Taylor song: Snow on the Beach

“And to hide, that would be so dishonest”

Wow! I was very impressed with this book. Such a fantastic friends-to-lovers arc with a marriage of convenience too. A win-win of tropes for me!

Both MCs were very witty, and the banter between them was top notch. I felt like I really got to know both characters and found them very lovable and relatable. I loved the Ethiopian cultural details the author weaved in throughout the story and the study on immigration and spousal sponsorship. The only part I really wasn’t a huge fan of was the subplot with the engagement ring - it was a little cringey in my opinion.

Overall though, this book was a big win for me, and I look forward to rereading it as well as reading more from Rebecca Fisseha in the future!

Thank you Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for the ARC!

Dnf’d.
I couldn’t connect with the FMC she was very immature and I the friends to lovers transition happened out of nowhere.
I loved the cultural aspects though

3.5 stars

This is a cute, quick friends to lovers romance based in Toronto steeped with Ethiopian culture and traditions.

Miz and Kal met as teens in Ethiopia, years later, Miz sponsors Kal for a visa after they both land in Toronto and pursue their different careers. Miz, who is self-proclaimed "not the marrying type" has to deal with her past family trauma, internal beliefs and her feelings about Kal before she risks loosing her best friend and "husband".

Pros:
- Loved the cultural aspects of this book and the minority representation
- I enjoyed the MMC and his character progression

Cons:
- at times the FMC felt very immature to be 36. The intimate scenes were fade to black, which was fine- but i wanted some of those moments to make the fmc feel like she was acyually mid 30s instead of written as rarly 20s but youre telling me shes mid 30s. I personally didn't feel that her reasoning to be "not the marrying type" made much sense
- the engagement ring side plot was very drawn out and resolution felt out of place
- at times the pacing was a little off, the characters had a huge jump in feelings that didn't necessarily stem from something specific. They just.... happened lol

Overall a very cute book and a fairly cute read.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the aspects of Ethiopian culture and community that was written in this book, however I feel the characters and premise of friends to lovers fell flat for me.

The characters have so many pent up emotions yet barely express this to each other and the reader only picks up on this through their inner monologue.

Kal had a lot more depth in comparison to Miz. His sensitivity is so lovely to read but Miz’s immaturity was hard to connect with!

However, I would recommend if you are looking for an easy friends to lovers and marriage of convenience book!

I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this.

Great read! First read from this author. This book makes me want to read more from this author. Kept my attention and interest until the end.

I just found that I didn’t connect with the characters or the storyline. It was a tough read to get through. I did like the importance placed on the culture of the main characters though!

I enjoyed reading Only Because It's You. As for feedback, the book was well written and the characters had very distinctive voices. It was refreshing to learn about the Ethiopian culture. My only critique is that I had no idea what the characters looked like throughout the majority of the book, if not or the cover which I didn't have access to while reading it. But over all I enjoyed the book.

I rate the book a 4/5 stars for snappy dialogue, engaging cultural experience (Canada and Ethiopia) and strong writing.

This was a very wholesome and humorous, friends to lovers romance! It was light on spice but isn't really closed door, just light on the details! I really enjoyed the way Miz and Kal's relationship grew and changed throughout the book. I think it also addresses the complexity of immigration and the process that many people have to go through in a very intentional way.

This was a quick and cute friends-to-lovers read. The story was sweet, and the settings in Canada & Ethiopia made it more interesting. With immigration being such a hot and present issue, the main plot felt very real for current times. I liked most of the characters, but didn't really enjoy the engagement ring sub-plot - it felt too detailed and a bit drawn out, with the finale of that landing a bit flat. Aside from that, I enjoyed the character development of Miz and Kal, and the entrance & stories of both of their families. Overall, a cute and easy read, and quite enjoyable.

Thank you Netgalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t really know what to think about this book. It was a sweet cute read but I don’t think this was my type of book.

At some points of the book I felt like they were quite dragged out. It made me not want to pick up the book for a while.

The plot of the book was good and if you like a friends to lovers read then I’m sure you will enjoy this books. It was just not my type of book

*Thank you NetGalley and penguin random house for providing me this arc in return for an honest review*

A fun romance based in Canada, where the main characters decide to get married so that one of them can continue to live in Canada as his work license is expiring. The characters were well developed and I liked that there were lots of references to their native culture of Ethiopia. I wish there had been more explanation of some of the events so that I could have learned more about a culture with which I’m not as familiar, but overall I enjoyed reading this one!

This is a STUNNER!! Not the first spousal-sponsor romance I’ve read, but this felt like a fresh take. And CERTAINLY not the first friends to lovers romance I’ve read, and yet I was kicking my feet and giggling the whole time.

Miz and Kal have been friends for ages. *Just* friends. After all, they’re opposites when it comes to love. Miz takes a no-strings-attached approach to relationships and is anti-marriage on principle, given how her parents’ marriage turned out. Kal, on the other hand, is a true romantic and has only ever dated one woman.

When Kal’s acting job decides not to renew his work visa, he and Miz desperately search for alternative options. When it seems all might be lost, they land on a crazy plan: get married!

