Monica Adams Skips Christmas was a fun read.

Nineteen-year-old engineering student Monica Adams is excited to be back home in the Windy City for Christmas, even if she’s planning to tell her parents she’s dropping out of college. But when her longtime boyfriend unexpectedly dumps her, her elderly grandfather moves in, and her parents are too busy working to notice she’s home, Monica decides she’s skipping the holidays this year. It isn’t until she begins spending time with her neighbor Paige that things take a turn towards yuletide glee.

Eighteen-year-old Paige Yoshida is an art student, local bookseller and self-proclaimed Christmas fanatic. She’s also lived upstairs from Monica since they were kids and may have had a secret crush on her during high school.

As the countdown to Christmas continues, Monica and Paige find themselves unexpectedly spending more and more time together. Will the two take a chance on love this holiday season, or will they ignore their building chemistry and keep things strictly friends?

This was a short easy read and different from the usual romance. I really enjoyed this, the characters were good and , the whole book was different to what I was expecting. 4 stars

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for this ARC

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange of an honest review.
I admit being a sucker for movies and books with a bit of Christmas atmosphere.
In this case though I've been a bit disappointed.
This novel is much too short to contain all that happens in it. The rapidity of Monica falling in love again after having been cheated and dumped is simply ridiculous in my opinion. Also I loved the grandfather character but that pary of the plot also went too quickly.
I feel like saying to the author, 'try again, but slower'...

It’s a really short novella and basically a hallmark movie but make it sapphic. Unfortunately, I did not connect with the characters. Between the lack of chemistry I felt and the incredibly fast pace, I found it difficult to do so.

I wish it was longer. It was a cute story with so much potential. The relationships rang a little hollow due to the short length. It was a great holiday read, though. Monica is relatable, and Paige is adorable.

I'm a little sad about this one, because there was a lot to love and it had so much potential, yet it was super short even for a novella, and every interesting theme that was brought up felt glossed over by the end, including the romance and the explorations of family relationships. I honestly wish this was a full-length novel, or at least a longer novella, so it could have lived up to its potential.

It’s not your typical Christmas book and I love it, I love the diversity and it’s so cute, I am so gay for the neighbor she is adorable little geek.

This was a cute story, but I was expecting a novel not a novella. It’s also listed as Adult, but I think it should be listed as YA.

This was a very quick read ~2hrs. What I loved about this novella was the representation. The main character is a bisexual woman who has dated both men and women and the love interest is a Japanese woman. It had a bit of holiday activities to get in the Christmas mood, but I could’ve had a little more. Because it was so short I didn’t really feel that connected to the characters.

Thank you, NetGalley and Southside Mountain Press for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review!
This is such a cute and cozy Christmas read. It was well written and I really liked the little illustrations at the begging of the chapters.

The book tells the story of a girl named Monica Adams who comes home for Christmas, but as soon as she comes home it seems like everything is going wrong around her and that makes her lose her Christmas spirit. Then she sees a friend from highschool and her story becomes a lot more merry.

I liked Monica's character and related to her problems, but I would've liked for the book to be a little bit longer. I feel like everything was happening so fast that we just didn't know enough about Paige and I wanted to know more about her!

My favorite part was the end. I'm such a sucker for grandparent's in books! And him showing up in the carriage with Paige was so heartwarming.

Overall a really nice read and I recommend it to people who want to experience a bit of Christmas magic!

Quick little Christmas read. Monica is a relatable character, and I quite enjoyed her voice. And I think Paige deserves more story.

"Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Every December of my life has been spent baking, wrapping, and writing out cards. It's for hot cocoa, and ice skating, and sledding on the hill behind our apartment. Everything about the season fills me with joy, but now? Now it will equate to heartbreak."

"I just want to be home in my own bed and watch The Holiday on repeat." (Same, Monica, same.)

"Looks like Christmas is still happening, whether I want it to or not."

I also absolutely adore the description of the book shop. It sounds like the perfect destination for a Christmas-loving bibliophile. And an art gallery at Christmas time sounds just about like heaven.

Mostly, I just really wish this story was longer!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to review Monica Adams Skips Christmas! I loved this queer sapphic holiday romance. Such a perfect read for this time of year. I'll definitely be checking out Krista Harper's future works!

Thank you, NetGalley and Southside Mountain Press for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.
“Monica Adams Skips Christmas” by Krista Harper is a cute holiday novella but would have been better suited as a full novel. I enjoyed the tone and mood of the book - who doesn’t like a Christmas book read in front of a Christmas tree. However, there were too much going on without the supporting details and context to complete the premise. I would have liked more details about Monica’s heartbreak with Bryce and further development of her relationship with Paige. I also feel that the ending was rushed. Overall I enjoyed reading this book and gave it 2.5/3 stars.

