About The Book
After a year of struggles, Ellie Oliver agrees to a marriage of convenience with her landlord, Andrew, to solve their mutual problems. But when they spend the holidays with Andrew’s family, Ellie discovers his sister, Jack, is the woman she fell for the previous Christmas Eve. Now, Ellie must decide between the safety of a fake relationship and risking her heart again.
Buy The Book: https://amzn.to/3BEwbkj
My Rating
This is a fun twist on the classic fake dating trope. In this holiday romcom, the main character is still somewhat hung up on the woman she spent last Christmas with. This Christmas, things aren’t looking great, but when she strikes up a bargain with a wealthy man to be his fake fiancée for the holidays, she ends up coming face-to-face with the woman she gave her heart to last Christmas—and she just so happens to be his sister. Tell me that doesn’t make for a messy, good time!
The main character, Ellie, had so many layers to her. She was bi and demisexual, had an anxiety disorder, and was afraid to try new things or put herself out there. She tried to keep people at arm’s length and was hesitant to cut toxic people out of her life. Deep down, she just wanted to be loved. Her character development throughout the story was one of my favorite parts.
As for the love interest, Jack, I did enjoy her to a point. At times, I completely understood her, but by the last chapter, she really kind of upset me. However, I understand she had a lot going on in her life and was just as afraid of failure as Ellie. Despite this, I do think they complemented each other well. Although I didn’t love the miscommunication trope in this book, I still really enjoyed their relationship.
“Some of us have to fight to let ourselves be vulnerable enough to fall in love.”
That said, I found it a little weird that Ellie essentially wrote online web comics about everything that happened in her life. Not only did she create a comic about her first meeting with Jack, but she also started a new one about the fake fiancée arrangement. On top of that, she wrote another comic that was essentially about her everyday life. This level of oversharing online felt like something more suited to a personal diary than for everyone to see.
However, I really enjoyed Andrew, Jack’s brother, and liked all the other side characters as well. There was so much more to this book than just the romance, but the romance served as the main plot that held the story together. Regarding the writing, I found it a bit slow at times and not as engaging as I would have liked.
Overall, this isn’t my favorite queer or holiday romance, but it’s still a fairly cute read. My biggest con, though, is the ending. At one point, it truly broke my heart for Ellie. I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll leave it at that. Now, this book does have some spice, but I believe there are only one or two chapters of actual spice. You can skip those without missing any important context. I’d rate the spice level a 2 out of 5.
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Until The Next Chapter,
Bunny
This book was well on its way to getting a “five stars plus” rating from me…until…we’ll get to that later.
It has many of the elements sapphic romcoms often lack-the writing was very good, the MCs (especially the narrator) were endearing, and the author actually filled the book with details about the place it was set (in this case, Portland, Oregon), as well as making the setting essential to the plot. The idea of having the narrator writing and illustrating a web comic that paralleled the events of the story was both clever and well-executed. Though it’s sometimes problematic in novels by other authors. Alison Cochrun should be taught to aspiring writers as the way to “show don’t tell” when describing the appearance of her characters- especially in terms of ethnic background. Maybe because I’m demi myself, I appreciated that unlike many other novels of this genre, the “spice”, while explicit, was romantic rather than raunchy-and even more importantly-didn’t go on and on until each character had twelve “amazing” orgasms (something that makes this reader’s mind start to think about ironing). And, while romcoms tend to be “lighthearted” rather than outright “funny”, this one had me giggling out loud at times.
Now, for why I only gave it four stars instead of five and a half. There are a limited number of elements that need to show up in any story; the “meet cute”, the unique and/or troublesome situation (often including the “opposites attract”, “ice queen”, or “prize that must be won” themes), the “breakup”, a “period of reflection followed by remorse”, the “grand gesture”, then the “reconciliation/happy ending”. It’s the “period of reflection followed by remorse” that bothered me in this book (as in some other romcoms) and it’s generally only a problem that seems to afflict the better authors.
While the word “comedy” has a deeper meaning to classicists and academics, to an ordinary reader like me, who basically reads for escape from real-life angst, it’s REALLY important that the “long, dark, night of the soul” that the main character goes through not become TOO long, or TOO dark. When the MC gets deeply depressed and cries, I find MYSELF getting deeply depressed and crying-and find that I have to go through a literal and prolonged recovery period-and who’s got time or energy?
While I’m at it, while “timeless” novels often have ambiguous endings that end up being talked about in “English Literature” classes for decades, ifnot centuries, I am of that group that wants an epilogue in which anything that even looks like a “loose end” gets wrapped up and tied in a bow. I don’t just want to know that they “probably” lived “happily ever after”-I want to revisit them at their 50th wedding anniversary, make certain that even their Lyft drivers got happily married, and their dauschunds had a litter of healthy puppies. Maybe this a reason thatsome people take up writing fan fiction.
I totally agree about the ending-El’s hearbreak got way too serious for a book that was generally more lighthearted (and even giggle out loud funny at times). And while it’s not unusual to have a more open-ended ending in more “serious” novels, when I’m reading for escape, I really like an epilogue-or at least no loose ends (although they can go overboard on that, too. I thought that that overall, the writing was pretty good, and I REALLY liked the local detail-and the parallel plot with El’s cartooning. I’d give it 2.5 for “spiciness”-which being “demi” myself, I think is a GOOD thing-some sapphic authors can go on for so long that you feel like Housekeeping waiting to get in to change the sheets), and this had enough to move the plot along while still being tasteful. It DID keep me in suspense and I stayed up way too late-and I have to vent a little to get to sleep.