling and more, it has all of your favorite holiday activities!

Beyond being a swoon-worthy romance that was filled with all the holiday cheer, it was also a story about overcoming fear, defining failure, and setting boundaries. I absolutely loved this one and can’t recommend it enough!

thank you so much to the publishers and netgalley for this e-arc!!!

my first holiday read of the year… and i absolutely adored it! and it’s sapphic! this book had all the christmas vibes that i was craving. alison is 100% on my must-read author list after this and the charm offensive!

like the charm offensive, this book deals with so many different types of identities and mental health issues with grace and understanding (there are characters that identify as demi, lesbian, bi, nonbinary, trans and more) and without making the center of any big conflicts be about self-loathing or tragedy.

the chemistry between the two main characters is really there! and i loved their push and pull while still presenting the genuine adoration i felt they both had for each other - even if it was formed in 24 hours. i have to admit it was a little too insta-love for me though, which is a bummer if that’s not your favorite dynamic!

i loved every character in this book sooo much actually (except the antagonists but that’s the whole point). they created such a cute found family. CUTE FOUND FAMILY! could cry just thinking about it! the grandmas! such a sweet and wholesome element and i ate up every single family scene. holiday festive warm and fuzzies everywhere.

and the way the complex love quadrilateral was dealt with made the miscommunication better than usual (although the main miscommunication was a bit of a let down) because everyone was trying their best to talk it out and i appreciate them for that. i truly do.

this book feels like it centered a lot on ellie, so if you’re looking for something romance heavy this might not be as much as you’d normally expect. but i really enjoyed seeing ellie develop, even though her self-sabotage was a bit much at times (me too girl).

anyway. i loved this and i’m so happy it kicked off my holiday reading season!! all the joy!!! 4 stars and a happy holiday recommendation <3

tws: homophobia/lesbophobia, toxic/abusive parents, anxiety, cheating

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria books for the ARC of this!

Super cute! Fake dating + queer holiday romance, with some great Hallmark movie vibes. This was so fun and perfect to get ready for holiday reading, with some big feels thrown in. I love a demisexual protagonist in a romance!

One of my new favorite romcoms! Queer romances and holiday romances are my favorite so when I saw this was both, I immediately needed to read it. Ellie meets and has the most magical Christmas with a woman but then the next day everything falls apart. A year later, she is broke, about to be evicted, and overall struggling when the landlord of her workplace approaches her with an offer - be his fake fiancée and then wife in exchange for a portion of the inheritance this charade is for. She agrees and when she goes to his family's lodge for Christmas, she finds out his beloved sister is the same woman from last Christmas. Although she tries to be over Jack (the sister), the chemistry is still there. What will she choose - love or money?

I adored this book! As in started and finished in the same day adored. The characters were great, the chemistry was great, the scenes were great. Were Ellie's attitudes about failure perhaps scarily true for myself? Yes, but I loved that the author addressed that topic. Truly such a great holiday romance/romcom!

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is ADORABLE.

Last year's Charm Offensive STOLE my heart so I was super excited to get an egalley of this Sapphic Christmas-time love triangle-ish (trapezoid-ish?) adorable fake engagement story.

Ellie looks like Zooey Deschanel and cries a lot mostly because over the past year her life has gone down the toilet. Andrew is uber-rich but needs a fake wife to access the richness. And Ellie really needs something to help her move on from the loss of Jack, the girl who blew through her life and broke her heart last Christmas. But as it turns out Andrew and Jack know each other in a worst possible nightmare kind of way. So what will Ellie do when she finds out she agreed to marry the brother of the one night stand she just can't forget?

This book was just so delightful and humorous and adorable and compelling and easy to read. Again, anxiety and mental health are front and center as well as LGBTQIA representation and rebellion against the normcore. I had a special love for Andrew who was good at lifting things but less good at emotions. His argument of 'We're getting married. You signed a napkin contract' is a stance for all times.

I also love that the inspiration for this book is While You Were Sleeping, the Sandra Bullock/Bill Pullman chunky sweater fake dating holiday classic. This book is such a holiday treat I highly recommend. 4.5 stars rounded up to a 5.

I have no words to describe how much I loved this book????

I love the marriage of convenience trope, but throw in second chance with a twist? I was sold.

I am also not going to lie. At first, I was rooting for Ellie and Andrew, but once I realized that Jack was the girl Ellie fell in love with?? Absolutely not. I was team Jack and Ellie. The tension??? Chef's kiss. And at first Dylan annoyed me, but they grew on me and I would love to see a book of them and Andrew and the grandmas were the best!!! Main character energy hahah.

