A review by moonmittens
The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

3.0

Today was the perfect rainy day to cozy up with this Christmas story! This was a joy to read and I couldn’t put it down. I ended up reading it in one sitting!

The setting of this book is absolutely gorgeous and fueled my wanderlust for Edinburgh. It’s hard to connect with the main character, Carmen, at the beginning of this book but I eventually came around to her and she really does show a ton of growth throughout the story. I really enjoyed reading as she made improvements to the bookshop, explored her new hometown, and connected with her family. There were many heartwarming moments in this book when I found myself smiling at the pages.

It’s the love triangle that brought my rating of this book down. While Blair was definitely a pompous jerk at times, he had great chemistry with Carmen and brought a lot of fun dialogue into the story. The other love interest, Oke, was so incredibly lame and robotic. The second half of the book is so full of back and forth, missed connections, and miscommunication with these two men that it’s frustrating. I thought it really bogged down the story, and I found the romance to be really unconvincing in the end.

Besides the romance, I loved everything else about this book! The epilogue at the end was so adorable.