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tealightfully 's review for:
The Holiday Trap
by Roan Parrish
A great queer romcom - for people who have not read any other gay book in their life. Overall, this was NOT AT ALL LIKE THE MOVIE THE HOLIDAY OUTSIDE OF A HOUSE SWAP. So, I'm casting aside that comparison entirely.
The potential was so big. Gays! House swaps! Fun, diverse side characters! A cute floral shop! This was right up my alley, I thought. But alas, it fell flat for me.
I do want a book that is just the MM romance budding that was Truman and Ash. They are like too slightly damaged cinnamon rolls and I adored them both. I would like to bleach my memory of Greta and Carys entirely, they had the oddest and least believable chemistry by far. I am aware I am in the minority here, but I actually disliked Greta FAR more than Carys. She was so...willfully naive? Completely ignored people's clearly spoken boundaries (why y'all hating on Carys for rightfully being frustrated that Greta directly disregarded the one and only boundary Carys set?!). Greta's main positive attribute was her love of houseplants, which I enjoyed because I also love my houseplants. Though, I don't keep a spreadsheet for them..yet ;)
Truman, on the other hand, was my favorite kind of romcom character. He was messy, wholesome, driven, and accountable. I do wish they had had more of a resolution with his ex though - outside of Greta (again) poking her business where it didn't belong. Greta was, unfortunately, just as insufferable as her entire family. I wish the author had either nixed the homophobic storyline entirely or spent some time actually resolving it. Yes, in real life, many of us queer folks have complicated blurry-line relationships with our family - but this is supposed to be a romcom book not a memoir. I didn't like having to see main characters gloss over homophobia in cutesy ways.
Courtesy warning: There are graphic sex scenes where you don't expect them. I didn't anticipate that level of smut in this one, so it came as a surprise to me. It also didn't really fit the rest of the way the book was written. So, it stood significantly as out-of-place. I like smut, but I wasn't thinking it would pop up here.
Carys got a lot of disdain from reviewers, but I thought she was the most grounded and self-aware of all the characters. She had her own life that didn't revolve around Greta's hem-hawing doe-eyedness and she didn't let Greta get away with crossing established boundaries. I liked that they had a real talk about respecting each other's needs and it not leading to some sort of breakup - instead it led to a strengthening of their relationship. Maybe the only part of their relationship that made sense. It was a bit TOO instant of love for how Carys' independence is established.
To wrap the ramble, this had a missed opportunity to elevate a rarely seen queer Jewish MC and to break tropes of queer characters and lives -instead of reinforcing them. This was my first Roan Parrish novel, and will likely be my last.
The potential was so big. Gays! House swaps! Fun, diverse side characters! A cute floral shop! This was right up my alley, I thought. But alas, it fell flat for me.
I do want a book that is just the MM romance budding that was Truman and Ash. They are like too slightly damaged cinnamon rolls and I adored them both. I would like to bleach my memory of Greta and Carys entirely, they had the oddest and least believable chemistry by far. I am aware I am in the minority here, but I actually disliked Greta FAR more than Carys. She was so...willfully naive? Completely ignored people's clearly spoken boundaries (why y'all hating on Carys for rightfully being frustrated that Greta directly disregarded the one and only boundary Carys set?!). Greta's main positive attribute was her love of houseplants, which I enjoyed because I also love my houseplants. Though, I don't keep a spreadsheet for them..yet ;)
Truman, on the other hand, was my favorite kind of romcom character. He was messy, wholesome, driven, and accountable. I do wish they had had more of a resolution with his ex though - outside of Greta (again) poking her business where it didn't belong. Greta was, unfortunately, just as insufferable as her entire family. I wish the author had either nixed the homophobic storyline entirely or spent some time actually resolving it. Yes, in real life, many of us queer folks have complicated blurry-line relationships with our family - but this is supposed to be a romcom book not a memoir. I didn't like having to see main characters gloss over homophobia in cutesy ways.
Courtesy warning: There are graphic sex scenes where you don't expect them. I didn't anticipate that level of smut in this one, so it came as a surprise to me. It also didn't really fit the rest of the way the book was written. So, it stood significantly as out-of-place. I like smut, but I wasn't thinking it would pop up here.
Carys got a lot of disdain from reviewers, but I thought she was the most grounded and self-aware of all the characters. She had her own life that didn't revolve around Greta's hem-hawing doe-eyedness and she didn't let Greta get away with crossing established boundaries. I liked that they had a real talk about respecting each other's needs and it not leading to some sort of breakup - instead it led to a strengthening of their relationship. Maybe the only part of their relationship that made sense. It was a bit TOO instant of love for how Carys' independence is established.
To wrap the ramble, this had a missed opportunity to elevate a rarely seen queer Jewish MC and to break tropes of queer characters and lives -instead of reinforcing them. This was my first Roan Parrish novel, and will likely be my last.