A review by grapie_deltaco
The Boss Who Stole Christmas, by Jana Aston
2.0
The opening paragraphs begin a never ending pattern of Holly referring to her boss as Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch and over the course of the entire book, we don’t see Nick (her boss) act rude or Grinch-like once. According to Holly (and the author) the boss of a major toy corporation in the middle of the holiday season is a terrible, horrible, terrifying Grinch for…not doing friendly chit chat and keeping work time dedicated to talking about work ??
Every interaction we see between Holly and Nick is almost charming. He’s sarcastic in a subtle, harmless way and when they begin their business trip, he cracks jokes and makes conversation. He remembers minor details about Holly and never mistreats anyone. Holly insists he’s horrible based on literally nothing and she just refuses to let up on it. Then, when there’s a misunderstanding about where her and Nick stand in their relationship, the root cause of the issue is Holly assuming it’s all temporary and telling Nick that it’s temporary and then getting mad when he agrees to it being temporary.
Holly is simultaneously the main character and the clueless villain going out of her way to cause her own problems. I’m genuinely very confused on what the appeal is from Nick.
Nick also confessed to her in German (a language she cannot speak) that all he wants from her is a kiss on their business trip before he gets confirmation that Holly is attracted to him as well. Very strange all around.
One pretty concerning element to the story, though, is in a conversation where Nick thinks he's made Holly uncomfortable and tells her that he'll back off and that she can feel free to report him for sexual harassment at their company and Holly immediately brings up how impossible that would be since one of Nick's family members is the head of HR, shutting down any potential to be able to step forward in case Nick had sexually harassed or assaulted Holly. That was so fucking scary to just throw in so casually ?? And then it gets brushed off because the issue has nothing to do with harassment or assault and it's just a simple misunderstanding ???? Wtf?????????
Rant about how casually insufferable Holly is and how randomly creepy Nick gets aside, the chemistry between Nick and Holly was fine and this was overall a ok holiday romance (I guess).
CW: explicit sexual content, innate power imbalance between boss and employee
Every interaction we see between Holly and Nick is almost charming. He’s sarcastic in a subtle, harmless way and when they begin their business trip, he cracks jokes and makes conversation. He remembers minor details about Holly and never mistreats anyone. Holly insists he’s horrible based on literally nothing and she just refuses to let up on it. Then, when there’s a misunderstanding about where her and Nick stand in their relationship, the root cause of the issue is Holly assuming it’s all temporary and telling Nick that it’s temporary and then getting mad when he agrees to it being temporary.
Holly is simultaneously the main character and the clueless villain going out of her way to cause her own problems. I’m genuinely very confused on what the appeal is from Nick.
Nick also confessed to her in German (a language she cannot speak) that all he wants from her is a kiss on their business trip before he gets confirmation that Holly is attracted to him as well. Very strange all around.
One pretty concerning element to the story, though, is in a conversation where Nick thinks he's made Holly uncomfortable and tells her that he'll back off and that she can feel free to report him for sexual harassment at their company and Holly immediately brings up how impossible that would be since one of Nick's family members is the head of HR, shutting down any potential to be able to step forward in case Nick had sexually harassed or assaulted Holly. That was so fucking scary to just throw in so casually ?? And then it gets brushed off because the issue has nothing to do with harassment or assault and it's just a simple misunderstanding ???? Wtf?????????
Rant about how casually insufferable Holly is and how randomly creepy Nick gets aside, the chemistry between Nick and Holly was fine and this was overall a ok holiday romance (I guess).
CW: explicit sexual content, innate power imbalance between boss and employee