In A Holidaze by Christina Lauren ★★★☆☆ #BookReview #BookBlog

Primary Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, Holiday
Published: 6 Oct 2020 by Gallery Books
Page count: 307 (print length)
My Format: eBook via Overdrive
Cover: Eye-catching
Pacing: Good
Ending: Predictable
Do I Recommend: Probably
Commission Link (U.S.): Buy In A Holidaze

My rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

My Thoughts
I saw this book all over Instagram in December, and I have generally liked the Christina Lauren books I’ve read in the past, so I decided to give this holiday book a shot. Here are my pros and cons for In A Holidaze:

Pros

1. The story started out very well. I loved the set-up and the whole time-looping concept. I was totally sold (for the most part).
2. The atmosphere created was phenomenal! Now I really want to buy a cabin in a snowy wonderland on the outskirts of a quaint, small town!!
3. The family scavenger hunt was so fun! What a great idea! I really enjoyed the festive nature of the book.
4. The romance was sweet and I felt generally invested.
5. The writing was easy to read – very conversational.
6. I think the lead characters were generally solid. Maelyn and Andrew were likeable.
7. The ending was good, but predictable.

Cons

1. There were a lot of time loops at the beginning of the story, but once the romance started getting stronger the time-looping part of the story suddenly disappeared. I felt a bit letdown because the time-looping concept was the basis of the story and it disappeared too quickly. I get that she was being shown her “happiness”, and that once she found it the time-looping might end, but there wasn’t a good explanation for any of it and I felt a little cheated.
2. The contrived conflict near the end was completely unbelievable and utterly ridiculous. Serious eye-rolls from me.
3. I am a second wife and I get along very well with my husband’s first wife and her husband. We see them often on holidays or special events our mutual grandchildren have. That said, I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever agree to my husband and his ex-wife spending a seven-day holiday break together (without me) with their adult children every year. Do people actually do this?? I think that storyline was so incredibly unbelievable that it influenced how I perceived the rest of the story.
4. The large cast of characters made things confusing from time to time, and some of the characters weren’t really important to the story and could have been left out in my opinion. Outside of Maelyn, Andrew, and Theo, I was pretty much lost and not really interested enough to try to remember the other characters.

Summary
This book fell right in the middle of the road for me. There were things I enjoyed, things I got quite bored with, and things that were just beyond belief. I thought the concept was good, but time-travel/time-looping stories almost always suffer from repetitiveness at some level (as this one did). This definitely wasn’t Groundhog Day, and I honestly think the book could have been better without the time-looping concept altogether! All that said, it was still a fine distraction for a couple of afternoons in late December. I would recommend it to anyone who loves time-travel stories (if you don’t mind it stopping mid-book), holiday romance novels, and/or Christina Lauren books in general.

If you would like to read this book and form your own opinion, please consider purchasing through this link: Buy In A Holidaze. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Thanks!

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(image from Goodreads)

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