All I Want for Christmas

DNF at 23%. Badly-written, too many inconsistencies, and just nothing interesting in terms of plot or characters. It's a pity, because the premise was made for me! Ugh. And then all the reviews talk about how many misunderstandings and miscommunications there are in the latter part of the book, and those are my absolute WORST.

I'm always in the mood to pick up a romcom or two around Christmastime. I pick carefully as I'm finicky in the genre. Given I enjoyed The Holiday Swap, I figured another Maggie Knox book would be a safe bet. Sadly, I wasn't invested this time around.    Both hoping to make their break into the Nashville music world, Sadie and Max fake a relationship for the sake of their fans after they get paired up for a duet on the reality show Starmaker. It's a rouse neither are sure they can keep up given their distaste for one another. But is it possible that there could be more there after all?    I retained very little about this book if I'm being brutally honest. I didn't care about the characters or the plot. The vibes were good but I wasn't feeling it. I do remember chuckling at a couple of the lines, but I couldn't tell you what they were. Nothing was memorable for me aside from a strange time jump I should have been expecting but wasn't and an obnoxious amount of miscommunication. There were some cozy bits, but not enough to make up for the rest. I normally love fake dating, or maybe I used to and my taste is changing, because this is the second time in recent months that this trope has let me down. 

so much potential but the amount of miscommunication is baffling 🤡

I wanted to love this book. I really enjoy Maggie's writing and her characters, however, I found this book was too up and down with happiness and conflict.

I think we needed more time when things were building up, instead of new issues arising. It really pulled me out of rooting for the characters.

What I liked: the characters were enjoyable. I liked it was broken up into the past, present and future sections. Overall the author writes a good story. 

What didn't work for me: I enjoyed the story, but it was missing connection and depth. It had all the elements for potential, but it could have been so much more. While it is meant to happen around Christmas time the story wasn't heavy on Christmas. This story could have happened at anytime of the year. I didn't get the love connection with the main characters. To me the two were just really great friends. 

If you want a light and fluffy romance this is a good option. I just wanted more from the story. 

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Here goes the worst book I've read this year.
Maybe I need to elaborate a bit. This book belongs to the pile of plays with cartoon characters. There was more plot in my childhood games (we also had competitions, concerts and relationships but with more thought out drama).

The first and foremost problem is the Relationship. Like how was it supposed to work? So they met, have some animosity between each other, they say something good to each other and next minute they are arguing and the man takes off. By the end on the month (which is like 9 chapters out of twenty something) they are in love for real, not just pretending. How? What? Whyy?
At some point mentions of their on-stage chemistry started making my eye twitch. And here I have the same questions. What chemistry? Show it to me. At least once. But no. There is only vague descriptions of how great they are on stage together and how they drive the people crazy. Tell you what - I didn't feel an ounce of that chemistry.

I have so many questions for the boyfriend. You don't want to anything like your father, but you literally choose the same career. And all your personality is “I don't want to be my father”? Thank god we will see that you are so much more. But the problem is that we don't see. This guy is irrational, not asking anything, just jumping to conclusions and running away.

They known each other for less than a months, then he ghosted her for eleven and a half months. His love's career kinda depended on him and he just left? What exactly did he left for? I so don't see what that girl has seen in him. From the moment she met him he gave her a bunch of promises and then literally did something else (like not proposing in the finale of their show how they both agreed to. He didn't even try to give her a heads up or explain afterwards why he didn't do it). And did I mention that he just left to spend 11 months in Canada not answering any calls or messages?
He even gets offended that the girl didn't tell him her grandmother died. YOU'VE GHOSTED HER FOR A YEAR! An here I don't even mention that they were contractually obligated to record an album together and make special song for some Christmas show. What love are we talking about here if he was going to leave her with a great financial debt if they didn't play their song? That how much he cared? That how much he loved her? Somehow that makes it hard for me to believe in their “chemistry”.