Angry read, straight-up. But I was going to finish it! No silly little book will best me! But, yup, had to drag myself though it. On the upside, now I get to vent! So here goes...
Sarah (h) was naïve and princess-y. It felt like she built him up so much as "perfect" and "fate" and so on, and over the space of just a few days, that there was no way he'd have been able to live up to it, no matter what had eventually happened between them. She's looking for the fairy tale-esque white knight, and they just don't exist in the real world. And then to be angry ranting about "why would he do this? why? why? why?" for several chapters. Um, sweetheart, he's been trying to talk to you for three days now. If you want to know why, maybe you should - just throwing it out here - give him a chance to talk? And actually listen? Finally, the stupid tires. You're living in an area where you regularly get snow by Christmas, and this year, literally have 3 ft of snow, with 6 ft drifts. You were comparing it to being 'halfway up the side of his car.' And you don't have snow tires on your car?? You are asking for an icy disaster on the road.
Graham (H) was also pretty dumb. Yes, it was a jackass move he pulled, right before the holidays. But it was within his legal rights. Was it a smart move, however? There are shelters, there are support services, for exactly these sorts of situations. His family could have stayed with him while looking for a new place. But no, he was just selfish and didn't want to be crowded. And if the husband had gotten out for whatever reason, wouldn't one of the VERY first places he'd have looked be at the brother's (H's) place? Literally, her only living family??? And then the scenes at the cabin. We go straight from "I'm going to take this slow" to jumping into bed in almost the next scene.
And from the title and summary - a bad boy Christmas romance? Graham really didn't feel like a bad boy. He and his sister kept referring to his man-whore ways, but we never really saw it. To me, he was more of a dumbass and cold, rather than a bad boy.
The whole scene with Brittany (H's sister) wanting to go back to her husband? Weird scene, and totally unnecessary. One line from her brother, and she breaks down in tears and changes her attitude. They could've had a heart-to-heart and still ended with him trying to figure out if he'll go after h, and done it all without her debating if she'll go back to her abusive ex. Again.
Now, romance novels in general can have some gender-role issues, but this one felt antiquated at best, sexist at worst. The first time we meet the sister, she tells the h that straight out, "You need a man." We don't have any sense of the sister's sense of humor yet, how condescending vs sarcastic that statement should sound, nothing. Didn't warm me to her at all. And then h says at the cabin, 'I am freezing, but I'll take advantage of having a man here and let him build the fire' or words to that effect. I'm sorry, but if I'm cold, I'll build my own damn fire and not wait for him to get out of bed, whenever that might be. I'd have thrown my book at that point, except I'm reading on my kindle app and I don't want to bust my phone. Lots of little lines like this from h, H, and side characters. I know the alpha H characters in other books can say things like this, but their h's also seem to have some spine to stand up to them. I just wasn't getting that dynamic from Graham and Sarah.
The writing needed some proofreading - lots of grammar and punctuation errors, and a good number of typos ("moves" not "movies", sort of thing). Distracting.
More bothersome to me, though, was how simple the writing seemed. Or simplistic? Amateurish? I hate ripping apart someone's writing like this, but this one really was rough to force my way through. Like reading high school writing. The same adjectives used over and over. Every movie they watched, for example, was "one of my absolute favorites". Every. Single. One. Same thought processes too - the whole time at the cabin, the chapters of them each dithering after they break up - just their minds on an endless loop. And these on-loop emotions were stated straight-out, too, a prime example of "telling, not showing." Never felt any of the pull for the characters, as a result - depth of a bottle cap, emotionally.
And for the sexual tension? Nonexistent. Least steamy snowy-cabin romance I've read yet.
The only thing I thought was cute was the mix-up with the niece about delivering the letter to Santa. That was actually a cute premise. Now if it hadn't come from Monica telling Sarah "You need a man" in that 1950s condescending sort of way...
Well, all that being said, at least it was free.