This novella is sweet, but it packed a lot into a small package. It felt like a full length novel with all of the extended details cut out, which made the whole thing feel rushed. There was just too much going on between the family plots, Monica trying to figure out she doesn’t want to go back to school, and the budding romance between Monica and Paige. In one way this felt true to how WLW relationships progress in real life (things can move pretty quickly), but here it felt amateurish. Several of the conflicts and miscommunications were weak and very transparently placed to progress the plot without being how people would actually respond in certain situations.

Overall it was cute and a holiday-y read with some interesting Polish family dynamics, but it’s not something I would pay for or recommend. It feels more like it could be a freebie bonus novella to flesh out a romance between side characters in a longer novel.

That being said, I do think there is potential here if the author wanted to develop this story into a full length novel. That’s what this really needs to be.

This book is like a warm mug of hot chocolate. It’s a quick read and a fast way to get into the holiday spirit. A sweet romance that makes you want to go to a Christmas tree lighting.

If you're looking for a quick Christmas romance, this novella checks a lot of the boxes. There's snow, talk of carriage rides, family baking, and a brief stint at a work Christmas party. There is even a nice deeper storyline about a college student standing up to their parents to become the person they want to be. But overall, I felt this book was just okay because too much of the romantic plot depended on poor communication between the main characters and fear of exes who did nothing more than exist.

This was such a great novella. I loved the way it tackled the issues of lesbians being homophobic towards bi and pan people, and talking about how straight people think they’re too gay and gay people think they’re too straight. It was a really sweet romance, and I was always rooting for Monica and Paige.

Thank you Xpresso Book Tours for this ARC in exchange for a review!!

Being honest, being promised ‘grumpy vs sunshine’, ‘sweet, feel good Holiday Nostalgia’, ‘sapphic romance’ my head went into a completely different trajectory than this book and plot went, unfortunately.

•𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝:
- Paige (what a cutie pie, she carried to nuvella imo)
- Monica standing up for herself and not accepting the gaslighting her family throws her way.

Paige was the highlight of this nuvella for me!! She was so sweet, hardworking and caring for Monica’s grandpa when she didn’t even have to be. She was just so soft and lovely.

Monica was also alright. I think compared to the other female characters in the family, she is quite alright. She doesn’t blindly accept the things and principles the people around her are trying to push onto her, which is very nice to see. Especially when she’s going through a rough patch of life rn, with Bryce leaving her and all.

•𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞:
- Monica’s entire family (her mom and sister especially)
- Bryce
- The way the characters are written.

Sylvia (Monica’s sister) was immature, dismissive and wishy washy. In a chapter she snaps at Monica for saying she wants to find herself and her passions instead of graduating in engineering, saying that their parents didn’t immigrate for her to ‘find herself’. Afterwards, 10 pages later she reveals to their parents (at the Christmas table, might i add) that Mon is leaving engineering college, despite Monica loudly saying she doesn’t want to talk about the situation. Followed by 2 pages later Sylvia coming to Monica and being like ‘I did this for your benefit. Now find yourself and live as you want.’
… What…

It made no sense to me.

Her parents are just as bad, dismissive and entirely wrapped up in work and their business. Which is kinda understandable for parents that immigrated to US from Poland and had to build a life to sustain the whole family, but they haven’t even properly greeted Monica after she came home from college. Like no balance, both are at work 24/7 no matter the circumstances. Not even gonna talk about the rude and snappy way the mom replies to Monica each and every time they talk.

The way the characters are written. It’s all surface level.
It is a nuvella and it’s a little less than 70 pages, so not a whole lot of things can happen. But there is not much character depth, they are all just mean and dismissive lol
Monica and Paige’s way of talking made me constantly think i’m reading about a couple of 14 years olds. Not 18 and 19 years olds, with Monica being in college. I think they just sounded shallow and childish at times, in my opinion.

Overall, there was barely any Christmas magic and mostly family drama. And even less so sapphic romance. I didn’t really feel any chemistry between Paige and Monica.
Some good points, some not so good points. I would have liked it SO much better if most of the characters weren’t so bad at communicating and dismissive of Monica.

