Undeveloped would be a word to sum up this book, the story is there, and the potential was there but I just needed more. I needed more from the characters that came across as cringy at times, more from the story involving the instant reconnection and more growth from Aspen. The Taylor Swift references were immaculate, and I loved the playlist. I think this could have been a great easy young adult book but as a 30-year-old reading this some scenes just felt highly unrealistic and silly.

The author masterfully weaves a love story that's refreshingly low on angst. The strong and resilient female lead Aspen takes center stage, her determination and grace making her a character to admire. The male lead Roman, equally compelling, is utterly adorable, making it impossible not to root for this couple.
Set against the backdrop of a quaint small town, the narrative oozes with the charm of tight-knit communities and the magic of love rekindled. The pacing is swift, keeping you engrossed from start to finish. It's a heartwarming read that tugs at your emotions and leaves you with a contented sigh.

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley and Kimi Freeman for this E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

⭐ 5 stars

wow. WHAT A BOOK. let me start off with my favourite quote from this book.

"I'm sorry about last night. I should have never been reckless. It was stupid. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm embarrassed and pissed at myself that I was mean to you. I was sad and mad, and I was taking that out on you. Obviously, that's no excuse for what I said and did. If one of us didn't have a life before we got together, it was me. My life hadn't begun until I met you. I just didn't know it yet."


i was liking the book, but from this quote on.. i loved it.

tropes:
> friends-to-lovers
> second chance
> small town

anyways, let start with the plot.
aspen moore is 23 and a singer-songwriter, rich beyond her wildest dreams. she has fame and fortune. her own TOUR. but shes not truly happy.
after a scandal involving her emerges (which is not true), she goes back to her hometown, where she reunites with her first love, roman torres. will they both be able to navigate the twists and turns of their rocky relationship, and will they end up together? and will the people involved with the scandal get the karma they deserve?

obviously, this is a romance book. its a sweet rom-com with no spice, just how i like it with these types of books.
this was a friends-to-lovers kinda book, so it wasnt my favourite, but it was still good.

also, the NICKNAMES were everything. i love how aspen had a nickname for roman, and he had one for her.
and roman, or rome (iykyk). THIS MAN. he was so sweet and kind and caring and loving and just everything. him calling pen 'mi cielo' (my darling) made my heart MELT.
also i was SCREAMING at him saying you are in love the whole book.

and aspen is about the same. even though shes famous, shes so down to earth and she loves everyone and everything. in a nutshell, shes a bundle of joy. i was also SHOUTING at her this love between you and rome IS REAL.

you can hear it in the silence. hear the tension and love and joy and EVERYTHING between roman and aspen.

now.. the moment you've all been waiting for.. THE SWIFTIE REFERENCES!

"nothing new," I reply.

death by a thousand cuts.

perfectly fine, as you can tell.

halfway out the door.

wildest dreams.

fearless.

"Don't blame me,"

I almost do.

'Tis the damn season, I suppose.

Christmas tree farm.

ours.

holy ground

endgame?

it was time to go.

out of the woods.

reputation


so overall a 5 of out of 5 quick and easy read! and also, if you love better than the movies, this is the perfect read for you!

Super freaking cute cozy romance!! 3.5star

I loved how the timeline changes from past to present and creates a better understanding of the characters. The Taylor Swift references are perfect! This book was very enjoyable and very well written.

This new author sure has a future in the book world. I’m excited to see how far she will go.

Thank you to NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

love a good taylor swift themed book. 'tis the damn season was a very low-stakes romance with a happy ending :)

The book was very committed to the alternating past/present/past/present/etc. timeline which I did feel was a hinderance to the timeline and story line at times. I also wish the side characters and references to plot lines that were not the main one were a little more fleshed out.

but i did love that the story was easy to follow along and low angst. plus i love a second chance romance.

An adorable debut novel that had me in all my Taylor Swift feels. ‘Tis the damn season is one of my favorite songs and this book is cute!! This book is a famous fmc x small town mmc, second chance romance and it was a perfect read in this weather as we slowly transition into fall and the weather gets cooler. The book made me feel cozy and wanted to get cozy! The back and forth in the timeline was introspective to read and the short chapters made the book fly by. The characters were lovable for the most part however I think they could’ve had a bit more depth. It was one of the aspects that I felt that it was very noticeable that this was a debut book. I think some more research about how Hollywood works would’ve helped to flush the plot of this book out more. This might be because I was reading an ARC but there was no trigger warning for the sexual assault that was mentioned in this book and I think that is critically important to include and hopefully will be in the final copy or somewhere readers can see easily. Overall a lovely read to get me into the fall mood and another author that I’ll be keeping an eye out for new releases.

Thank you NetGalley and Parson Press for the ARC, and for giving me the chance to read and review it honestly.

This was a very sweet and fun read! I loved the dual timeline of the story (really two stories in one)! There is major character growth with Aspen, the main character, that I was happy to see as well. I felt like this story could have gone a bit deeper; but it was a sweet book!!

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for this electronic arc!

Very cute, surface level romcom of first love and second chances. I loved the present/past POV along with all the Taylor Swift references!

'Tis the Damn Season is told from dual timelines and it weaves together a story of first loves and second chances. Aspen is just a small town girl who made it big in Hollywood. She's had a hard time dealing with the fame and when she becomes front and center of a cheating scandal she decides to head home. While Aspen is home she reconnects with her first and only love, Rome. She has to figure out how to juggle her Hollywood life with her small-town life. I thought this was a cute read but it did feel a little long at times.