Miz is a freaking disaster and seems to only make bad choices, but I gobbled it RIGHT UP. And I loooved the way Kal wore his heart on his sleeve and was so excited to jump into a new phase of their relationship. I’m giggling!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and Rebecca Fisseha for this Digital Arc Copy*

I’ll start off by saying that the start of this book was great. It was giving me early 2000’s rom-com vibes, friends-to-lovers, it’s set in Canada, what is there not to like?

I loved Aimé and Omar (Omar had me laughing out loud at his antics. Plus, I loved the fact that he was Kal and Miz’s biggest supporter.) I also loved the families and how close everyone was, it made you want to know them in real life.

I adored Kal, and loved how open he was about his feelings towards Miz. Miz…I loved her most of the time but in the middle of the book she had me wanting to shake her. Plus, the way that she acted in front of immigration officers? Girl…

The book began to feel quite rushed towards the end, (96% and they still hadn’t spoken??? I was stressed.) I highly disliked how much miscommunication there was, and couldn’t help but think to myself “If they just went to therapy and had a conversation, a lot of these issues would’ve been resolved by now.”

All in all, it was a cute, quick read, perfect for Spring/Summer time. 3/5⭐️ 1/5🔥

This book follows Miz, a physical therapist, who is not the marrying kind. As she is getting ready to go on a run and is looking for her AirPods, she discovers in her situationship's bag a wedding ring. being the non-marrying type, she freaks out and runs off with the ring while ending things with this guy as well. Meanwhile, Kal, who is one of Miz's oldest friends, an actor living in Toronto, originally from Ethiopia, is in trouble when his theater company tells him that they can no longer sponsor him and his visa is going to expire. Miz starts to freak out and comes up with wild ideas - focusing on trying to find a woman who will marry Kal to help him get his papers then divorce him when it is over. After a series of disasters, Miz realizes that she is the one who should marry Kal since she isn't into marriage, this will be a fake marriage, and she gets to keep her best friend with her in Toronto. Nothing could go wrong, right?

This is a classic friends-to-lovers story, although just as the visa officer is questioning them, I am as well. Ya'll have been friends forever and are just now realizing that you actually like each other, despite everyone always saying ya'll are a beautiful couple even when they were just friends. The emotions between the two pop up out of nowhere especially in Ethiopia at the party when she is acting like she is all ready for this to be serious and then runs away at the next second. I get generational trauma, which I thought was the strong part of this novel showing how it can impact you for life and your decisions, but the flip floppy-ness drove me insane. The plot with the wedding ring was honestly stupid and could have just been left at she discovered the ring, freaked out, and broke up with Daniel - that added nothing to the story whatsoever except making me uncomfortable that a grown-ass woman stole someone's ring that she knew was meant for someone else and was weird about giving it back. this book definitely has potential to be amazing if more was sussed out and some edits were made.

This is my first book by the author and while friends to lovers is one of my favorite troupes this was hard to read. The FMC wasn’t likable, the whole finding the ring and not giving it back carried on for too long to the point it was annoying. The transition from friends to lovers came out of nowhere and wasn’t paced well. There was just a lot of times I felt bored and not interested in the story or characters..Thank you for the opportunity to read.

I gave it my best shot but ultimately couldnt finish it!
I found both main characters lacking and although it started with promise I just got bored!!
dnfed at 32%!

There is a lot to love here, but unfortunately, it didn’t end up coming together for me.

The backstory here is that Miz met Kal when they were teenagers and Miz’s mother sent her back to Ethiopia to visit her father for the first time since they moved to Canada when Miz was two. They remained long-distance friends for a few years before falling out of touch. When Kal moved to Canada for college, he called Miz, and the two picked up where they left off, becoming “best friends.”

Unfortunately, their friendship just did not work for me. Miz is messy in a way that is no fun at all to watch, while Kal is sensitive and responsible. They could be a great balance for each other, on paper, but Miz just ends up kind of using Kal as a pincushion, while Kal seems frustrated by Miz’s immaturity.

I’ve read somewhere else that friends-to-lovers is a hard trope to write because you have to make readers believe:

1. These two are good friends who are perfect for each other, but
2. there’s a good reason they haven’t gotten together before, and
3. now’s the perfect time.

With the friendship falling flat, Only Because It’s You has no foundation to build on.

Worse, the romantic and sexual aspects of this relationship develop with bizarre pacing. Their emotions jump forward for no reason, and then they spend chapters and chapters second guessing themselves in their internal monologues, all the while saying very little out loud to each other. It ends up feeling frustrating and repetitive.

Fortunately, this is a quick little book, and there are some genuinely lovely moments. You can tell how much Rebecca Fisseha loves Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora community in Toronto. Kal and his family are great. I just wish there had been more for him to love about Miz besides the fact that they grew up together and she’s hot.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When I first started reading Only Because It’s You, I wanted chemistry, tension, and potentially even some pining and jealousy. What I got instead was a drawn-out bureaucracy process, an absolutely pointless conflict around the fmc’s anti-marriage stance, and the stupidest plan to return the ring I’ve ever heard.

That being said, all of that could’ve still worked out if the pacing was better and their chemistry was given more attention from the start. That’s not what happened, though. Instead, things went from zero to a hundred real quick, and just when it got interesting, they went back to zero. By the end of the book, I honestly stopped caring.

This is my first Novel by Rebecca Fisseha and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was rooting for Miz and Kal. It was such a good read.