{"id":15938,"date":"2020-08-25T00:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T22:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelesbianreview.com\/?p=15938"},"modified":"2023-06-13T17:48:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T15:48:08","slug":"you-me-u-s-brigitte-bautista","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelesbianreview.com\/you-me-u-s-brigitte-bautista\/","title":{"rendered":"You, Me, U.S. by Brigitte Bautista: Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"You,<\/a>You, Me, U.S. by Brigitte Bautista<\/b><\/span> is a romance that\u2019s a little different than the usual lesfic fare and I\u2019m glad I read it.<\/p>\n

Jo and Liza are best friends in Manila. They are opposites and live very different lives, but love each other nonetheless. Jo is a sex worker who takes everything one day a time, and she meets up regularly for sex\u00a0 <\/span>with a married woman Liza doesn\u2019t approve of. Liza, on the other hand, is a sales clerk who\u2019s on a mission: meet a nice American man online, fall in love and get married, then move the rest of her family out of the Philippines and into the United States so they can all have a better life.<\/p>\n

After a string of breakups with online American boyfriends, Liza\u2019s plan seems to finally be working. Christopher is nice, he adores her, and they get along in person when he flies in for a visit. So, of course, Liza says yes when Christopher proposes to her.<\/p>\n

Liza\u2019s plan never took into account the possibility that she and Jo would develop romantic and sexual feelings for each other, or how she would feel when they kissed. Both women have a big decision to make: do they keep going with the lives they\u2019ve always thought they wanted or take a risk to forge a new path together?<\/p>\n

The Characters<\/b><\/h3>\n

I love how different Jo and Liza are and how well their friendship works. It\u2019s incredibly beautiful and also entirely platonic, at least at first. If you skip to the end of this review for the excerpt, you\u2019ll see one of my favourite moments, which is also one of their first interactions in the story. Liza needs a place to live and shows up at Jo\u2019s with all her stuff and Jo takes her in, barely any questions asked.<\/p>\n

Jo and Liza are challenged by the attraction that pops up between them. It\u2019s confusing to them at first, which feels authentic to who they are, since those feelings throw a wrench into both of their lives by challenging the foundation of their friendship. I was practically holding my breath to see if they could survive such a shift, even though I knew I was reading a romance, and I was happy that their journey isn\u2019t neat and tidy. Both Jo and Liza have to evaluate their priorities and figure out what really matters to them and I appreciated seeing how difficult that is for them.<\/p>\n

The Writing Style<\/b><\/h3>\n

This story is beautifully written and the romance has an incredibly slow burn to it. It\u2019s not so slow as to be frustrating, however, and it works because Jo and Liza have to grapple with their feelings. Most friends-to-lovers romances I\u2019ve read drive the tension with \u201cbut what if she doesn\u2019t feel the way I do? I don\u2019t want to ruin our friendship!\u201d While there\u2019s a bit of that, the tension worked especially well for me because it\u2019s more about Liza having to decide what to do about Christopher. Her decision doesn\u2019t just impact her, it affects her whole family who\u2019s also hoping for that new life in the United States. This brings higher stakes into the romance in a way I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ve seen before and really liked.<\/p>\n

The Pros<\/b><\/h3>\n

I liked a lot of things about this one. The biggest ones were:<\/p>\n