A cute, fairly light and funny YA rom-com with Jewish main characters in a story set in an indie bookstore in a mall in Georgia during the holiday season. It has exceptional diversity rep (race, religion, sexuality, socioeconomic, disability, fashion, lifestyle), a fun enemies-to-lovers trope, and a save-indie-bookstores theme. So, that's an awful lot to like!

Shoshanna Greenberg is concerned about the increasing tension between her moms, the need to repair her broken car, and the struggles of her best friends. Seems like a little more cash flow would help everything, so she throws herself — with even more enthusiasm than normal and that's, like, a lot of enthusiasm — into selling books at her beloved Once Upon bookstore so she can win the holiday bonus. And show Jake Kaplan, that smug flannel-wearing, super hot, I mean annoying, new guy, that she is the once and always queen of books.

The story feels a bit frantic (it's supposed to have taken place in a week), and some of the characters feel more like props than people. BUT it is from a teen pov and it does take place during the most intense retail week of the year, AND enthusiastic teen booksellers who have family and friends and finances on their minds are certainly allowed to be a bit frantic. And young women are allowed to be loud and take up space and act impulsively and make mistakes. So I think the pacing can get a pass and I'll take a pass on critiques of the main character being too impulsive — she's a passionate 16-year-old who takes action to make things better and is feeling out the boundaries of how to do that responsibly and well. I thought her development arc was really nice. If it's somewhat conveniently compressed and wrapped up with a bow at the end, well, it is Christmas after all.

Content notes: parents arguing and the specter of divorce looming, strained finances for several characters, absentee father

My thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC.