This book was a total flop for me. The only reason it wasn’t a DNF is because I was really hoping it would pull something special towards the end and it was part of my illumicrate subscription box.

I really hoped I could at least give this a 2 star but the ending blew that out. I’m honestly so disappointed.

As this is such a low rating I feel like I need to provide a thorough review to justify.

The only reason I can give this a 1 and not a 0 was some parts of the more ‘intimate encounters’ were better written than the rest of the book and appreciate the representation of diverse characters.

Otherwise ….

Characters
I really disliked the main character Eli, I found him incredibly immature for someone who is meant to be in his 40s. His humour was dull and whilst I can get the whole ‘miscommunication trope’ he was just borderline stupid.

Nick was actually one of my favourites for a large part of the book and his relationship with his daughter was lovely right until the very end!

He decides in the space of one chapter he is not going to move away with his daughter and ex-wife to another state (who is then basically then ignored the rest of the book), but when Eli mentions moving to a different state for a job he is happy to consider going?! That makes no sense!!

The only character that added any drama was Kay the ex-mother-in-law and that was short lived which was such a shame.

Plot
Maybe I was misunderstanding in this being a festive read. Whilst this is set over the festive period there just didn’t feel anything very festive about it - like it was such an afterthought.

My dislike for the characters really meant I lost interest in the love connection between Eli and Nick which when removed meant there was nothing else to route for in the story so felt completely two dimensional.

Writing Style
This may be more of a personal opinion but the writing style also really bored me.  It was heavily padded out by constantly reminding the reader that Eli and Nick used to date and grow up together without adding anything new to the story. It all felt so redundant and only led to disjointing the story.

Even in the scenes where Eli and Nick are first being intimate and the story was at least more interesting, Eli stripped back any building atmosphere to recall the events from the past - like why?! Just takes you straight out of the moment

Overall I just felt this book was written in a way which bored me and couldn’t set an atmosphere about 2 Characters that I couldn’t care for and made bad decisions based on a terribly told ‘miscommunication trope’ 

Do not recommend.