Review by Gabrielle
Series Name: Librarians in Love, #2
Kiss Me Maybe is a lovely queer romance with a lot of heart.
Favourite Quote:
“There’s that heat crawling up my skin again, making my heart pound everywhere, including more inconvenient places. What the hell is this strange feeling overcoming me, making me want to rush home and sort myself out under the covers?
But more than that, why do I like it so much?”
Book Synopsis:
Librarian Angela Gutierrez has never been kissed. But after posting a video about her late bloomer status and ace identity, she’s finally ready to get some firsts out of the way. Using her new influencer status to come up with a scavenger hunt idea in which the winner earns her first kiss, Angela realizes she may need some help to pull off the event. Enter Krystal Ramirez, hot bartender and Angela’s unrequited crush of five years. Despite vowing that romantic love isn’t for her, Krystal seems awfully determined to help Angela pull off the scavenger hunt and find true love.
There’s just one problem, the connection between Angela and Krystal is getting stronger and stronger the more they hang out, until Angela isn’t sure she wants to go through with the scavenger hunt after all. But Krystal is convinced that she isn’t capable of love and before long, Angela realizes she’s falling head over heels for a woman who may never love her back.
Book Review:
Books about other bookworms are always going to be like catnip for me. Librarians in Love? Yes, please! This is the second book in the series. I hadn’t read the first one, and that seemed fine. The characters from the first book (Marcela and Theo) do appear in this one, so if you have read it, it’s nice to see how those characters are doing after their book wraps up.
This book is told entirely from the perspective of Angela’s character, and I liked her. Angela is 27 and doesn’t have a lot of experience in the love and romance department. She’s only recently figured out her ace identity with the help of TikTok creators sharing their journeys. Inspired, she posts her own videos, and overnight, she becomes something of a sensation, which gives her the confidence to put herself out there a bit more and start experiencing some firsts, especially her first kiss. In a flirty conversation with her longtime crush, Krystal, the idea of a scavenger hunt comes up, the winner of which will earn the honour of her first kiss. Before long, Angela and Krystal are busily planning away and trying to ignore their growing feelings for each other.
I loved Angela and Krystal together. Their chemistry is immediately obvious to the reader, and I enjoyed their journey. They both have a lot to work through before they can be good together and get to their HEA. Lots of baggage to unpack. The will they-won’t they tension is high here folks.
This is a great book for those who are questioning or feeling like they haven’t figured things out just yet, especially those on the ace spectrum. There is a lot of discussion about the various ace identities and sub-identities, and I found myself actually learning a lot. It’s a constantly evolving vocabulary, and I appreciated being brought up to speed while getting a deeper understanding through the characters’ experiences.
The scavenger hunt is where this book fell apart a bit for me. I just didn’t understand why it was so important to Angela and why she held onto this idea so hard. It felt off as a motivating plot device for Angela’s character to me.
Overall though, this is a sweet queer romance, perfect for those in the ace space or for those wanting to learn more about it.
Thank you, Forever, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
