I would love to talk more about this book, but my review is getting long already. While the year is not up, this book might be in the running for my biggest surprise of the year. While I was hoping to enjoy this, I didn’t not expect this to be a 2022 fav. It is also that this book doesn’t seem to work for me on paper since it has some of my biggest pet peeves, but Cochrun sure pulled it off anyway. As I mentioned before, this is only her second book so it makes me really excited to think about what other books she might write in the future. If there was any question about it, I absolutely recommend this queer holiday romance.

When would I have chopped wood before?’ she practically shouts… ‘I had a very privileged upbringing!’ I get what the title is doing but I’m sorry I don’t want to interpretive dance to Holly Jolly Christmas. Last Christmas was referenced so many times by name!! I bet they changed the name in editorial bc there’s no way this wasn’t called last Christmas or it’s been a year or someone special.This doesn’t happen to me. I don’t picture kissing total strangers, and if I do, there isn’t toe-curling involved.” Not to be a grinch but like… Respectfully: I just didn’t care about their family traditions: cookie making, snowball fights, decorating, family photos, Christmas songs…… god I was bored 😪 (no offense) It’s not my fault you insisted on going to college forever and got fired from Lycra Studios,” she snaps. Deeper subjects--The examination of fear, especially fear of failure, is heartfelt and beautifully examined. There are many iterations of this theme throughout the book and they all really resonated with me. I could always fly down to Phoenix,” I offer pathetically. So very pathetically. Just a twenty-five-year-old woman, begging her mother to spend Christmas with her.

Barry from Sauquoit, Ny"Holly Jolly Christmas" did not make Billboard's Top 100 chart; but between 1957 and 1964 he did have nine Top 100 hits, with "A Little Bitty Tear" being his biggest hit, it peaked at #9 (a "Funny Way of Laughing" was just behind it, it reached #10).Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off. No, you’re very complex and multifaceted, but your arm muscles are objectively bigger than mine, so you’re just going to have to do the stereotypical thing here.’ I briefly consider ignoring the call, but Catholic guilt, solidified in infancy, wins out. “Hey, Linds—”

I realize the point of showing Ellie's bio-family dynamic was to contrast it with something different and have something to compare to, but I didn't like her relationship with her mom AT ALL. I wondered from the beginning why she was being such a doormat and giving her mom the literal last dollar in her bank account, and I just couldn't connect with that part of the story. i truly love the moment queer romcoms are having right now. i love how unabashedly tropey they can be. and this book has one of my favorite romantic moments from the original film: family urging the secretly-attracted couple to kiss under the mistletoe! oh my god it's so cute. we also have snowed-in forced proximity, which is delicious. Honestly, I wished Ellie had ended up with Andrew. At least he was capable of recognising when he messed up. And what’s the point of having that fancy degree if you can’t financially provide for your elderly parents?”Laika Studios,” I correct her for the dozenth time. My mother may switch her career goals as frequently and thoughtlessly as she shuffles through husbands, but she never misses the chance to remind me of my greatest failure. I don’t let her see how these words affect me, though—don’t let her know about the hot kernel of shame that blossoms in my stomach. “And I didn’t go to college forever,” I manage casually. “I got a master’s of fine arts in animation.” Fans of Alison Cochrun's debut, The Charm Offensive, will love her new queer romance . . . . Read this sexy, insightful, and utterly charming book. With a table saw.’ She brandishes the axe in my direction. ‘And why am I the one who has to chop the wood?’ insta love can be well done SOMETIMES but this was absolutely not the case…you can’t create a demisexual character and then the plot be that their demisexuality doesn’t apply to one particular person…

WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WRITE A WEBCOMIC ABOUT A RELATIONSHIP YOURE CURRENTLY IN WHEN THERES 200K ON THE LINE THAT COULD KEEP YOU FROM BEING HOMELESS

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The book was too sexually explicit for me, personally (though I really appreciate the verbal consent aspect!! 👏🏻) And how they did! You belong to this small category of queer rom-com authors like Casey McQuiston, Alexis Hall, and Anita Kelly, whose books I’d buy going in blind. (For those who haven’t heard of Anita yet, Love & Other Disasters is a must-read, and please add their next novel, Something Wild & Wonderful, to your TBR!) So I have pretty conflicting feelings about this. On the one hand I thought it was well written, fun to read, and never bored me as other romance books have in the past, but there were also a lot of parts that really got on my nerves. Verdict? I have no clue! Leave it to Portland, Oregon, to be simultaneously so delighted and so horrified by such a modest amount of snow. One thing to love about romances is there’s no spoiling the end, at least not in a general sense. We know these two queer women end up making it work and get their happily-ever-after, because otherwise it wouldn’t qualify for the genre. The joy in reading an awesome romance like this one is the journey along the way and the specific ways that the book explores familiar themes and tropes. In that way, Kiss Her Once for Me is a truly stellar example of not just a holiday romance or a queer romance, but of any kind of romance because it’s so good at playing with genre expectations and at building fully realized leads who have character arcs separate but complementary to the love story. Plus, have I mentioned it is really fun and really gay?