AbiReadThat

Alright alright.

Yes, its February, and YES I know this is a Christmas book but just chill out would ya?!

Welcome back, lovely fellow readers.

Coming at you today with a short and sweet review of Merry & Bright by Ali Rosen.

Now, this wasn’t included in last year (like every other book I read because my hyper fixations gallivanted else where), but I thought now was about time I let you know my thoughts on this book!

---

Merry & Bright was a book I actually enjoyed far more than I thought I would have done, usually because I find Christmas novellas to be quite too short and stereotypical on how they pan out.

Ali Rosen went about this novella beautifully.

A hail mary fake romance turning into a real deal always sounds a bit of fun, doesn’t it!

We meet Miriam, who’s family is just simply too much and overbearing and a loud and noisy place to be at Christmas time, but they don’t bat an eye and she’s almost the black sheep of the family. She dreads the holidays – especially Hannukah, and then she meets Cal.
Cal is a dreamy retired professional football player, who has a festive season that is mostly low-key and not very exciting.

Now, let’s remember, this is a novella. She’s only a short one so of course we’re going to have an instance of some insta-love that doesn’t allow for too much being left up to the imagination in the grand scheme of things.

However, these characters were just gorgeous together. Miriam not being overly confident and usually being left to feel like she’s the forgotten one, whereas Cal notices everything, and aims to ensure she is seen and not just heard. He’s literally a walking green flag.

Cal’s character background was much more than what it looked like on paper (no pun intended), and I thought it made so much more sense to his background as to why him and Miriam moulded to work so beautifully together.

Its forced proximity and a mash of holiday seasons across Judaism and Christian based festive holidays that just put the icing on the cake. I also just always love me an instance of “we met on the plane” and it goes up from there. Tastyyyy!!

---

So, although this was a short one, I can vouch that Christmas novellas should always look to have some depth and character building and background to them, because it just makes it all the more effective.

This was a solid 3 star from me.

~

Have a wonderful week, friends!