And it was my first time reading a Christmas book and I loved it!!

1000/10.

Thank you net galley, Atria Books and Alison Cochrun for sending me an ARC of this book.

Last Christmas, Ellie met Jack and fell in love with her in one amazing day spent together. But after the betrayal of the morning after and losing her job, she's alone and needs money. Enters Andrew, the owner of the building where the coffee shop she works at is situated, who proposes a fake marriage in exchange for 10% of the inheritance he will get out of it. But when he takes her home to his family for Christmas to introduce her as his fiancée, she is shocked to find out that his sister is none other than Jack...
Such a cute, sapphic, lol funny Christmassy rom-com! Totally Hallmark movie worthy. This is a story about self-confidence (or lack thereof), failure and the fear of failing. I loved all the characters (even the ones I hated), and when I read moms like this one, it makes me even more appreciative of the one I have! I'm going right back to read her other book!
I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

It may still be autumn (although it sometimes feels like summer where I live), but Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun has me in a winter holiday, cozy up by the fireplace with a mug of hot cocoa mood right now. Even though I don't celebrate Christmas, I enjoyed the feel of it throughout this novel.

I love, love, LOVE this sweet and spicy rom-com! It's inspired by the movie While You Were Sleeping, but with enough romantic twists and turns to make it completely different from that much-adored film. The characters are so wonderful and lots of fun to be around (at least the nice ones are). I enjoyed every moment of this novel, especially the steamy scenes. All the details really brought the story to life and I could practically feel the coldness of the snow and smell Jack's delicious treats.

While I enjoyed The Charm Offensive, I love this one twice as much. It's on par with Casey McQuiston's sophomore novel, One Last Stop and has a similar vibe, minus the time travel aspect of that one.

Add this one to your TBR right away, as it just published this week. You will NOT want to miss it! In the meantime, check out Alison's IG for some amazing artwork.

It's hard to cast this book due to wanting to keep it accurate both culturally and for LGBTQ reasons. I can somewhat picture Shannon Purser as Ellie though.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. I love anything Alison Cochrun writes. I don’t think anyone writes about mental health and queerness the way Cochrun does. And then wrap it all up in a cozy, snowy Christmas package??? Sold!

Kiss Her Once for Me is your perfect holiday romcom!

I throughly enjoyed the friendships that were created and even secondary characters were enjoyable.

I want to start off by saying that this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I absolutely loved The Charm Offensive, Alison Cochrun’s debut novel, but something just didn’t work for me when it came to Kiss Her Once for Me. I really struggled finishing this book and considering DN’ing multiple times.

Last Christmas, Ellie spent one magical snow day with a women named Jack. It’s been months since that one special day, but Ellie hasn’t stopped thinking about Jack and all that they shared. This Christmas, things are not going well for Ellie. She’s stuck working for a terrible boss at a coffee shop and is about to be evicted from her apartment. When the landlord of the coffee shop, Andrew, suggest a marriage of convenience, so that he can gain an inheritance, Ellie agrees in exchange for a portion of the substantial inheritance. To make their engagement real, Ellie agrees to spend Christmas with Andrew’s family… only to discover that Jack is Andrew’s sister.

From the beginning, I had an issue with the instant love between Ellie and Jack, which was the foundation for the entire story. As the two of them interacted and as we saw flashback to that fateful snow day when they meet, I struggled finding any chemistry between them.

Another of my issues with the story was that I didn’t find any of the characters likeable. All the characters seemed judgemental, mean, and/or self-centered. I also didn’t really didn’t like the cheating-not-cheating that was happening in the book (not was it ever truly addressed). Ellie, who I should have been routing for and cheering on, got on my nerves. I understand the trauma and the hard times she has gone through, however I found her emotional immature and I had trouble relating to or feeing bad for her. I found her dialogue lacked depth and was underdeveloped.

Miscommunication after miscommunication occurred in the book and I found myself wishing that the characters would just stop and have mature adult conversations with each other, instead of constantly jumping to conclusions or doing whatever they thought was best without consulting anyone else.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

<review>In the foreword, the author, Alison Cochrun, says she was a huge fan of the 90s hit movie, While You Were Sleeping, and that it served as a sort of inspiration for this story. As a child who did most of their growing up in the 90s, I read this statement and was sold on this book immediately.
The main character is Ellie, and she’s been dealt a bad hand. Her parents are absent and her mother only calls when she needs money, she lost her dream job, her best friend moved halfway across the country, and her rent is going up. Through a series of events Ellie ends up drunkenly agreeing to marry Andrew, the landlord of the place where she works, so that he can get his $2 million inheritance. Of course, she’ll get a cut of the money, and she thinks her cut could go a long way to solving most of her troubles.
When she goes to Andrew’s family cabin for the holidays she becomes more sure that she made the wrong choice in agreeing to this marriage of convenience, and her fear only worsens when she meets Andrew’s sister, Jack. Jack is the woman Ellie fell in love with over the course of one perfect, snowy day, last Christmas.
Pick up this book to see how Ellie and Jack manage being stuck in the same house for a week, and if the feelings they seem to still share are enough to bring them together for real.

Oh my fucking stars. This was absolutely magical, gut wrenching, laugh out loud with your whole body funny, sickeningly sweet, and just utterly enchanting. Cochrun does it AGAIN with the perfect blend and balance of depth and romantic comedic humor, all while not shying away from representing fully so many of the sides of ourselves we would like to hide and shy away from.

The feeling of not being enough. The fear of failure. The constant battle between anxiety and our intrusive thoughts and the logic know we posses and calm we know we deserve. Thew way we want to ignore how the pain from our familiars and parents affect us, how we can feel and be starved for affection, and just how damn lonely life can be. Don’t take this the wrong way, that’s not to say this is a downer at all, in fact, its the opposite. It’s taking all those things, those fears, those less shiny parts of us, and holding them up to say it’s ok, that they’re valid and that we are still deserving of love in all types of forms no matter what.

<b>“I wanted someone who would see the whole mess of me—all the feelings and the perfectionism and the desire for control and the shape of my heart and the ache of my dreams, the wild, imperfect hunger of me, and the fear that keeps me from ever feeling full—and wouldn’t get freaked out or turned off. Someone who would kiss me anyway.”</b>

At the time of writing this, Cochrun shares in her acknowledgements that she was filled with fear — fear of failure and vulnerability as her debut, <i>The Charm Offensive </i> was releasing and the pandemic itself, and that this book was her “way of processing that fear, of trying to convince [herself] that some things are too spectacular for fear”. Let me just say….she pulls it off SO DAMN WELL. Ellie’s journey through her fears, her anxiety and loneliness cut me to the core so many times and her complicated dynamic with her parents, her mother especially, AND during the holidays when those cuts and hurts feel especially sensitive, made me so emotional. I loved Ellie for all her wins and even though her many mistakes and stumbles. Periods of frozen burrito-ness plague all of us and I think many will feel seen and heard in Ellie’s struggles.

“One of these days, I will stop ugly-crying in front of the only people who can tolerate me, but that day is not today.”

In typical fashion, Cochrun doesn’t just give us a damn amazing MC, but every supporting character had something to add to the story that felt so purposeful and valuable and necessary. From the grandmas (seriously so jealous, I would like them please), to Dylan and their wry ways, to Meredith— damn we all need a Meredith. And Jack - oh darling lumbersexual Jack.

“Some of us fall in and out of love easily. Some of us don’t experience romantic love at all. Some of us have to fight to let ourselves be vulnerable enough to fall in love.[…] Some of us have to fight to let other people love us.” […] All love and ways of loving are love”. HOW DOES THAT NOT MAKE YOU SWOON AND MELT INTO A PUDDLE.

Jack’s character was full of so much feeling, so much personality and flair and honesty — it was so refreshing. She doesn’t let the miscommunications slide, as she says “miscommunications are for the straights” and damn if she isn’t right. Let us have the monopoly babe, we apparently thrive on terrible romantic chaos.

Jack’s story within her own family was so interesting and her relentless love for herself was a balm to see. It’s not that she’s perfect or unafraid, but damn if she isn’t her own best cheerleader and I love that for her. Her banter and chemistry with Ellie was literally coming off the page. Those two, ugh, my heart.

Clearly I’m in love with this book. It’s got love and heart, swoon worthy characters that still feel like friends I could have IRL, truly and deeply discusses so many key themes regarding mental health, boundaries, and family. It’s even got great fucking music. Because have I got news for you….. THEY’RE BOTH SWIFTIES. That said, teeny tiny points off to Jack for having Lover as her favorite album, I’m with Ellie on this one. Ilysm Jack but NO. The rest of your tastes are perfection and I would like to stop by the Butch Oven ASAP please.

Please please PLEASE go read this wonderful holiday romance. Read it, love it, gift it. Cochrun, thank you so much for putting this out in the world.