Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - Kiss Her Once For Me

I feel messy and vulnerable and very seen by this book.

Ellie Oliver had her entire life planned out - the next ten years at least - with a secure job at an animation studio, a clear path to her dreams of becoming an animator, then director, but it all came crashing down in the way that most of her life seemed to with a lay-off and a reality that she has no idea what she's doing. After a chance meeting with a woman one Christmas day, she finds herself falling head over heels in 24 hours, and then struggling to recover from the encounter a year later when a man approaches her with a plan, fake date him for one week over Christmas, then marry him and divorce within the year, and she can have $200k of his inheritance. The only problem, Ellie soon realizes, is that the sister of her new fake fiance is the woman she met last Christmas.

I am so glad I decided to prioritize this read for Christmas (It's Christmas Eve as I'm writing this review!) because there's something about the holidays that just rips me up from the inside out. Everything is supposed to be polished, glimmering lights and endlessly happy family moments, but, like Ellie, I often feel like I'm one second away from failure at any given moment. The absolute way Cochrun just took a melon scoop to my brain and pulled out my biggest insecurities and put them on the page made me relate so hard to Ellie and her entire story. There's a lot I could say, but I've been fearful-of-failure Ellie, I've been trying-to-make-it-better Ellie, and I just feel so satisfied by the end of this book and the beginning of Ellie Oliver's new story in it's final pages.

I think it's a shame to reduce this book to just a romance novel, because it's so much more than that. The queer representation made my heart feel SO WARM. Ellie is biromantic and demisexual, Jack is a butch lesbian, there's Dylan who is enby, and a cast of so many other identities and characters that just endear you to this book. I truthfully don't remember the last time I picked up a book and realized I felt so connected to everyone in the pages of it and that's such a good feeling to have. The plot does have its moments centered on the romance and the ways it plays out, but Ellie's story of growth shines like those silly little Christmas lights at the end, twinkling at the promise of something new.

I loved this. I'm going to go read Cochrun's other book asap because this just solidified that her writing is for me. I would highly, highly recommend this to anyone who has spent their entire life in a gifted burnout kid tailspin and setting themselves up for failure because they're so worried to fail in the first place. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to plan a trip to Portland to meet my own hot, ripped baker.

Content Warnings: on page panic attacks, across the board bad relationships with parents, financial instability, biphobia/homophobia/transphobia from side characters, lots of on page discussion about mental health/fear of failure/heavy self reflection. This isn't a lighthearted read!

Content Warnings