All I Want for Christmas... Is My Sister's Boyfriend

This is a book about horndogs with no logic doing idiotic things over the Christmas holiday. That's it. Yeah, there's a “romance” and all, but it's purely insta-lust between men who decide they're fated to be together before knowing anything about each other, and the characters act so much like hormonal teenagers that it's absurd and unrealistic. In fact, nobody in this book acts even remotely their age to the point it's exhausting.

I don't have the mental energy to bother making a proper review, so have some bullet points of everything I didn't like:

* Miles is reduced to a bumbling, braindead mess with his tongue lolling out - literally, the tongue hanging out is mentioned in the story - at the mere sight of an attractive man.

* Beth, Miles' sister, is the kind of ignorant fool who thinks that a girl can “turn a guy gay.” It's challenged immediately, but I still wanted to smack her.

* Beth's mom is one of those “hurry up, make me grandbabies, all my children need to make me grandbabies” types. It's challenged, but still obnoxious.

* Surprisingly not a spoiler: Miles' crush is not really his sister's boyfriend; he's been hired to accompany her so her family stops harassing her about not having a love life. Why is this not a spoiler? Because it's revealed literally immediately after the boyfriend situation arises. And then a chapter later Miles knows.

* Like I mentioned previously, Miles and Aiden are so constantly horny for each other that it's ridiculous and unbelievable. You'd think they were surging with hormones and not even of age, they're so insatiable, but Miles is twenty-five and Aiden twenty-nine. They can't even be near each other with the family around and not try to flirt despite Aiden being paid to pretend to date Beth for a weekend. One weekend. They can't refrain from flirting and sexing each other up in the dark of night for two days to ensure that Miles' sister, also Aiden's client, isn't exposed as having a fake boyfriend.

* Aiden has the history of his family disowning him for being gay. Yet he ever-so-casually tells Beth that he and Miles are interested in each other without a spec of concern for the fact he might be outing Miles to his family. Oh, but he just ‘knows' these people aren't the type who would disown someone for bigoted reasons. Y'know. These people he hasn't known for more than a couple days. (Miles is already out, but he has no way to know at the time.)

* Miles has an actual, door-slamming temper tantrum at one point.

* Literally nobody in this family of actual idiots bothers to stop and listen when someone says they can explain something. And Rick (Miles' brother) does this in addition to being unsettling levels of violent-natured.

* Rick's violent rage is played for laughs, and it just made me feel uncomfortable - borderline triggered, in all honesty, because so many people kept screaming at him to stop, physically trying to restrain him, and he wouldn't stop and even manhandled his own sister whose ‘honor he was defending' to throw her out of his way when she wanted him to stop. It felt too real with the way he flew into a blindly murderous rage and nobody could stop him; I didn't find it remotely amusing and was horrified how easily he was forgiven.

* A cop sees a homicidal maniac chasing a man, refusing to stop. He sees a woman threatening her own kids with a frying pan while a friend tries to take it away. He not only offers them an out by assuming it's a "wild game of touch football" but accepts the excuse from one of the family members that it's an extreme game of tag. Excuse me, what?! And then he tells the family to take it inside so the neighbours won't call him for a domestic disturbance!

* There is no love and no relationship between Miles and Aiden. There's lust and fooling around and deciding they're fated to be together before they even know anything about each other. Then bam, 'one year later' and a serious relationship exists.

* Somehow, even though this was a collaborative story, the two POVs read as very similar despite the characters having dissimilar personalities.

Yeah, that's a massive list of things I didn't like. It's a mountain of disappointment where I'd genuinely hoped to find a ridiculous, sappy romcom.

Do you want to know what I did like? Here is a list:

* The concept in general, from the blurb, intrigues me. It has a lot of potential to be a fun romcom.

* It's not long and therefore was over in a few short bursts of reading.

* The book is well-written on a technical level, making the writing flow beautifully. Though I couldn't much stand the story itself, the authors have undeniable skill and seem to work very well together.

* I like that a heavy focus is placed on challenging the utter nonsense about women being expected to marry off and have kids in order to live a fulfilling life. This was a genuinely good subplot and I actually rather liked Beth and her (and Miles') mom for the development and interactions they had in it.

* I love the cover design. Seriously, whoever made that cover is quite skilled at catching attention and creating something that readers don't have to try hiding from shoulder-viewers when they're browsing the kindle app.

That's all, unfortunately. So, yeah, a low rating is inevitable here. I'm rounding up a 1.5 star rating just because I feel the authors deserve credit for the lack of major editing errors and the wonderfully flowing writing. I may not have enjoyed the story told, but it was told fairly well.

Overall, though, this is another disappointment for my Read A Rainbow challenge and more proof that I should never again be allowed to pick books based solely on how well their covers fit together.

Maybe this wasn't for me? Maybe next Christmas it will work better? Who knows. I know there's an audience out there for this and in the spirit of the season 3**, but if I'm honest it took me way too long to read this short novella. I felt no qualms in putting it down and wasn't in a hurry to get back to it.

Overall it was harmless but overly chatty in the telling, for my taste. It's a rom-com, in the best and worst sense: meet cute, big misunderstanding, “don't talk to me”, “oh, that's what's happening?”, other big misunderstanding, kookiness ensues. Happy Ending.

The why of the insta attraction/love between the MCs, other than physical, was never apparent, and the flirting with taboo is just coyness. No kinkiness or taboo in sight.

The cover is very colorful and cute and Miles' family is quite nice until you stop to think about the whole Beth situation. *shrug Surely I'm putting too much though into a fun Christmas story, so just ignore me and have fun with it.

This one was OK. Nothing about it blew me away...