Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - All I Want for Christmas

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All I Want for Christmas by Maggie Knox

9 reviews

atamano's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

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lauren_shilling's review

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emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I am so disappointed that I didn't love this book! I absolutely adored this author duo's other book, The Holiday Swap, so I was so excited for this! Not only is it by an author duo I've loved before, but it was about a singing competition! Needless to say, I had high hopes for this book. Maybe that was why I was so let down by it, but I don't think so. I'm going to start with things that I did like, though. I really liked the relationship Sadie had with her grandmother. I thought it was super cute, and I really liked that part of the story. That being said, I saw exactly where that was going almost immediately, so there was no shock there at all. I also thought the book started off pretty good. At the beginning, I was very hopeful that this might be another five star from this author duo. However, it became clear that this would not be the case by the end of the first 70 pages, probably. I also enjoyed the dog, but that is mostly because I love dogs, and dogs that wear sweaters are some of my favorite things ever. I wish we saw more of the dog, honestly, but I also understand why we didn't. Those were my two biggest positives about the book. Other than those things, there wasn't much I liked. I found the characters to be very flat, or even downright unlikeable. Sadie was a fine character, and I really liked her at first, but as the story progressed, I just didn't feel like she was ever particularly fleshed out, and ended up falling flat for me. This made me really sad because, like I said, I really liked her and where her character appeared to be going at first. I really did not like Max, though. In the first part of the book, I thought he was cute and I didn't dislike him. He just wasn't my favorite love interest, which is fine. I usually don't mind not absolutely falling in love with characters in romance novels as long as I can see the chemistry between the characters. However, as the book progressed, I began to find that I actually just do not like him at all. He just continuously ran away from his problems and expected the pieces to just fall right into place for him later, with little regard to how it would impact and hurt others around him. He was really privileged, and while he would say he acknowledged that privilege and didn't want it to define him or to always rely on it, in my opinion, he never acted like any of that was true. If he had only done this once or twice and then showed some real character development, this would not be an issue for me and I would have liked him a lot more, but he acted this way constantly throughout the book. Sadie, or anyone else, did not deserve to be treated the way he treated her over and over again. Then there was also the issue that the ending felt rushed, and we were expected to believe that all of those pieces would just fall into place the way they did so quickly. It bothered me a lot. I also found none of the side characters to be particularly interesting either. I was also annoyed at how little the singing competition was actually in the book. The premise made it sound like the book was going to be entirely based around the competition, but the competition itself ends about 150 pages into the book. This really disappointed me, because it felt really rushed, and honestly, it felt unnecessary to the plot, or their developing relationship. I was hoping the stakes of the competition would feel higher and that it would be more prevalent in the story. I'm gonna get into some spoilers now to talk about something else I didn't like about the book.

One of the things going on in this book is that a producer has taken interest in Sadie, and not really for her musical talent. He does a lot of creepy things, and harasses her quite a bit. I feel like this was not handled with much care, and it was treated as a plot device to create drama in the relationship. Not only am I disappointed that this topic was handled like that, but it made me dislike Max more for the way he reacted when faced with something he should have thought about more than he did. Instead, he made assumptions, and it came off as really insensitive./spoiler>

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theespressoedition's review against another edition

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2.5

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daniallreads's review

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emotional funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I think all I wanted was Christmas to be over by the end of this book. Don't get me wrong, it was the delightful Hallmark romance I needed in my holiday book, but it was just oh-kay.

Maybe I wasn't attracted to Max?

Don't get me wrong, a man with a cute dog who can knit sounds like a great gig to me, but I like men who play hockey & play video games & don't feed their dogs gluten-free snacks.

Not the point Dani, stay focused... Let's talk about what I enjoyed about the book. It was freakishly adorable. We love a cute moment for the holidays. It has swoon-worthy adventures with hot cocoa & Christmas shopping & holiday music. Truly, it's has all makings for the most perfect holiday story.

I'd love to hear a cd of all of Sadie & Maxes holiday music. I loved that the book was focused on country music. It was a nice change of pace to read a holiday romance intertwined with one of my favorite genres! The nods to classic country Christmas songs were nostalgic.

I feel I need to take a moment to really shout out the sole moment I was really rooting on any character. TASHA MONROE is a saint and a gem! I can't get over the scene where Tasha comes to the rescue and really pulls Sadie out of her darkest time in Nashville. It made my heart happier than when Max & Sadie sang their Christmas duet.

The only issue is that it felt like a Walmart version of Daisy Jones & The Six.

I thought it was a cool spin to focus on country music, but I didn't really like Max & Sadie.

Max was insecure. Sadie was constantly having to prove herself. They fought about it. Faked it. Things were fine. Then it all started over again when I was confident that they were finally going to be mature & say they love one another. Nope. One fake out. And then another. And another.

It felt like they were trying to imitate Daisy & Billys sexual tensions with the constant fighting, but it just didn't work.

