I adored The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun, so I was thrilled to have the chance to read Kiss Her Once for Me. And, I was not disappointed! Cochrun captures holiday magic in this "meet cute" turned fake dating rom-com that's teeming with unfortunate events. It's brimming with representation, and it's the perfect antidote to <redacted> channel holiday movies that tell the same story over and over again.

You'll fall in love with Ellie, Andrew, their friends, and their family. You'll also get to see a thoughtful exploration of mental health. Definitely recommend this one!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

I wanted to like this more than I did! I loved Cochrun's debut, The Charm Offensive, because I felt like it hit a good balance between having fleshed-out characters and a fun and intriguing premise that managed to be a rom-com while also subverting common rom-com tropes. I just didn't like the characters or the plot of Kiss Her Once for Me as much as I wanted to. I enjoyed the dynamics between Ellie and the Kim-Prescott family, but the premise of this one was kind of convoluted, and so often I felt like we were rushing through all of the different moments and that most things resolved really neatly. Overall, it was a cute, easy read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Mild summary spoilers below.

Ellie is pulled into a fake engagement for money at a low point in her life. Last Christmas, she fell for a woman and was heartbroken. This Christmas, her fake engagement leads her into that person's path once more.

This sapphic holiday romance absolutely worked for me. I was fond of the characters, main and side (love you, Meemaw!). As someone who has anxiety, a fear of failure, and a fear of letting people down, there was part of me that really understood Ellie. I liked the chemistry and tension throughout. I also adored the family dynamics in this.

Insta-love and miscommunication tropes do appear and are both addressed somewhat. For how quickly they fall for each other, they still had deep conversations and got to know each other. I'm not a fan of either of these tropes usually so I was surprised that the story worked for me. I think both characters were at low points so they intimately attached to each other and got deep much faster. And the writing style and dialogue were very enjoyable. My main frustration was when the truth was withheld a step too far for my taste.

I thought the representation was quite good: demisexual, bisexual, butch lesbian, non-binary, Korean to name some. I can see some issue being taken with someone who is demi falling for someone so quickly though.

Laughed a bit, cried a bit, and had a great time reading this overall. I would recommend this for those looking for a fun and emotional queer love story. I hope to pick up The Charm Offensive soon. 4.5 stars rounded up.

Let me start by saying it’s hard for me to be objective because The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun was my favorite book last year and is one of my all time favorites as well.

That said, I did really enjoy this book just not on the same level as her previous book.

Some of the things that really worked well in my opinion were the anxiety representation, the chemistry between Ellie and Jack, and the cast of side characters.

I personally just didn’t get those heartstring tugging feelings in this one like I did with The Charm Offensive. But I still love Cochrun’s writing and humor that she puts into her books and would absolutely recommend this one to anyone looking for a good holiday themed read.

I liked that this book was very different than other holiday romances. It had a lot of drama, and a lot of characters, and I think it was a good representation of gender identity and sapphic love. I feel like I learned a lot from it, and I also haven’t quite read a book like it. It takes place around Christmas time in the PNW, and something is charming about how Elle loves snow days.

This is the second book I've read with the marriage of convenience trope, and I’m just not a big fan of it. I think I have to suspend reality too much for it, and that sometimes takes away from the story for me. What also didn’t work for me was I felt like there were a lot of characters, and we didn’t get enough of them. I think some of them had important roles, and it wasn’t enough. And while both female MCs were enjoyable, their back and forward started to feel a bit repetitive to me.

This is ultimately a sweet romance with a ton of drama in the middle. Usually I enjoy a fake dating storyline but here there was a lot of active lying and it caused a lot of harm to others, and that wasn't fun to read.

What I liked about the book was the alternating between last Christmas and the current one. We slowly learn how Ellie and Jack met and fell for each other over the coarse of a single day. They never spoke again and now it's a year later and Ellie is engaged to Jack's brother to help him receive his inheritance.

Things get messy and that was a bit much for me. Ellie and Andrew have a sham engagement but they sleep with other people - It wasn't exactly cheating that went on, but it wasn't not cheating, and I didn't like that part.

With all that said, I do recommend this novel for romance readers who like a lot of drama in their stories.

This is a fabulous queer romance for the upcoming holiday season! There is misunderstandings, laughters, failures, romance and more.

