The Most Sapphic of Romance Novels: Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon by Annie Mare Review

When Tressa Fay gets a text from a wrong number, it’s not long before they’re flirting. In fact, they decide to meet up that night. But when she arrives at the bar, Tressa Fay is disappointed to realize the cute engineer is not there, despite Meryl’s continual texts insisting she is. Soon, Tressa Fay learns a few key facts about Meryl: she’s texting Tressa Fay from eight months ago, and—unbeknownst to her—in the intervening months, Meryl disappears. Can Tressa Fay prevent her disappearance? And is there any way for them to meet in the same timeline?

This is the most sapphic romance novel I’ve ever read. Us queer women have a reputation for U-Hauling and instalove. Then there’s the sapphic love affair with tarot, horoscopes, and other ~signs from the universe~. Oh, and our romanticization of yearning. Those may all be simplistic stereotypes, but they’re not wrong. Which is why I except many sapphic readers to fall in love with Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon.

While there is a sci-fi element to this book, it’s far heavier on the romance side. In fact, I think it would have been stronger with even less explanation of the timelines and alternate universes—it’s totally fine that it’s all a little hand wave-y. Instead, this is about Meryl and Tressa Fay’s star-crossed (or destined) romance.

Despite initially only being able to communicate through text, the two of them immediately hit it off. Their rapport really worked for me. Some of the first texts they send are:

M: I just realized. I used the wrong first three digits.
TF: oh, no. numbers are so tricky
M: I’m an ENGINEER.
TF: remind me not to drive over any of your bridges.
M: One collapsed bridge and a girl’s got a reputation.

I, too, would immediately be crushing on Meryl. And that’s important, because it’s believable that Tressa Fay doesn’t just put this weird text conversation behind her. It helps that she’s not alone in this: Meryl’s sister and friends show up at her hair salon to demand an answer to why her texts are showing up in the missing Meryl’s phone. Once they get on the same page, they decide to work together to see if Tressa Fay’s texting can help prevent whatever caused Meryl’s disappearance.

This is a very romantic story, to the point where it can be a little cheesy, but ultimately, that’s the charm of it. It’s like a romcom movie—and I would love to see this on screen. I also liked that Tressa Fay is genuinely attracted to Meryl’s nerdiness: there’s nothing sexier than a Mathlete shirt or her waders she wears as a stormwater engineer. Meryl is also fat, and her body is described so lovingly.

There are also some details that make this more than just a star-crossed romance. I really enjoyed the queer community and friend group, especially because we get some subplots with other queer romances. In this take on multiple universes, changes made to the past cause characters in the present to remember multiple versions of events, which eventually get reconciled. This means that their attempts to change Meryl’s life ripple out to the secondary characters’ lives, too.

I especially liked Michael and Guy’s friends-to-lovers romance. Guy has been in love with Michael for years, but because Michael is gay, Guy doesn’t pursue that romance until after they transition. There’s a lot of yearning, miscommunication, and jealousy, but as timelines shift, their love story only deepens.

Despite this being an affirming and cozy queer friend group, they also do have some difficult conversation. Specifically, I appreciated the discussion of polyamory. Linds eventually opens up about how she feels like her friends don’t take her polyamory seriously, which has made her close herself off from sharing how important these relationships are to her, and how central this is to her identity. Tressa Fay apologizes and their friendship is strengthened, but it shows that this queer community is maintained through difficult conversations and isn’t just an ideal.

While I maintain that the multiverse aspect didn’t need so much explanation, I did like how it functioned. I haven’t read (or seen) another story where changes function like they do in this one, causing characters to briefly remember multiple past events before folding them into their narrative. This makes total sense to me, as someone with a bad memory. I feel like I’m already doing this all the time. One character is an author and says it’s like how she’s rewritten her book so many times, but it’s just the last version that really matters. There’s also the added element of Tressa Fay’s jealousy over her self in a different timeline, which is not something I’ve seen navigated in any other romance!

I also have a pet peeve about time travel/Butterfly Effect-style stories where any attempt to change things in the past makes things worse in the present. It’s incredibly common—in fact, it’s hard for me to come up with stories where you can positively affect the present. But that implies that we’re living in the best of all possible timelines, which statistically is unlikely—and stats aside, I just cannot believe THIS timeline is the best things could be. So it’s nice to read a story where that’s not true: characters are able to get a do-over, and that generally goes well.

If you’re in the mood for a very romantic story about sapphic love written in the stars, I highly recommend this one. It’s such a heartwarming queer story—not just in the romance, but also in its treatment of queer community and queer-accepting family. I can’t wait to see what Annie Mare writes next.

Also check out Jamie Rose’s review of Cosmic Love at the Multiverse Hair Salon!