This was the first book I read for my Christmas in July reads. Jon and Kerri's relationship throughout the story was kind of like that pair of friends you have that only work together for some unknown reason. Overall entertaining time.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Casablanca and NetGalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

Another fake relationship coupled with second chance romance. I love those tropes. But I didn’t totally love the book. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a good story but it was hard to connect with the MCs, especially the heroine, Kerrie. She’s a bit of a bitch in the beginning. And I had an issue with cheating.

She and ex, Jon, cowrote a movie a long time ago and couldn’t sell it. But Jon kept plugging away and finally the picture is in production. The only problem is that the star thinks Jon and Kerrie are engaged. Though Kerrie is actually engaged to another man, they go ahead and fake that relationship.

You can easily see that Jon is in love with Kerrie and, after they spend time together, Kerrie starts to think she might be falling in love with Jon. We don’t see much about the real fiancé, Beau. He’s running all around the world while Kerrie has flown to LA so it is hard for them to connect. The thing is, he seems to be a good guy. There doesn’t seem to be anything egregiously wrong with him.

Of course, Jon and Kerrie end up having ‘a night’ together. Afterwards Kerrie is thinking that ‘she wasn’t comfortable with having two sexual partners.’ That line kinda pissed me off. It wasn’t a case of two sexual partners like you might have if it was casual all around. It was a case of her cheating. I can see a person realizing they made a mistake and deciding to come clean with their fiancé but to describe it as just ‘two sexual partners?’ They are engaged! Sheesh. And she didn’t just come clean until forced.

In short, I liked the premise of the book and many of the scenes were good. I just couldn’t warm up enough to the MCs and couldn’t get over my pique at the way the cheating was portrayed.


Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really wanted to love this book. I love all Christmas themed things. I think the book was good but not too sure how often I would recommend a read like this one.

The plot, cover and the setting sounded so intriguing when I first found out about this book. And while I loved the banter between Keri and Jon, I just couldn't relate much with them. The execution however fell flat and I skimmed over some parts of the book. Also there's cheating in the book which put me off (Kerri had a fiancé). I simply couldn't connect with the characters and towards the end, I felt like I could care less about what happens to them tbh.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review

Between the Christmas theme and the film-making background décor, I had high hopes for a feel good escapist read. However, I didn't feel the magic and found myself skimming through it. A sure sign that it wouldn't hold my interest to the end. Too bad. Thanks for the ebook in exchange for my honest opinion.

The premise sounded perfect. The execution felt contrived and a bit flat, even with a Christmas setting. If the characters were fleshed out and more relatable it would have been easier to stick with.

Absolutely loved how the story was wrapped up. I'm always sad to see stories end! I feel like we got good closure on this though. Can't wait to see whatelse the author has in store.

I just simply could not vibe with this book. The characters felt one-dimensional, the story was filled with needless drama that, taken out, could have shortened the book to a more digestible length. I really disliked the main character already in the first chapter when she was on the plane. It irritated me to no end how drinking excessively was written off as a quirky, relatable thing and how vodka was referred to as something that apparently "helps you relax and meditate". I might be old fashioned, but as the daughter of an alcoholic, I just can't understand the wine-mom culture and why so many contemporary romcom book characters in their 30s are excessively drinking to deal with their lives, like it's a personality trait.

Overall, I found that I did not care much for the story or the characters and I simply did not care what happened to them. I felt no real stakes, and I must say, the amount of cheating in this book was also very frustrating to me. I give it 2 stars because of the happy ending, but that is solely it.

“That was good enough for Jon. He loved being back with Kerri, even if he wasn’t back with Kerri. He would take what he could get.”

What a perfect little Christmas rom-com.

Okay, maybe less than perfect. The synopsis was cute, with the classic fake-dating trope promised, but man… the only way I could truly enjoy this novel with no issues would be with duct tape over my mouth and my hands tied behind my back. Like I said, it’s a cute synopsis. It’s even cuter when you realize that it’s loosely based off of the two authors, who are also a husband and wife screenwriter duo. Absolutely adorable. Who wouldn’t want to write a romance novel about that?

But… I just couldn’t get with this book.

If I ignored every little issue that came up, I could love this book. It’s the perfect Christmas story for hot, rich white people who don’t care for anyone other than themselves. This doesn’t make it a bad story, but it certainly makes it much less relatable to most people. It’s sort of like what happened in The Futures by Anna Pitoniak—a lot of people rated it negatively because it was such a first-world problem, and, well… just not relatable at all. But the thing is, relatability isn’t the biggest problem. There’s tons of great books out there with characters that most people don’t relate to. There’s just a very specific genre of novels that have unrelatable characters in a bad and off putting way, and this is one of them.

This is the textbook definition of what I think of when it comes to cheesy chick lit. I can get down for a cheesy romance, but this was teetering on the edge of being just too cheesy, and starting to be nauseating. The line on page 31 about Kerri telling Jon that she isn’t planning on falling in love with him again… cringe. The same goes for page 110 where Kerri is editing the script for their movie and adds in real lines that Jon said to her when they broke up. The deliverance was just so skin-crawling. Luckily there were only a few lines that made me feel that way, and for the most part the dialogue was actually well-done in my opinion. The banter between Kerri and Jon especially. This is a good example of how a book can have a lot of dialogue but still keep a good flow in the story.

There’s certain aspects of contemporary romances that make me cringe regardless, and pop culture references always cheapen a book for me. It doesn’t matter who or what they’re referencing, it just sort of pulls me out of the story and plops me back into the real world, and the shining veil of a good story is gone forever. So clearly, I didn’t like the few Adele and Harry Styles mentions, even if I do enjoy their music myself.

I fully understand that having some unfortunate characters or actions in a book doesn’t mean that the book is endorsing said actions, but the cheating in this book was crazy. I get that Kerri and Jon were still in love, but nothing excuses cheating. Maybe that’s just a personal belief but I hate when books have a cheating subplot and someone gets hurt, even if that person (Beau) is kind of a bad person themselves. Speaking of bad people, the villains in this story felt like such cheap shots. They were completely two-dimensional; of course the nasty old fiancé that’s holding Kerri back from her LA dream and the mean director that changed their script were completely, one hundred percent evil. It just felt unrealistic even though this could totally happen in real life.

I have two last points. Both of these seemed forced in my eyes.

Firstly, Amari and Richard. I do like them together, but Amari seemed to move on from Lukas way too fast. Even if Lukas was a bad person who treated her terribly, jumping into another relationship just like that is kind of crazy. But like I said, I do like her and Richard together. I just wish they gave it more time so that Amari had time to heal after the damage from Lukas.

Secondly, I know that the entire premise is Christmas themed. That’s the point; a massive part of the setting. But it just feels forced, I don’t know how else to say it. The exact same story could have taken place in the middle of July. It feels like when musical artists tease a “Christmas release” and it turns out to be a cheap “holiday remix” of one of their old songs.

That being said, this was an easy book to digest. The writing was good and the story flowed well despite my criticisms, and I did finish the book feeling satisfied. I’m glad that Kerri and Jon got back together, and I’m glad that Richard and Amari did as well. Plus, Kerri’s family seems delightful and their little wedding at the end was super cute. I did enjoy this cute romance book more than I thought I would.

Thanks to Netgalley, Sourcebook, and Juliet and Keith Giglio for the ARC!