Lots of Taylor Swift references, which was delightful. Otherwise, Tis the Damn Season is a fairly straightforward, surface-level, uninspiring romcom. The characters don’t have a lot of depth and sometimes feel caricatures of ideas, plot has a lot of deus ex machina, and while the playlist is a cute idea, just looking at the list of songs revealed all of the book’s plot twists to me at a glance.

The story had a lot of potential, but I do not think it was executed well. Still, a valiant attempt.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

A Taylor Swift song as the book title? A very easy sell for me. This was a very cute dual timeline romance. I was able to sit and read this within a couple of sittings. Aspen Moore is a hollywood star caught in a awful scandal and loses her best friend in the process. She heads home and reconnects with her high school love Roman. Told from dual timelines involving their high school days and the present, you see how these two seem to hold out for each other. Nearing the end I felt like the story got tied up a little too quickly, and it took a little long for Roman and Aspen to just realize they were still crazy about it each other. Overall I enjoyed this cute book and would recommend! Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own.

Cute story with tons of TS references. Reads very much like a YA romance, which I believe is the intention.

A very cute holiday romance!
I wasn’t expecting much but it was wholesome and cosy and loved the Taylor swift references

I received an arc from netgalley.

I love that the chapters made a playlist.
The relationship set up was like kindergarten when one kid asked another kid they don't know to be best friends. And then they do.

Thank you NetGallery and Kimi for this amazing Arc!! I’m giving it 3.95 ⭐️’s. such a cute and fun holiday read that has a whole playlist full of Taylor Swift(peep the title) AND my other fav Georgia Webster?! I loved how each chapter had a song to go with it and the duel timelines. The friends to lovers and second chance romance tropes were really well done! Reason why I took stars off was the end felt rushed and the beginning was a bit slow as everything wrapped up in the end. Overall, such a great and easy read if you want to blast tswift and get ready for the holidays!!

This book was amazing! It was wholesome and cozy and overall just a great book!! I liked the second chance romance but to me it seemed as though Aspen and Roman never really stopped loving each other. Their connection was written beautifully. It was nice to see that Aspen still had family and friends back home to lean on throughout the craziness of her life. My only critique is that some of the chapters stop abruptly and you have to read another before finding out what happened. The playlist was a nice addition. This one included a song for each chapter which some books don’t do with their playlists

Good book. I really got into it. I loved the story line and how this love story evolved. In the end true loved prevailed. Great love story even though it took many years to come together.

Thanks to Netgalley for access to this E-ARC! I loved this so much! The Taylor Swift references were perfect and loved listening to the playlist. Definitely will read more from this author!

This book was adorable! It tells the story of the FMC as she journeys through a very trying time with support of the MMC. A "makes me feel good" kind of book.

If I could choose one word to describe this book, it would be juvenile. The dialogues, the plot, the relationships... all juvenile. It's like there is a film or layer of naiveté over the entire book. Which makes sense, since the author, I found out after requesting this book, is only 16. I truly think it's impressive that Kimi possessed the drive and follow-through to make her dreams a reality. It's also truly impressive that she got such a ringing endorsement from Courtney Kae ("a delightful romp through our favorite holiday tropes!"). So, I don't want to tear her down in this review because I want her to keep writing, and I can see her improving her craft as she gets older (and I don't mean this in a condescending, "just wait until you experience more of life" way, but experiencing more of life certainly wouldn't hurt!).

The book is told in a dual timeline; the main characters are 23 years old in the present timeline and 17 years old in the past timeline. From the very first page, the character interactions, even those at 23, are cringey and unrealistic. The dialogue reminds me of dialogue I wrote at the author's age, which I thought was natural but is actually stilted and undeveloped. At 16, I might have THOUGHT I knew how 23-year-olds thought and acted, but looking back, I definitely could not have anticipated all the changes in my attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and maturity over the next seven years. An author who is 23 years old can look back at being 17 with some level of accuracy, but an author at 17 (or 16) years old can't exactly look ahead to 23 and remember what it is like to be that age. My point is that Kimi has never been a 23-year-old, so she can only imagine that far ahead into her future.

I feel like most second chance romances are also enemies to lovers (or lovers to enemies to lovers), so I did REALLY like that Aspen and Roman are never enemies. HOWEVER. Their INSTANT reconnection didn't make sense after six years apart. There is too much familiarity between them, and they do not interact like the strangers that they are. In the present timeline, Aspen tells us that Roman KNOWS (present tense) her better than anyone else, but... like, how? Their interactions are so surface-level to the point of being unbelievable. It feels like there is no depth to Roman, almost as if he's been hanging around waiting for Aspen to come back. It feels like he exists FOR Aspen, not as his own character. He kisses her almost immediately, with zero build-up. On her TikTok, the author says that in the past timeline, the main characters are already in the relationship, but the present timeline is more of a slow burn, so you get the best of both worlds. BUT I didn't feel this was the case. Roman kisses Aspen in the present timeline before they even start dating in the past timeline. I would have felt uncomfortable reading spice in a book by a minor, so I'm glad the author didn't attempt to write any spicy scenes.

Also, MAJOR trigger warning for sexual assault described on page. The author doesn't provide a trigger warning for this, so it was a huge shock!!!

Thank you to Parson Press for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.