The Holiday Switch by Tif Marcelo

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Title: The Holiday Switch
Author: Tif Marcelo
Published by: Underlined
Release Date: October 5, 2021
Format: ebook
Pages: 266
Genres: Contemporary, Holiday, Young Adult
Source: Overdrive
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Fall, Lenoreo's 2021 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

Two rival coworkers with two very big secrets . . . What could possibly go wrong? Cozy up with this charming holiday romance by USA Today bestselling author Tif Marcelo.

Lila Santos is ready for her last winter break of high school. The snow in her small town of Holly, New York, is plentiful, the mood is as cozy as a fuzzy Christmas sweater, and she's earning extra cash working at the local inn—AKA the setting of the greatest film of all time, Holiday by the Lake—while moonlighting as an anonymous book blogger.

But her perfect holiday plans crash to a halt when her boss's frustratingly cute nephew, Teddy Rivera, becomes her coworker. Lila is type A; Teddy is type “Anything but Lila’s Way,” and the two of them can’t stop butting heads over tangled icicle lights and messy gift shop merch. But when they accidentally switch phones one afternoon, they realize they've both been hiding things from each other. Will their secrets—and an unexpected snowstorm—bring these rivals together?

My Review:

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 bitch, 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”.

COYER Scavenger Hunt #29: Read a book that takes place during the Winter.

COYER Community: Stephanie (Once Upon a Chapter), Lillian (Mom With a Reading Problem) and I buddy read this book, and we all had pretty mixed feelings.  We definitely all thought the start was very weak, and that it picked up later in the book…it just might not have been enough.  Lillian rated it 3.5 stars rounded down (I think) and Stephanie rated it 3 stars.