Rating: 2.75/5
Read: Dec 15th, 2015
**I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Bloomsbury, in exchange for an honest review**
So this book started off feeling promising but, for me, it just fell flat, although I did still enjoy it to some extent.
Let’s talk about the characters shall we. Our main character, Jessica was both likeable and extremely annoying at the same time. Throughout parts of this book I found myself really liking her and then in others I was rolling my eyes. The boyfriend, Brennan, I never took a liking to throughout the whole novella, and I found their relationship to be quite boring and it just honestly didn’t even feel real which I think was resolved at the end. Grady was the most likeable character for me, he provided the humour in the book, but even still I didn’t become all that attached to him either.
The plot was very bland and didn’t really move anywhere at all, but I suppose it is difficult being a novella. I feel like we were just stuck in the same place throughout the entire thing, and nothing really happened in terms of story development, like at all.
The writing however, I quite enjoyed, and I think Payne has the potential to write a really great novel in the future. The description of the setting was written wonderfully, it even made me feel cold/ like drinking all the warm things, even though I’m actually dying of heat here in Australia.
Overall, it was enjoyable in the way that it brought feelings of christmas and cosiness, but fell quite flat in terms of actual story development and characters.
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