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A review by neandering
Tessa and Weston: The Best Christmas Ever by Abbie Emmons
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Sigh. Okay.
In spite of not loving Emmons first book, I decided to check out her second just for the fun of it. I was slightly disappointed after finishing it.
Like the first in the series, The Best Christmas Ever was well polished, especially as an audiobook. I am immensely impressed by Emmons' work narrating and putting together the audiobook. However, the actual content of the story is worse off compared to its predecessor, mainly in that it was not committed to the two main drives behind the story.
The first is clearly the authors love for the romance she created, as this book contained many romantic scenes for the main relationship. After a while, I got tired of the two love interests calling each other adorable all of the time. The second is the conflict between Tessa and her mother, where Tessa is angry at her mom for the entire story and manages to fix their relationship with one conversation. Cool.
I think the main reason I disliked the book was that it just wanted to be a romance but didn't have plot so they brought the MCs mom into it, but the book also didn't care about the mom so she's pretty much just there for MC to be angry at until she apologizes and they can have their fun mom/daughter shopping date. I guess its fine to use characters to drive the plot without them being very fleshed out. The book wanted to be a fun fluffy romance, so of course its not going to spend much of the plot of theming around mother/daughter relationships.
But this made the romance stuff also kinda suck. Honestly, my own personal taste definitely plays a role in me prefering the story to not be romance centered, but the actual romance plot falls flat as well. I said before the book wanted to be a romance, and this is clearly demonstrated in that the love interests spend so so much time having their cutesy dates. They on occasion bicker, but until the peak conflict occurs, they seem to be quite pleased with another and there is more emphasis on the characters having a good time together and being romantic/cutesy/adorable than there was on showing how Tessa's family confict was impacting their relationship. When the two characters finally have their big fight, their apologies were somewhat aggravating because they deeply believe what the other said about them to be true, but they each deeply regret and don't believe the things they said about the other. Actually, that is more about Tessa than Weston. With Weston, we are led to believe that he is insecure, but ultimately Tessa was wrong to say what she did and Weston was actually right about what he said. Having both characters apologize to eachother and say they were wrong is a flat plot point if the story (and probably the author) don't actually think he was in the wrong about anything.
This leads me to theming for this book. This story, being a light hearted, fluffy romance, doesn't want to commit to the problems it suggests. It wants us to believe that Tessa is unfair to her mom, but the book isn't fair to Tessa, because it rarely spends much time on the hurt of her mom leaving her, mostly in the sense that we know Tessa is angry, but we don't really get a sense of particular moments that motivate her for feeling this way. We know her mom didn't visit her after her accident, and that would have been cool motivation if her mom demonstrated any growth relating to that particular event. Instead, we are offered a "heart-felt" apology about not being ready to be a mom, which Tessa readily accepts after wallowing a bit. It's why I hate that this plot point was chosen for a romance, because I would have vastly preferred a story investigating the process of forgiving someone after they hurt you instead of a story about a character learning to forgive. Because the climax of the story is partially about Tessa forgiving her mom, it felt like the second the characters had a heart to heart, that they were completely happy. The relationship growth was weak resulting in an unsatisfying character arch.
Lastly, a quick comment about Weston. I do not like him. Author loves him. Author writes about all the female characters in the book loving him to. Weston is actually very annoying and Tessa was absolutely right to call him out for butting his way into everyone else's problems and thinking he's always write. I hate his character more and more, particularly because his character embodies the main themes from the first book which I also had major issues with.
In spite of not loving Emmons first book, I decided to check out her second just for the fun of it. I was slightly disappointed after finishing it.
Like the first in the series, The Best Christmas Ever was well polished, especially as an audiobook. I am immensely impressed by Emmons' work narrating and putting together the audiobook. However, the actual content of the story is worse off compared to its predecessor, mainly in that it was not committed to the two main drives behind the story.
The first is clearly the authors love for the romance she created, as this book contained many romantic scenes for the main relationship. After a while, I got tired of the two love interests calling each other adorable all of the time. The second is the conflict between Tessa and her mother, where Tessa is angry at her mom for the entire story and manages to fix their relationship with one conversation. Cool.
I think the main reason I disliked the book was that it just wanted to be a romance but didn't have plot so they brought the MCs mom into it, but the book also didn't care about the mom so she's pretty much just there for MC to be angry at until she apologizes and they can have their fun mom/daughter shopping date. I guess its fine to use characters to drive the plot without them being very fleshed out. The book wanted to be a fun fluffy romance, so of course its not going to spend much of the plot of theming around mother/daughter relationships.
But this made the romance stuff also kinda suck. Honestly, my own personal taste definitely plays a role in me prefering the story to not be romance centered, but the actual romance plot falls flat as well. I said before the book wanted to be a romance, and this is clearly demonstrated in that the love interests spend so so much time having their cutesy dates. They on occasion bicker, but until the peak conflict occurs, they seem to be quite pleased with another and there is more emphasis on the characters having a good time together and being romantic/cutesy/adorable than there was on showing how Tessa's family confict was impacting their relationship. When the two characters finally have their big fight, their apologies were somewhat aggravating because they deeply believe what the other said about them to be true, but they each deeply regret and don't believe the things they said about the other. Actually, that is more about Tessa than Weston. With Weston, we are led to believe that he is insecure, but ultimately Tessa was wrong to say what she did and Weston was actually right about what he said. Having both characters apologize to eachother and say they were wrong is a flat plot point if the story (and probably the author) don't actually think he was in the wrong about anything.
This leads me to theming for this book. This story, being a light hearted, fluffy romance, doesn't want to commit to the problems it suggests. It wants us to believe that Tessa is unfair to her mom, but the book isn't fair to Tessa, because it rarely spends much time on the hurt of her mom leaving her, mostly in the sense that we know Tessa is angry, but we don't really get a sense of particular moments that motivate her for feeling this way. We know her mom didn't visit her after her accident, and that would have been cool motivation if her mom demonstrated any growth relating to that particular event. Instead, we are offered a "heart-felt" apology about not being ready to be a mom, which Tessa readily accepts after wallowing a bit. It's why I hate that this plot point was chosen for a romance, because I would have vastly preferred a story investigating the process of forgiving someone after they hurt you instead of a story about a character learning to forgive. Because the climax of the story is partially about Tessa forgiving her mom, it felt like the second the characters had a heart to heart, that they were completely happy. The relationship growth was weak resulting in an unsatisfying character arch.
Lastly, a quick comment about Weston. I do not like him. Author loves him. Author writes about all the female characters in the book loving him to. Weston is actually very annoying and Tessa was absolutely right to call him out for butting his way into everyone else's problems and thinking he's always write. I hate his character more and more, particularly because his character embodies the main themes from the first book which I also had major issues with.