Absolut perfekt für die Weihnachtszeit, sehr süß, sehr cozy und mit ordentlich typischen RomCom Vibes. After a year from hell, Haf is ready to blow off steam at a Christmas party: a kind stranger, a few too many drinks and suddenly she's kissing Christopher under the mistletoe, in front of his ex-girlfriend. I wanted them to trust that I wasn’t going to talk about diet culture or calories or anything like that. The women she found attractive couldn’t be more different, though—suited, secretly dorky and possibly about to organize a heist.

Definitely not now because in my mid-30s I’m very happy with my own company and my dog and my charcuterie boards and stash of video games, but maybe in my early 20s when I was a chaos monster with nothing better to do and no money? Toredalt diverse oli see raamat ka - näiteks Ambrose kasutas they/them asesõnu, mis mind inglise keeles lugedes alati esialgu veidi segadusse ajavad, sest no ikka harjunud neid mitmuse kohta kasutama. Halfway through, the humour grabbed me, the plot got bonkers and the festive feels flowed like liquid tinsel. We meet Haf Hughes at a decidedly low moment, just as her parents break the news that they’re leaving her alone for Christmas and jetting off to Madeira. Reindeer shenanigans, goose attacks, gingerbread natural disasters, a fatefully terrible mistletoe kiss, and hot closet sex (a bit on the nose?On the note of my husband, we are both bi (he is also trans) so the representation was great to see. Occasionally the plot was a bit too cheesy and dramatised which is why I marked it down a star, however this really didn’t bother me much.

Forgive some of the cheesiness but truthfully, I pictured a really good Christmas movie where everyone ends up happy and a great song plays over the credits. By the next morning (the two fell asleep on Haf’s couch watching TV), Laurel has apparently told everyone who knows Christopher about his new flame, and his parents insist that he bring her along to family Christmas. So many people’s autism is missed as children and so they end up finding out later in life, like I did, hence my little Author’s Note at the back.

There’s excellent and very intense romantic tension between Haf and her love interest, too, which is guaranteed to keep readers turning pages quickly. Just like with most holiday movies and stories you have to roll with it because relationships develop very quickly and there are convenient misunderstandings that help set up the story.

When the fake-dating escalates to being invited home to his parents house for Christmas… I mean, maybe that’s a step further than most people would take it?I don't remember the last time I laughed so much at a book, or kept on laughing inbetween reading as I remembered the utter chaos. It’s incredibly rare to have mainstream reads like this and I admit I found it took a bit if getting my head around Ambrose’s pronoun purely because it’s an ingrained thing that ‘they’ is plural however it’s fantastic that the author didn’t feel the need to explain this and we do need more norms like this.

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan Republic, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Channel Islands, Comoros, Cook Islands, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Fiji, French Polynesia, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Guam, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Republic of the Congo, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City State, Venezuela, Virgin Islands (U. And that consciousness around food really does wind its way into so much of your life, especially when you have people around you making comments about their own weight and discomfort around it, especially when they are usually smaller than you, and double especially at holidays based around food. Ich wünsche mir zu Weihnachten, dass daraus eine Companion-Reihe entsteht - denn wir brauchen UNBEDINGT ein Buch mit Ambrose als Hauptfigur!We are often surrounded by food during the Christmas period and there were discussions about Haf’s relationship with food within the book. She has a wonderful personality that pulls people to her but she can be awkward too which further endears her to everyone.