Merry Ex-Mas by Courtney Walsh Review

 Good Morning Sweet Friends :)

I pray today finds you all doing well, and I'm so thankful you chose to take the time to stop on by The Preppy Book Princess today for another book review.

I have to admit that I'm one of those weirdos that reads Christmas books all year long. I love getting the chance to temporarily step back into my favorite season, especially when there's tough things going on in my life.

However, I can't deny that there's something extra special about getting to read these titles during the Christmas season itself, and so today seemed like the perfect day to share this review with you all in case any of you are currently on the lookout for Christmas themed reads to fill your TBR during the next few weeks.

I hope you'll all keep reading down below for today's full review.

Merry Ex-Mas by Courtney Walsh:

Source: Library

Publisher: Sweethaven Press

Publication Date: October 25th, 2022

Genre: Contemporary Romance/Chick Lit

Synopsis:

I haven’t been home for Christmas in eight years.

But that’s about to change. This year, I’m traveling to my small hometown to convince my producer to make me the permanent host of Good Day Denver.

The plan: Charm viewers by sharing my favorite family Christmas traditions, and in turn, get the likes, clicks and shares to land the job.

Not the plan: Running into my ex-boyfriend.

In my house.

For Christmas.

But here he is, a guest of my mother, who apparently had more trouble letting go of Max Weber than I did.

Unfortunately, he is as handsome and charming and talented and annoying and frustrating and flirty as ever.

Even more unfortunately, he seems to have a plan of his own—to convince me to give him a second chance.

Which is not happening.

There’s just one problem—my viewers love him. More than that, they love us. Me and Max. My ex.

The boy who broke my heart.

The boy I now have to fake flirt with to win over the hearts of my viewers.

But it’s not their hearts I’m worried about. . . it’s mine.

(synopsis from goodreads)

My Review:

I've loved every single title I've previously read by Courtney Walsh, and I wasn't expecting Merry Ex-Mas to be any different. I always enjoy her writing style, I love Christmas books, and the synopsis sounded adorable and swoon worthy. On a cold and chilly snowy day, I thought this would be the perfect choice, and so I dived right in, and was prepared to be caught up in a hilarious, but heartwarming contemporary romance.

I do want to preface my review by stating that I don't think I quite understood what I was getting into with this one, and that's my own fault, and contributed heavily to why this book didn't end up being what I was expecting. I've always loved how Courtney's past book were faith based, and fairly clean, and that's what I expected this one to be. Instead I ended up feeling like she basically wrote a "cleaner" version of many of the current day trending contemporary romances, and that's just not what I was hoping for.

I didn't end up caring for any of the characters, and I couldn't believe how awful Max and Marin's parent's are to her, especially with the horrible way Max broke up with her in the past in the first place. Furthermore, Max had been through a traumatic experience, but that didn't really excuse the way he never really apologized for what happened, and everyone seemed to just expect Marin to magically let go of her hurt.

I wanted to feel more positive about this one, but after finishing it I ended up feeling like nothing had really been resolved in a way that made sense, and the characters failed to show any growth or maturity in my eyes. I also could have done without some of the content/humor that I was not expecting, and certainly didn't seem necessary to the story. 

Final Rating: 3/5.

If you're looking for a cleanish contemporary holiday romance, this one might be the one for you. However, if you've never tried this author before, I'd wholeheartedly recommend one of her earlier books instead, because this one just didn't showcase her tremendous talent if you ask me.

I'm glad I gave it a try, but now I'm not sure if I'll be reading any more of her recent contemporary releases or not.

Thanks so much for reading guys! Have a great rest of your day :)

This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photo does not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.