12/26/2025 UPDATE: I've been thinking about this book again recently due to seeing some BookTubers I like reading this for the holiday season. I would probably downgrade the rating to a true 2 stars now.

* * *

Real rating: 2.5 stars.

Kiss Her Once for Me was very digestible—I finished in a matter of days, which is fast for me—but it also had a sizeable dose of "millennial cringe", as a friend of mine called it, as well as a lot of missed opportunities. I felt like there was an over-abundance of (increasingly outdated) pop culture references and lots of cursing just for the sake of it, which made Ellie's inner monologue feel juvenile.

I didn't really have much problem with the plot at all. It was cute and lighthearted, which is the kind of romance that I most enjoy. The book read like a typical rom-com, but that's why I liked it—queer people deserve to have corny Hallmark-esque stories too, and for that reason, I'm at the very least thankful it exists.

The only thing that trips me up is how the book seems to put all the blame on Ellie. Jack was still married to Claire when she slept with Ellie the first time, yet the book treats it like Ellie did a bad thing by leaving after she found out Jack was married. How was she supposed to react when confronted by Jack's wife? Why would anyone expect Ellie to wait and ask Jack about it? It was a huge betrayal of trust on Jack's part to omit that; personally, I think the issue should have been given more focus and Jack should have gotten a lot more shit for it. It's like the book decided the whole "failure" of their relationship was all on Ellie's shoulders when Jack was basically out here committing adultery and lying about it? Make it make sense.

The characters are truly what dragged the book down for me, sorry to say. I got annoyed with most of them at least once (Meemaw and Meredith are the exceptions). Ellie was so spineless; I literally had to put down the book a few times because I was so angry at some of the decisions she was making. But it wasn't all bad. I do think there were good character moments as well (such as Andrew finally standing up to his parents about loving Dylan), but unfortunately, they were overshadowed by... literally everything else.

Additionally, Ellie had no reason to be demisexual. It felt like window-dressing for her character. You can't use the insta-love trope and then make your character demisexual. That's not how that works. It felt like Jack was the "magical exception" to her demisexuality; like Ellie just had to meet the "right person" that would "fix" her. Literally, from the moment Ellie describes meeting Jack in the book store, she is sexually attracted her. And then she falls in love over the course of a few scant hours?

Furthermore, I felt like her anxiety disorder was not given the respect it deserves, especially by other characters; all they did was tell her to "calm down" or "don't freak out". That's not how you should treat someone with anxiety. Characters being ignorant about it is one thing, but that's not the case here; most of the characters seem pretty educated about mental health issues and the like so it stood out to me how differently they treated Ellie's anxiety.

However, my pettiest gripe with the book is that the webcomic isn't real. And by this, I mean that the "Snow Day" chapters should have actually been an illustrated comic. How cool would it have been to actually see Ellie's art? All the other characters are always praising how good it is, yet we never get to see anything she's made. "Snow Day" being actually illustrated would give us an idea of the supposed quality of it and it would have been a cool way to blend two different styles of storytelling (comics and written word) into one book. 

I do want to end this on a positive note. I like Alison Cochran's writing, and I hope she continues to write cliché queer romances because we need more of those. This book just wasn't for me and that's okay. I'm really excited to see what she publishes in the future.