Review: Holiday read with a great start, yet fell short in the end...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 2, 2014
This book ended up really disappointing me. I had these high hopes, it started out with great flow and character building, and then it all suddenly went down hill.So, this is a story with a theme I love. I have this thing for long time best friends of the opposite sex, hooking up, and realizing their ultimate love for one another.(I also happen to be the girl routing for Duckie in Pretty in Pink, see a theme here)So, with that base in its favor I requested it as one of my Christmas reads. With Holly being the friend that was going to out her female bestie's slimey fiance I was in even more. I hate infidelity. I hate people that try to brush it off with some lame excuse. Then we have the H/h on this romantic trip on a cold Christmas vacation.First, I got disappointed that Luke didn't want Holly to tell her bestie about the infidelity because the dude in question was HIS bestie and he wanted to 'let it play out.' This whole plot reminded me a lot of that movie Ron Howard did, I mean it begs the question, "If you saw your bestie being cheated on would you tell?" I mean it really is a double edged blade. You can come off the hero but break your best friends heart, or you end up the bad guy that jealous and trying to steal your friends thunder.Well, fast forward and Holly tells her friend. I was cheering. But said best friend didn't have the reaction I expected. She called the cheating a-hole and after a long talk she decided she would marry him that he was just, "Getting it out of his system."At this point the book went down hill. Their was this rushed wedding scene, when more wishy washy BS between the H/h and it was all very cute, drawn out, and not really my cup of tea in the end. Holly was making excuses while Luke was trying to do everything in his power to make something work, and what once was a strong female character just turned into a bit of a bore and kind of annoying.I hate when ill written characters spoil good writing for me. The author has a strong voice, well develops her characters, and she knows how to get a story flowing. It got very choppy and silly in the end, which I'm curious why she tossed in ANOTHER conflict that didn't need to be had other than to get a 'full-length' story out of something that would have done fine as a novella length story.In short, the story just wasn't for me. While I can handle a sweet-romance, I can't handle words for the sake of word count. I think that some people will love this type of story--it just wasn't my cup of tea.*I received a copy of this book from the author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*