M. Hollis – meltotheany

ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Did I just start 2019 off with the cutest sapphic relationship set up, that also featured a pan love interest? Wow, the blessings for this new year already! Friends, I loved this. And if you’re looking for something diverse, something hella cute, something super romantic, and something that’s a really quick read, then look no further.

“Why was it so hard to find good mainstream media where you could see two girls falling in love with a happy ending? Even harder if I wanted to find stories with black girls. Brazilian black girls falling in love? Mostly, I’d only found them in indie and self-published books. Maybe it would be easier to enjoy more media if everything I tried to watch didn’t look as white as the walls of my apartment.”

My Fake Canadian Wife is an ownvoices story for the Brazilian and the queer representation. Our main character, Dora, is a lesbian and is an aspiring photographer from Brazil, who moved to Canada to go to school, and is still currently living there. Sadly, their camera broke so they are currently working as a barista at a local café trying to save up money. That is, until Dora receives a letter from immigration telling her that she hasn’t updated her student Visa and that she is going to be deported if the situation isn’t corrected.

Dora is feeling helpless, and unsure if she wants to move back with her family in Brazil, but a coworker introduces her to Abby, who is a librarian, pan, adorable, and totally willing to marry Dora to keep her in the country. But first, they have to see if they are both willing to commit to something like this, and they have to find out if they even like being around each other for long periods of time. And what better way than for Dora to spend Christmas and the holidays with Abby and her family? And they both learn a lot about themselves and the kind of relationship that they want and need.

Last year, I fell in love with The Melody of You and Me which starred a pan main character who fell for a Filipino girl, and at this point I think M. Hollis is writing stories specifically for me and my interests. Even though both of these stories are filled with very real and challenging situations, but are heartwarming, sapphic stories that just fill my body and soul with so much pure joy and happiness.

Overall, I just loved this and I really appreciate the stories that M. Hollis keeps writing. They always make me feel so seen, and I always have the biggest smile on my face while reading their stories. I’ll be the first to say that this story is a little predictable, but that didn’t make me love it any less. I hope 2019 is filled with f/f romances like this! And I hope M. Hollis never stops writing them, especially after reading the author acknowledgements because you can really tell they put a lot of themselves into this beautiful story and it really shines through.

The quote above was taken from an ARC and is subject to change upon publication.

Content and trigger warnings for talk of cancer and talk of the loss of a loved one.

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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!