I wanted it to be done so badly that I turned my audiobook to 2x speed. I NEVER do that.

I don't think I liked the constant immature miscommunication between the two.

And holy, don't even get me started on how uncomfortable it was reading about the character named Cruz McNeil. This man comes close to being more disgusting than Dolores Umbridge.

Oof, if this is what it is like to be in the spotlight, I'll take my ramen every day paycheck in a heartbeat.

I felt for Sadie's character & that no one seemed to help her. I feel for all the women who have to deal with slimy people just to show that they have a talent in showbiz today.

To come full circle after word vomiting all my thoughts into this review, All I Want for Christmas wasn't my favorite holiday read I picked up this year, but it does have its great moments.

Read this book for a grandma who you would want to adopt into your life, a gluten-free canine companion, a free trip to Nashville during Christmas, and a genuine message of friendship and resilience.

Thank you, Netgalley, Maggie Knox, and Penguin Random House for the advanced reader copy of this book!

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katelynprice's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This was a perfectly readable, enjoyable book (I did read it in one day after all). However, it leaned on the plot device of the main characters not communicating, and that just got irritating after a while. Also, while it was set at Christmas, it really didn't have all that much of a Christmas vibe overall. As a Tennesseean I found the Nashville references fun, and I was relieved that there wasn't a ton of focus spent on the reality show competition.

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kelly_e's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Title: All I Want for Christmas
Author: Maggie Know
Genre: Holiday Romance
Rating: 1.5
Pub Date: October 4, 2022

T H R E E • W O R D S

Lackluster • Cheesy • Unrealistic

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Sadie and Max are both contestants on the famed reality singing show STARMAKER. For Sadie, it's the big break she's been dreaming of. As for Max, he sees it as an opportunity to finally step out of the shadow of his father.

When they are paired up for duet week, fans of the show go wild for #Saxie. Their chemistry together is undeniable, and the show executives demand they remain a duo - on and offstage - or exit the competition. With their dreams on the line, each agrees to the preposition, the only probably being they don't enjoy each other company.

💭 T H O U G H T S

When I first read the synopsis, I was looking forward to reading this 2022 holiday release from the author duo known as Maggie Knox. The country music aspect, and the Nashville setting were what initially interested me, as did the holiday vibes. All I Want for Christmas started out solidly, but unfortunately ended up going off the rails rather quickly and being a complete miss for me.

I will start out with the good since the list is short - the concept, Max's dog Patsy, the fact that Max knit, and the backdrop of winter in Banff for a portion of the book. That's it.

And now for the bad. The plotline should have worked very well with dual POVs, yet the flow was significantly off and the pacing felt very odd. I never really got the enemies-to-lovers vibes, and the romance was extremely unbelievable. To make matters even worse, there's a real lack of character growth from start to finish, which left me rolling my eyes a few too many times.

Even with all of that said, my main issue was how the plot was based primarily on a lack of communication. It felt frustrating. Ultimately, there was so much potential for dialogue on the topic of death and grief, and the author duo failed to express that, instead choosing the route of grief as a taboo. No thank you!

To make matters worse, the audio version had several huge mispronunciations of 'Canadian' words, that it ended up feeling very amateurish. Given that the two authors are Canadian, I'd have expected those errors to have been caught.

In sum, I'd eaten way too much cheese by the time I got to the end, and it honestly felt like it wrapped up too nicely to be realistic. It also wasn't all that festive, which I'll admit was a let down. The idea had so much potential, but execution was poor. It may be time I give up on this duo, and focus on their individual works. And I'd highly suggest you do the same. In fact, Karma Karma Brown wrote one of my favourite reads of 2022.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of the fake dating trope

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"Life doesn't always play out the way you imagine it will but that doesn't mean that what you do instead isn't worth anything."

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lunep's review

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

Miscommunication after miscommunication, they (specially Max) kept running from each other, never hearing the other out, literally 4 or 5 times Max heard/saw/read something, took it out of context, didnt let Sadie explain herself and ran away, every time they made up they just had sex and barely spoke about the conflict. Oh, and also the cliché where one of them gets sent a link with a photo or something that leaves the other in a bad light from an anonymous source with an ominous "X is not who you think you are". So, complete bullshit all around.

In a less incensed note, the fake dating is barely there, I was reading a pdf that had 700+ pages so at first I thought "oh, the show part is just the very beginning, they will develop their relationship more" but I was WRONG, we truly were supposed to believe these two had chemistry and were falling in love with just a couple of interactions where most of the time they were arguing and the rest they were just singing, and then there's a time jump where they haven't seen much less spoken to each other in a year and when they meet again they're "breathless" and "speechless" and I just didn't feel it, I didn't care for their romance or anything, if only just once I felt excited about them being together, but after the third miscommunication I was just done, it was extremely repetitive and it was supposed to make you believe all the odds where against them but truly they just didn't speak to each other

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jodierose14's review against another edition

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

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lovelybibliomanic's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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