The cover, the title and the premise of this book make it seem like it would be the perfect Christmassy romantic read. However, this isn't romantic and it isn't feel good at all. In fact, a lot of the aspects of this story are quite sad and quite negative and there are never any attempts at turning them into a positive. That is of course excluding Clare's and Sam's developing relationship which I believe is meant to come across as a beautiful love story of two lost people finding each other but is instead just a very tepid love of two very two dimensional characters for whom it is convenient to fall in love.
This leads me to Sam, our love interest in the story. Whilst I could enjoy Clare's character, Sam's gave me a lot of issue to work through. From the very first moment we are introduced to Sam he is shown as a passive aggressive guy with some temperament issues and these are never really acknowledged or fixed throughout the story. He just goes on to have angry outbursts with everyone and then weakly apologises and somehow makes it all okay. Another aspect of Sam that really ruined the character for me was his relationship with his sister Alyssa. Alyssa is Sam's younger sister who has had an accident growing up and ended up in a wheelchair. I would've been delighted for this disability rep if it wasn't for Sam trying to make it all about him. More than once when Sam talks about his sister and her accident he shifts the narrative to himself as if he is somehow the victim. In fact when he tells Clare about it even Clare ends up saying that Sam has "endured a lot" his whole life. This makes no sense to me? His sister is the one who is paraplegic but somehow we are meant to feel and for Sam because he is a weird aggressive and overprotective brother who has to look after his sister? The whole Sam-Alyssa relationship is very strange and doesn't sit right with me.
This leads me to Sam, our love interest in the story. Whilst I could enjoy Clare's character, Sam's gave me a lot of issue to work through. From the very first moment we are introduced to Sam he is shown as a passive aggressive guy with some temperament issues and these are never really acknowledged or fixed throughout the story. He just goes on to have angry outbursts with everyone and then weakly apologises and somehow makes it all okay. Another aspect of Sam that really ruined the character for me was his relationship with his sister Alyssa. Alyssa is Sam's younger sister who has had an accident growing up and ended up in a wheelchair. I would've been delighted for this disability rep if it wasn't for Sam trying to make it all about him. More than once when Sam talks about his sister and her accident he shifts the narrative to himself as if he is somehow the victim. In fact when he tells Clare about it even Clare ends up saying that Sam has "endured a lot" his whole life. This makes no sense to me? His sister is the one who is paraplegic but somehow we are meant to feel and for Sam because he is a weird aggressive and overprotective brother who has to look after his sister? The whole Sam-Alyssa relationship is very strange and doesn't sit right with me.