I picked it up because 'tis the season, and I like me some seasonal LGBTQ+ romance. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot to like about this one, apart from representation.

Monica Adams comes home for Christmas break, only to be dumped by her long term boyfriend and ignored by her too busy family. Fortunately, her cute neighbour Paige is around to soften the blow.

This seems like it could have been something, had it been more fleshed out, but as it stands the characters were flat and there's not really a plot here. There's not much in the way of conflict to begin with, and what there is could easily have been resolved if people had taken two minutes to talk to each other. I know Monica and Paige are teenagers, but damn, just literally have a straight forward conversation, OK? It's not that hard.

And when the family does end up talking, things are resolved way too quickly. I was mostly bored, and don't feel like this story was ready for publication, to be perfectly honest.

Firstly, I want to thank NetGalley, Southside Mountain Press and Xpresso Book Tours for providing this E-ARC for me; I am most appreciative. Now, I really really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, it fell a little flat for me. Of course, there is not much time to delve into characterisation as it's a novella. However, I just didn’t feel much from the characters and felt most of them rather unlikeable. I think this has great promise with the different issues being touched on such as bi-phobia, feeling displaced as immigrants, a family member deteriorating with what seems to have Alzheimer's etc. However, I think perhaps it was too many things to try to cover in such a short space of time.

“But what if I don’t figure out what I want?”

Thank you Krista Harper, Southside Mountain Press, and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Nineteen-year-old engineering student Monica Adams is excited to be home in the Windy City for Christmas, even if she’s planning to tell her parents that she’s dropping out of college. But when her boyfriend unexpectedly dumps her, her elderly grandfather moves in, and her parents are too busy working to notice she’s home, Monica decides to skip the holidays this year. It isn’t until she begins spending time with her neighbor Paige that things take a turn towards the Yuletide glee. Paige Yoshida is an art student, local bookseller and self-proclaimed Christmas fanatic. She’s also lived upstairs from Monica since they were kids and may have had a secret crush on her during high school. As the countdown to Christmas continues, Monica and Paige find themselves unexpectedly spending time together. Will the two take a chance on love this holiday season, or will they ignore their building chemistry and keep things strictly platonic?

This book had so much potential to be a beautiful sapphic, grumpy/sunshine, holiday romance. The plot was there, but unfortunately the execution was not. I knew that this was going to be a shorter book (estimated reading time was 2 hours), but I didn’t realize that it was going to be a novella. Unfortunately, because there’s only 80 pages, there’s so much that is being crammed into the story and not enough time for the story to actually have a chance to develop. I wish we, the readers, would have had a chance to really see Monica and Paige falling for each other. This story was rushed and had enough potential to be a full length novel. With that in mind, I rated “Monica Adams Skips Christmas” 2 ⭐️’s.

so many plot lines resolved itself quickly that there wasn't enough to latch onto, but the nature of it is sweet.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very cute, cozy short story with a ton of Christmas vibes. I loved the bisexual rep from our main character Monica, and the relationship between her and Paige was very sweet and a little steamy. I wish this had been a full length book because everything felt a bit rushed and too simply wrapped up, but over all this was a lot of fun and definitely had some Christmas vibes I enjoyed.

I love a Sapphic romance, especially if it guarantees me a happy ending. With the promise of that happy ending, I did not expect to be absolutely heartbroken at the BEGINNING of the story. I honestly had to put it down and walk away because I could feel Monica's pain. Kudos to Krista Harper for being able to write like that.

I do wish it had been a full length novel because I don't feel that under 70 pages was enough time to explore these characters the way they deserved. I would have loved to see more of Monica's family dynamic. More of a slow burn with Paige.

The ending with her grandpa was so sweet that it almost made me cry. That was hands down my favorite part. I was very young, but my great grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's and dementia and I still remember some of her mental decline. I can only hope that she got a moment of pure joy like that before she passed.

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

Monica is having the worst Christmas when her boyfriend of 3 years breaks up with her and leaves her at the train station. It just keeps getting worse until an unexpected acquaintance turns up and makes her Christmas merry.

This was a cute novella, but maybe a tad too short for all the stuff going on. There was also a few inconsistencies that just didn’t sit well in the plot.

I think overall it would be a good story, but it needs to be longer, more fleshed out. Everything just happened too fast.