A review by travelbypagesph
Christmas Ever After by Karen Schaler
2.0
I had mixed emotions on this one. Let me start my review with the not so good ones so I can finish it with the things that I liked from it.
This book follows the story of a best-selling author, Riley Reynolds, who doesn’t believe in Christmas and has not celebrated it since she lost her dad. Yet she had to write a Christmas novel to save her career. They set up a Christmas camp book event to gather her fans and somehow get ideas from them about what to include in her next book. Her three ex-boyfriends showed up for her book event to try to win her back, each thinking it was him Riley was talking about in one of her interviews.
Basing on the synopsis, I thought the story would revolve around the Christmas camp event and her three ex-boyfriends competing to win her heart. But it wasn’t until I was at 50%+ that her ex boyfriends made their first appearance. Well, that’s aside from the brief call with Luke to reserve a slot for the book event.
The first 50% wasn’t at all boring, but it lacked content. It was mostly repetitive information about Riley not celebrating Christmas, just written in different forms.
I didn’t in anyway feel connected to Riley. And just reading Riley and Luke prepare for the camp, which all happened during the first 50%, didn’t look like they had a connection at all. This was a romance book that didn’t have any love at all.
Also, I’d just like to reiterate how kind of frustrating it is that the supposedly main events happened only during the last approximately 30% of the book.
Here comes the good part.
I had fun reading Riley’s character development at the end of the book. My favorite part was when she saw the inscription on her Sant charm given to her by her father and her final speech when she admitted the truth to all the campers.
It was cute. I mean all the activities and foods make me want to be part of the camp. And also, thanks for the recipes! I’d like to try them all, especially the blueberry cinnamon rolls. I already tried the hot choco and I loved it.
This book follows the story of a best-selling author, Riley Reynolds, who doesn’t believe in Christmas and has not celebrated it since she lost her dad. Yet she had to write a Christmas novel to save her career. They set up a Christmas camp book event to gather her fans and somehow get ideas from them about what to include in her next book. Her three ex-boyfriends showed up for her book event to try to win her back, each thinking it was him Riley was talking about in one of her interviews.
Basing on the synopsis, I thought the story would revolve around the Christmas camp event and her three ex-boyfriends competing to win her heart. But it wasn’t until I was at 50%+ that her ex boyfriends made their first appearance. Well, that’s aside from the brief call with Luke to reserve a slot for the book event.
The first 50% wasn’t at all boring, but it lacked content. It was mostly repetitive information about Riley not celebrating Christmas, just written in different forms.
I didn’t in anyway feel connected to Riley. And just reading Riley and Luke prepare for the camp, which all happened during the first 50%, didn’t look like they had a connection at all. This was a romance book that didn’t have any love at all.
Also, I’d just like to reiterate how kind of frustrating it is that the supposedly main events happened only during the last approximately 30% of the book.
Here comes the good part.
I had fun reading Riley’s character development at the end of the book. My favorite part was when she saw the inscription on her Sant charm given to her by her father and her final speech when she admitted the truth to all the campers.
It was cute. I mean all the activities and foods make me want to be part of the camp. And also, thanks for the recipes! I’d like to try them all, especially the blueberry cinnamon rolls. I already tried the hot choco and I loved it.