msandvik0505 's review for:

Good Elf Gone Wrong by Alina Jacobs

4.25

adventurous emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Gracie is the older sister to a selfish, hateful, adult who is enabled by her parents to be a horrible human being. A year ago her sister and fiance were caught having an affair which resulted in her being dumped and her sister getting engaged. Now Gracie wants revenge and she hires Hudson Wynter a tattooed bad boy to help her by getting her sister to fall in love with him and then exposing her for the cheater she is. Hudson can't stand Gracie's doormat attitude and the only reason he's helping her is to bring down her families company. 
Problems arise when Hudson is around Gracie before the wedding and helps her plan it and bake cookies, he bonds with her and the less toxic members of her family and even sleeps with Gracie who at the time is a virgin. The two of them fall for each other but Hudson avoids Gracie after they get intimate one night because he does not think that he's good enough for her. But after she realizes Hudson stole her journals and caused her families companies downfall Gracie is hurt and hates Hudson but he points out that she is just as bad as him and is not a blameless victim which she hates even more. The two of them work out their issues and are together just in time to make this Christmas not be the worst Christmas ever.

I really liked Hudson in this book. Gracie was hard to like at first she was constantly a doormat for her family and did everything for them. I thought that her parents, ex fiance James, sister Kelly and some of her aunts and cousins were extremely toxic and I was glad that some of them got what was coming to them. I liked that Hudson never liked Kelly and just thought of her as a means to an end. He loved Gracie and that was obvious in everything he did for her. Gracie really cared about him and I thought that it was good that she was pissed when she discovered what he had done to destroy her families company. At least she had a backbone, but Hudson was right to point out that she was not an innocent victim in the whole thing.