thank you to the publisher and the author.

this was an amazing read. especially for the cozy season as i read it under the blanket with a hot tea. so swoony and sweet.

like many others i was here because of the taylor swift bait. however, this book was not at all what i expected. i've learned the author is very young, though, so i guess that makes sense.
still thanks for the copy and i think the author has a lot of potential to greatly improve her writing

Okay I'm not a Taylor Swift girlie so I feel like parts of this could have been lost on me, but generally this was a sweet small town/celebrity MC romance. It wouldn't go super high up on my list, having tropes that I don't love and with some clunky writing.
Reading the acknowledgements I discovered that Kimi Freeman is still a teenager which makes having this published a great achievement - and you can see that there is definitely a lot of heart that's gone into this. Ultimately just not for me.
Thank you to NetGalley for the E-ARC

This was an incredibly cute book and I loved the Taylor Swift references! Nothing crazy deep, just a good little rom-com.

I wish I could have gotten more into this book because I'm absolutely obsessed with the title as I am a huge Taylor Swift fan!

I love the tag line of: A Hollywood starlet caught in a scandal. The boy she never got over. A Christmas season they’ll never forget…

It sounds like an absolutely adorable romance.

I was also highly attracted to this because it takes place in Pennsylvania.

This book was just “meh” for me. I felt like I was reading it because I had to finish it instead of reading it because I wanted to finish it. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was.

Cute seasonal vibe, but I didn't love all of the Taylor Swifts nods (personal preference). This read more like a YA book in my opinion, and I really wish I would've known there was no spice - I don't need it to be smutty at all, but I do prefer romance books that have a little more romance in them (hence why this was more YA to me)

I would recommend this to teens or tweens - feels like something that would connect with that audience more than an adult audience.

I’m going to be blunt. This book should have been a YA. These characters did not read as adults but rather as teenagers

I also did not like how the SA came out of nowhere. A trigger warning is very much needed for things like that.

But I am impressed that the author is only 16 and I can tell as she gets older her writing will only improve.

I’m torn on this book, it was cute but felt really young. Unfortunately, I don’t think that I was the right audience for this book.

This book was exactly the winter romance I was needing this year. I loved the banter and character development throughout the story. And it didn’t hurt that the title was a lyric in one of my all time favorite Taylor Swift songs ;)

I loved the Taylor swift references and the festive vibes. The characters felt a it overdone as did the plot however it was an easy enjoyable read.

RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
SPICE: 0️⃣

This was adorable in a sugary sweet way that felt like it should have been classified as YA! Once I adjusted my expectations, I was able to really enjoy how low angst and adorable this holiday romance was!

TROPES
✨ small town
✨ second chance
✨ famous FMC
✨ forced proximity
✨ closed door

I loved Aspen and Rome and the two different timelines that showed their story. I’m a sucker for the famous singer trope and the T Swift references were on point, and I enjoyed watching the main characters reconnect!

This was a holiday romance I would highly recommend that someone could read with their teens or tweens because it feels like something that would connect with that audience!

Thanks you Net Galley for the ARC.

I couldn’t read this book without singing Taylor swift the entire time. 😂 great debut book!
We could call it even
You could call me babe for the weekend 🥰

was a cute easy read but was nothing ground breaking and wasn't my favourite book. Don't think i would read again

I really enjoyed this story!

I love a friends to lovers trope it’s one of my favourites, then throw in the other aspect of famous singer returning to small home town the setting and vibes where perfect!
However, I do feel like the characters themselves could have been developed more I felt like we only really got the surface level of them rather than the hidden full stories.
I gave this a 3 stars as I did enjoy but would have been better with abit of character development

I really liked this book. One of the thing I really like was the mix between the past and the present. We were living with the characters in the present but were also learning about the their past every 2 chapters. Even though I really liked the characters there was some part where they were kind of annoying me but that’s always bound to happen when they make made decisions.

I thought it was going to be more swift based story but is more like swift inspired book like if you listen to the playlist while reading the book, you enjoy the book way more, this story is told in two "eras" past and present, the present is Christmas time.

I feel like the use of a Taylor Swift song for the title was to get people to read the book and that it did not truly mesh with the storyline in my opinion. This was a second chance romance where you go back and forth with timelines like a then and now. The present timeline was set around Christmastime, but it did not feel reliant on it. I wanted more out of this read.

I found this book to be quite sweet. I enjoyed the back and fourth between timelines and the song because each chapter! I made it my mission to listen to the song before ready on. It was a sweet light book I definitely recommend.
Thank you netgalley for providing this lovely book.

Swifties may enjoy piecing together the chapter playlist for this small town, second chance closed door romance, inspired by a Taylor Swift song, written by a sixteen-year-old.

High school sweethearts separated by a thirst for stardom and family sacrifice. Instant stardom and a Hollywood scandal drive the FMC back to her home town and into the arms of her awaiting best friend and usual hookup. But over the seven years (past/present) that this story is told, things between them have changed. And having kept the two worlds separate proves to be the problem, not the solution.

This book is better categorized as YA and contains an undisclosed SA trigger. Preventing a spoiler does not justify leaving out this warning.

Overall, there is juvenile tone with no character maturity shown between the past chapters and present chapters. Character dialogue was petty and immature during conflicts, and while Aspen and Roman’s love for each other seemed genuine they lacked chemistry. The insta-fame aspect, misunderstood cultural and familial differences, contradictory sobriety and raging club outlet … all lend to the young author’s lack of life and writing experience. The holiday pageant scenes grounded this story for me.

Freeman tried to accomplish a lot in this debut book, and although it fell short for me I am curious to see if she braves the public eye again and continues to hone her talent. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to read and provide feedback to a budding new author.