I feel like the author also expanded past what many queer books do, to include the gender identity and expression of characters, and even using gender-neutral pronouns in a characters thought process until they were able to get to a point in the conversation that they could share their name and pronouns and inquire about the other person’s.

Also, a side character is in a poly relationship, which is not touched on much in books, so I feel the author was intentional to include diverse types of relationships.

I'm having one of those weeks where my brain is not on board with writing reviews, but basically I loved every single thing about this from start to finish. Absolutely one of my top favorite books this year. It's got lots of tropey goodness, done in a way that delivers on all the feels. All the characters just felt so real and I loved watching them all interact. And all the cozy and hilarious holiday shenanigans! This is a perfect holiday read. You want these characters in your life. Gift yourself with the joy that is this book!

I absolutely d e v o u r e d this book. Anyone who knows even an inkling about me knows that The Charm Offensive is one of my top 2022 reads from earlier this year, so I jumped at the earliest possible chance to read this one.

This book follows Ellie, a struggling animator-turned-barista who has never stopped being in love with the woman she spent the previous Christmas Eve with before they were torn apart. When the landlord for the coffeehouse she works for asks her to enter a marriage of convenience for $200,000, she can't say no. She doesn't love him, she's not sexually attracted to him, and she may still be in love with Snow Girl, but who cares? She only has to be married to him for a year.

Except that her landlord's sister is Snow Girl, and now she has to spend the week leading up to Christmas in their family's mountain lodge. And they have unfinished business.

This book is perfect if you like:
🎄 Hallmark movie vibes
💞 Second chance romances
🔍 Books like People We Meet On Vacation and Love and Other Words where the chapters alternate between the past and present
🎶 TAYLOR SWIFT <3 The book is full of references.
👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Found family trope
👀 Awkward love quadruples where everyone is very queer and very emotionally constipated
🍷 Boozy grandmas

I have to say that out of everything, I absolutely adored the MC, Ellie. I said from chapter one that I related heavily to her, and she only got more aggressively relatable as the book went on. Ellie is bisexual. Ellie is demisexual. Ellie has a fear of failure so she ruins everything for herself so she fails on her own terms. Ellie is me.

Excuse me while I make this book my entire personality through the holiday season.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for this wonderful galley. I loved every second of this book. It was cute, sweet and so fun. Jack and Elle make me swoon. I adore them so much. What a great book with themes of love, missed opportunities, misunderstandings and overcoming failures. Highly recommend this cute Christmas book.

I really enjoyed this book. I was a big fan of her debut and her sophomore novel lived up to my expectations.

The concept was so fun, and while I wish I had seen more of Ellie and Jack’s first day together, I’m glad I got to read about their next days together.

I would definitely read this book if you’re a lover of romcoms. It’s well worth it.

Kiss Her Once For Me is a sweet meet-cute, fake relationship rom-com with a bit of a spin. Lonely on Christmas Eve, Ellie meets and spends a day with Jack, a woman she meets at a local bookstore. By morning though the two never see each other again. One year later, Ellie has hit a rough patch and the landlord at her place of employment offers an opportunity to change her path. She just needs to meet his family as his fiancé and future wife. It is a no fail plan right? Until Andrew introduces Ellie to his sister, Jacqueline.

I loved The Charm Offensive and was thrilled to read Kiss Her Once For Me. While I enjoyed the story, it wasn't quite as good as it's predecessor, in my opinion. Part of this is just personal taste, the miscommunication/hiding the truth trope in rom-coms is not a favorite story arc of mine. But if that is your jam this book is for you.

Ellie as a main character is well developed, lovable and you can't help to root for her. There is a significant amount of exploration on her mental health disorders, specifically anxiety and the fear of failure, and it hit pretty close to home for me. Like really close. Like knocking on the front door, peeking in the windows close. While I appreciated the time and care the author took to emphasize the importance of mental health awareness, I found at times it slowed the movement in the story. We spend a good portion of the book stuck in Ellie's brain. I do think Alison Cochrun is a fantastic author and will not hesitate to pick up her next book.
A perfect endearing book for the holiday season.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read and review honestly an advanced digital copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I really enjoyed this Christmas themed sapphic romance. It was trope heavy but not too cheesy, and the characters were likable.

What worked for me: I enjoyed the web chapters as well as the in real time chapters. I liked the flow of now and then presented that way. I liked Ellie’s character arc and also the talk about a dream job not being what it seemed.

