The Christmas Swap by Talia Samuels
3 Stars
TW: Emotional abuse & toxic ex who’s still in the picture
“‘There is no good way to lose someone.’”
Ratings
Spice:🌶️ Plot:💎💎 Romance:❤️❤️ Characters:⭐⭐ Emotions:🥰🫢😋
Character Analysis
Ellie🎸: Her arc was not very concrete, but she was enjoyable as a wild, dorky metalhead.
Margot📱: Her whole personality revolved around being a workaholic and her trauma. Which isn’t unrealistic, it’s plenty realistic. She’s also a big foodie and loves vintage things. I can’t put a label on her personality but she’s likable.
The Plot
This is a hallmark sapphic Christmas rom-com, and it certainly delivers on all those aspects. I have no complaints about it and I didn’t expect more from such a novel.
It was adorable on all accounts and had just the right amount of drama to spice it all up, along with cute animal side kicks and a chaotic family Christmas scenery.
It’s the writing style and dialogue that left it a bit lacking, but like I said, it’s a hallmark deal. I expected this to be three stars and it was. It was mainly tell and not show, it had large paragraphs or even pages of explanations of things that could have been included as a scene in the book. The chemistry didn’t go very deep, like all hallmark-type things. And the dialogue was rambly. Certain characters rambled because it was their personality, which I didn’t mind, but sometimes it went on for half a page and I would lose focus.
The Christmas Swap Photoshoot