I really really liked this! But there was just way too much going on for such a short story. It needed to either be a full book, or to have a few less topics.

Monica comes home from university for Christmas and is immediately being stood up by her boyfriend at the train station. Not only is she not getting picked up, no, her boyfriend brakes up with her over the phone and just leaves her stranded.
In this way her whole day continues until she is so fed up with everything, she just decides to fully skip Christmas altogether.
I loved the idea of this, and I also really loved the premise that her neighbour Paige is making her excited for Christmas again.

But in the end this story wasn’t too christmassy at all, it involved a lot of drama with her ex, her grandpas declining mental state, Paige’s ex and a fight with her parents because of school.
It was simply too much for such a short story. I was very surprised when Monica kissed Paige, it just moved too quickly after she just got dumbed and then a lot of love drama followed too. I would have liked this story more if all the love drama would have just been left out and they’d just have kissed in the end after knowing each other several days already.

This story had a lot of good ideas, I liked the style of writing and the characters a lot. It just didn’t work at all in this format.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest rating and review.

To start off, this novella was way too short. This means that I was interested in the characters and I really enjoyed all of the diverse representation. However there were too many things squished into such a small page count. It felt like problems just sort of popped up out of nowhere and then were immediately resolved. There was a lot of missed potential for further development, but overall a cute, fast read.

This novel is cute, but characters feel underdeveloped. A super quick, holiday read! Definitely all the cozy vibes.

After reading Monica Admas skips christmas I can say it's a great, fun, short read in time for the Christmas season. A great way to put you in the Christmas mood. The main characters Monica and Paige grapple through difficult break ups however both manage to pull through to celebrate those they love. Though it was short read the story doen't feel too rushed though I think the only thing that could be better would be if we got more background fo both cahracter but otherwise I would reccomend it to freinds.

Monica loves Christmas and was supper excited to go home for the holidays, spend time with her family and her loving boyfriend of 3 years that she hadn't seen all semester. BUT the universe had other plans; now Monica was newly dumped and a mess; but what's worse than getting dumped? Getting dumped right before Christmas by your high school boyfriend!! Monica wanted nothing more than to just skip Christmas and be miserable. Nothing seemed to be going her way; she had just been dumped, her elderly grandfather took over her room, her parents didn't seem to understand her and she was having a hard time with knowing what she wanted to do with her life because college was not for her. What would her next step be? UNTIL literally the girl next door Paige was the one person she seemed less sad around. Things start to turn around when Monica and Paige start spending more and more time together. Monica started seeing things more clearly and decides to follow her heart hoping things would turn around.

This was such a sweet and super short Christmas read that you can sit and read with your cozy blanket with a warm cup of tea and read in one sitting. This being a novella the length was prefect but I think the romance aspect and character development was a bit lacking HOWEVER I did enjoy the story. The romance between Monica and Paige was actually so adorable, they went to high school together, Paige was thee girl next door and little to Monica's surprise Paige had a crush on her since the earlier years of high school. They had an instant connection and chemistry between them that I loved.

Recommend if you want a quick Christmas read!

Thank you to Southside Mountain Press and NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an adorable little novella! I love a good holiday romcom and this book was exactly that. I loved the relationship between the two characters as well as the relationship between the main character and her sister's family. This was just a sweet little holiday romance i highly recommend.

***3.5 ⭐️ ***

I think the title of this story is a bit misleading…. While, yes, the setting is during the Christmas season, the happenings in the story, however, don’t really relate to the holiday in it’s entirety (minus a tree lighting excursion downtown and crowded malls filled with shoppers).

Monica’s boyfriend dumps her the minute she gets back home from college, and then she finds out that her upstairs neighbour is single as well (who’s been harbouring a crush on Monica since high school). She also decides she doesn’t want to go back to school for the next term. There’s also a side plot of her elderly grandfather possibly having dementia and going missing. Meanwhile, her parents work all day, her sister lives out of town, and no one is really happy with the trajectory of where their lives are going.

