The Holiday Switch

3.5 stars — This book did not start off strong. Neither of our main characters were all that endearing, especially at the start. Lila was uptight, overreactive, comes across a bit like a biotch, can be judgey. You don’t get to see a lot of her good qualities off the bat. But luckily I was enjoying her quirky family, and learning about their Filipino Christmas traditions, so I hung in there. And then we meet Teddy, our supposed love interest, and he runs totally hot and cold. He had moments of seeming sweet, but he would close up and get snappy and judgey at what seems like the drop of a hat. There were definitely glimmers of other things to keep me interested, but honestly, I could have just as easily put this one down. I don’t know quite where it picks up. I got good moments, but then it would go back to being meh. But I’d say by the half way point I was more invested. Both characters seem to have calmed down and you could see a connection between them that was more than just physical attraction on Lila’s part. I ADORED Christmas with her family. It sounded loud, and fun, and I kind of want to do the creative leftovers party now. I also appreciated all the weird quirks of the town, and seeing what it would be like to live and work somewhere so heavily influenced by a movie. They made me excited with them. And when Teddy and Lila finally started connecting, they had quite a few awesome crushtastic moments, where I just kind of awwwed a lot. I appreciated that Teddy had moments of being a bit of an unconventional hero, so he mostly won me over. And Lila started taking chances, and I was excited to see her growing. The book blog entries were kind of fun too. I appreciated that the resolution of the conflict wasn’t too over the top and drawn out. Should I really round up to 4? Eh, I don’t know. That start was rough. But I had a bit of a break between reading the start and finishing the book, and I think that was enough for me to mostly remember the cute parts that made me “awww”.