New in town and a stranger to everyone, he plans on ignoring the holiday altogether. That would be easier if his ridiculously cheerful new neighbor would cool it on the Christmas hype. Nicholas is annoying and loud. Worst of all, he’s also impossibly attractive and nice to everyone. It’s getting harder for Alex to deny his interest, especially when Nicholas leaves Christmas cookies at his door and wages a snowball fight against him on the coldest day of the year.
Can Alex open up to him and get into the holiday spirit before he endures another ruined Christmas?
This Christmas took a little time to get off the ground for me. It’s not a light hearted holiday read you think you might get based on the cover and the blurb. Alex has some pretty heavy issues and he’s not the most likable character for quite a while. And I get that the schtick was he was supposed to be somewhat of a grinch, but his issues and history were a little much for just that.
Nicholas loves Christmas excessively and it’s meant to be charming. Nicholas was a really sweet and approachable character and he’s immediately fascinated with Alex. His side of the story is the light hearted Christmas tale.
I think my issue with the first half of the book was the lack of balance. It almost read like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be so it tried to be everything. Some focus and a more sucinct direction would have made a world of difference. There was a lot of page time spent on Nicholas’ baking and love of all things Christmas. A. Lot. Of. Page. Time. It got a smidge distracting. Alex is unhappy for a lot of reasons, but for a long while he was just angry, but we didn’t really know why, so I was getting ready to stop caring.
But then, then . . . it all started coming together, the communication started, the feelings started, the sharing started and Alex became a fully fleshed out character. I’m so glad I stuck around, because he was really worth it in the end. Nicholas ended up being so right for Alex and vice versa. Alex started trying and that meant there was actual hope for him and not just frustration and loneliness that was his whole self for the first half of the book.
Alex’s efforts to woo Nicholas were really sweet to read, especially once I got to know him and his full history. Nicholas had been subtley courting Alex from the get-go, but he was wisely cautious about it since Alex was so skittish, but when Alex started courting back I was doing all kinds of celebrating and rooting for him, I finally got the hopeful Christmas story I was expecting. It was everything Nicholas and I wanted.
I really could have done without Alex’s sister showing up and the way he came out to his family was entirely too dismissive considering his history. He tortured himself for years and it felt like a big old “meh” when it finally happened. Alex deserved more satisfaction than that.
Some tweaks with editing, pacing and focus would have really bumped this story up for me, but the parts I loved, I loved really hard. I wanted to make a blanket fort, binge movies and drink cocoa for days after reading This Christmas, the author did a great job of making moments for her MCs and there is really nothing I love more than those special little moments. Once I had a chance to get to know Alex and Nicholas I was all onboard for their HEA.
**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**
No comments:
Post a Comment