What didn’t work for me: instalove isn’t my favorite and neither is marriage of convenience… and there was a lot of weirdness for me with Ellie and Jack.

I also wish they included some art!

This book was so enjoyable! I love Christmas books and this one was so well done! I really enjoyed all the characters and the mental health rep! The MC, Ellie, was so well developed and I loved seeing how much she grew and learnt to deal with some of her anxieties/fears by the end of the book!

I absolutely adored Ellie's friends and Andrew & his family were so cute! The grandmas especially!

The only read disappointment was that there were no drawings included with Ellie's webcomic chapters.

Thanks to Netgalley & Atria Books for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

This is an adorable Christmas romance. It’s got snow magic, holiday baking, and just one bed.

It’d be easy to say the conflict here comes from miscommunication and toss it aside. But I think critics of romance are often too quick to label the hated miscommunication trope. The truth is, in real life, we get in our heads. We don’t say what we’re thinking. We are afraid to say we are falling. It’s scary! And it’s real! And I don’t get why everyone hates reading that in books.

I think the ‘miscommunication’ here comes from a fear of failure and an anxiety that is all too real, and very true to life. There’s also some extenuating circumstances that keep Ellie from fully revealing the truth.

Read this if you like…
- Christmas romances
- Bisexual representation
- Non-binary representation
- Mental health representation
- ski chalets
- Mistletoe

HELLO I LOVE THIS BOOK! This book just made me FEEL good. Ellie is such a painfully relatable character that I was totally invested from the beginning. A twenty-something with a full degree getting yelled at in the face by rude customers while she's working minimum wage? BEEN THERE. Her fears, her general apprehension to the world thanks to the GAD, all so relatable and treated very well.

Andrew's family was so fun to read about as well. Boozy grandmas singing "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer?" Sign me up. I loved reading about their family traditions & seeing how much they all care for each other! I think the exploration of family bonds was such a nice addition to the plot.

Of course being the anxious person that I am I have my doubts about the whole meet-cute "falling for you immediately" thing, but you know what, I just rolled with it because it's a ROM COM set at CHRISTMAS time. The vibes alone were so cute. And how could I not love a meet-cute set in Powell's, the world's largest independent bookstore?

Honesty game. Was it slightly unrealistic? Sure. Was it cheesy and did I get second-hand embarrassment? Yes. But I LOVE it, ok? This book is just a warm hug and makes me want to believe that there's truly good in the world.

I really wanted to like this one but, unfortunately it just wasn’t for me.

I felt like there was a whole lot of tropes going on here that weren’t executed nicely. Insta-love is always a hard one and unfortunately I just couldn’t get invested and feel that connection between Elle and Jack. Their relationship felt very lacklustre. I also felt the whole trapezoid was a little weird and gave off a lot of cheating vibes. (I know, I know, Andrew and Elle were just fake, but still. The others didn’t know that!). Overall the story was unique and the ideas were interesting, it just felt poorly executed and repetitive.

All that said, I do think the representation for both LGBTQ and mental health was very well done. The alternating pages using the past with the webcomics was a lot of fun however, it would have been awesome to have actual comic drawings for an added element. (Especially since Elle is supposed to be an artist!). Lastly, I loved the Christmas vibe and really enjoyed the grandmothers! They were a hoot haha

I’m really sad this one didn’t work for me but, not every book can work for every person and that’s ok!

Fake dating gets even more complicated than usual. Ellie Oliver agrees to marry Andrew, so he can receive his inheritance and she can get 10%, but first she has to pretend to be his fiance at Christmas with his family. It turns out that not only does Andrew still have feelings for his sister's best friend, but Andrew's sister Jack is the same woman Ellie fell in love with at Christmas the year before before things went wrong. It's an incredibly messy situation that is handled so beautifully for a wonderful holiday romcom.

Darling LGBTQIA+ Holiday/ winter romance. I love that it is set in Portland. I love the coffee shop job despite the hipsters. I’m always here for fake dating and forced proximity. Thanks for the ARC!!

Do I even need to say how much I loved this book!? I don't think I've talk to anyone who has read and not enjoyed this book. It was so sweet and fun and just perfect for the holiday season! I absolutely adored every second of this book and I can't wait to come back to it again and again!