There’s quite a bit to unpack in this novella and, while I’m all for the plot to move along at greater than a snail’s pace, unfortunately there was just too much going on, and no real resolution to any of it.

This ARC was provided by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

thank you to netgalley for giving me the chance to read the arc!!!

i love chicago And christmas so having both in the same book was so fun to read! when it comes to theme i Loved it but the romance was lackluster. it was so short that i honestly didn’t feel any chemistry between monica and paige.

i loved the representation in this book! could’ve done without the biphobia though, it added nothing to the story.

a lot of the characters dismiss monica’s feelings and don’t give her a chance to explain Anything before getting mad at her which got frustrating.

overall it was an okay short read, i think it should have been longer. there was way too many story lines going on in such a short amount of time, so much so that it felt like some of them got glossed over.

if you want a short and sweet story set around christmas that has a bisexual MC, i recommend ‘monica adams skips christmas’ !

i really enjoyed this book, it was cute but also had some heavier themes (biphobia and alzheimers/dementia)

i really enjoyed Monica and Paige as characters and their blooming friends to lovers relationship. i also loved the inclusion of Polish language (being that Monica’s parents are Polish immigrants) i’ve never read a book that featured Polish characters and i thought it was really cool to read some of their names for things!

overall it was a quick read but the characters were loveable and i really enjoyed the story! excited to hopefully read more from the ‘Wicker Park’ book series

Monica is home from her first year of college for winter break, excited to see her family and her long-term boyfriend from high school and celebrate everything Christmas. The moment she steps off the train, everything changes. Everything she was expecting from her boyfriend, her family, and the holiday season is ruined on the first day, making Monica feel lower than ever. That is until a pretty upstairs neighbor Paige catches her eye. After years spent in high school and in the same building, something caught Monica's eye. Is it enough to boost her holiday spirit?
This was a quick, light romantic Holiday read. If you are looking for something fast and fun with a wlw relationship at the center, then this is a great choice. Overall though this book left me wanting more. I wanted more time to watch the main relationship grow, more time to get over the previous one, more time to watch family dynamics grow and heal, just more. This is a novella, which I think works fantastic this time of year, but I think the way that the plot was formulated lent itself more to a full-length book so we could see the dynamics grow and have a little bit more wrap-up.

A cute sapphic holiday romcom that is a perfect addition to your December TBR! This novella follows a young woman on her first Christmas back home after going away to college. Long-distance romance catastrophes lead to new opportunities all while our protagonist questions her plan for the future under the pressure of immigrant parents and their idea of the American Dream for their children. So much to explore and unpack in a short, sweet story!

Thank you NetGalley and Southside Mountain Press for providing me with a digital advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

This was cute, Christmassy and short, which cut both ways because it could have dug more into the more serious sub-plots had it been longer. My kindle copy was 68 pages. It will help you catch up on your reading challenge if you've fallen behind schedule. It's also YA and I don't rate higher than 3🌟 YA contemporary anymore. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion 🎅

I really struggled to get through this one. I was glad it was a novella or else I likely would have DNF'ed this. I wanted to make it through it to see if it ever got better and it didn't.

I found the main character, Monica, immature and unlikeable. As someone who prefers character drive books, that was a huge put off for me and was the cause of my main struggle getting through the book.

I also found it very, very rushed. If more time had been taken to flush out all the plot points and better develop them, lengthening the book, it might have been more enjoyable. I found the speed Monica fell in love after having been cheated on and dumped ridiculously fast and made the story less authentic.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was so clunky that it felt like the first draft of something was trying to be either a contemporary fiction or a queer romcom but couldn't actually make up its mind. I felt zero about anyone in the book, I didn't care about anyone or understand their motives. It needed to be workshopped a lot more. Lacked emotional connection.

The writing was way too young for my liking and the MC was very immature. Thank you to NetGalley and Southside Mountain Press for.the e-ARC in exchange for a review.