Goodreads | Amazon US | Thriftbooks | Book Depository

Okay, first and foremost, you all need to know that I ID as pansexual. And my friend, Alexis, who I buddy read this with identifies as pansexual. And this is a story about a pansexual girl falling in love. And if that’s not one of the cutest things you’ve seen this Pride, I don’t have words for you. 💖💛💙

“…when people doubt her sexuality. Or the times when she needs to explain why she just feels more comfortable using pansexual than bisexual”

But real talk, this is honestly a story about a pansexual music-loving girl, falling in love with a Filipina lesbian ballerina, while they both work at a bookstore together. This book even shouts out Melissa de La Cruz, Mina V. Esguerra, and Rin Chupeco! Like, does that not already sound like a masterpiece?

The Melody of You and Me is a sweet, heartwarming, beautiful novella about two girls coming together and discovering who they want to be and who they want to be together. It’s quick, and fast paced, but I was smiling the entire time while reading. And there are a couple really steamy and sexy scenes in this, too!

“When you grow up hearing that you are not tall enough, not skinny enough, not white enough, you always wonder about how the world would be if you didn’t need to conform to all these ridiculous standards.”

But this book also has a lot of important things that it discusses! This book talks about masturbation and how we normalize it for boys, but never for girls. This book talks about coming out to your family, and how sometimes it feels like you can’t do it alone, no matter what age you are. This book talks about how society puts so much pressure on kids to go to college straight out of high school, never giving them a chance to breathe and think about the choice they are about to make that will change their very lives forever. This book talks about white privilege and the way white people can react when people of color are in those “white spaces”, especially if they are excelling in those spaces. Like, there is so much good in this book!

“Why do they never let young people stop to think? Why is it unacceptable to take a little time to figure out what she wants to do for the rest of her life?”

I see a few people saying this book is hard to read, but I didn’t feel that way at all. Do I think this book reads easy and somewhat simplistic? Yes, very much so. But never difficult to read. And obviously other people’s opinions are valid, but I want to also say that M. Hollis is a Brazilian author, who wrote this book in a language that is not her first. Honestly? It blows me away how well written it is.

Overall, I can’t tell you how much this meant to me. I can’t believe that it took me over twenty years of reading to finally read the word “pansexual” in a romance novel. I could write an entire review on how depressing it is to make an entire TBR of LGBTQIAP+ reads for Pride, but to only be able to pick from five mainstream books that have the word “pansexual” even in them. This book honestly feels like it was written for me, and it will forever and always have a piece of my heart. And I will cherish it being in my library forever. And this is the cute, happy, fluffy, validating, love story that I’ve been looking for my whole life!

“She wishes they could stay like this forever. Just the two of them; telling stories and sharing secrets without a care in the world.”

Instagram | Bloglovin’ | Twitter | Tumblr | Goodreads | Twitch

Buddy read with Alexis at The Sloth Reader! ❤