a cute enemies-to-lovers ya read! there wasn't much christmas (as the title implies) but it was still a quick, cute read.

Two teenagers from two rival families team up to save their local mall. I enjoyed the theme of hope and community that was present in this story. I also found both Chloe and Peter to be likeable characters and I became invested in their mission. It was a great holiday story but even more than that it was a great story of friendship and family! Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for an advanced copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own!

I adored The Christmas Clash by Suzanne Park. It’s a rivals-to-lovers book set against the backdrop of a mall’s food court being threatened with closure at Christmastime.

The nostalgia factor was high on this one for me, especially as it’s set in my hometown of Nashville. You can’t tell me Riverwood Mall wasn’t inspired in part by Rivergate Mall, where I spent way too much time as a teen!

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

2.5 stars rounded up

The Christmas Clash is a cute YA romantic comedy with a splash of holidays in it. The Kwon and Li families have had a 16 year long feud between their restaurants at the Riverwood Mall, and rivals Chloe and Peter now find themselves needing to work together to help save the mall from closing.

Chloe and Peter's relationship is typical enemies to lovers, and I enjoyed their banter. I did find Chloe slightly immature for a 16 year old.

The title and synopsis both suggest the book to be holiday themed, and to a certain extent it is, bur not as much as I was hoping. Both characters have Christmas themed jobs, but the actual holiday is glossed over. (Though we did get some fun Thanksgiving day scenes!)

I listened to this one on audio, and overall I did like it, but I enjoyed the narration during Peter's chapters more than Chloe's.

Chloe Kwon can't stand Peter Li. Their families don't get along either - their parents operate rival restaurants in the Riverwood Mall food court. It's all Chloe can do to avoid Peter, but when the mall is about to be sold and their parents receive eviction notices right before Christmas, Chloe and Peter realize that they need to join forces to try to save the mall. But just when it seems like they can put their differences aside and work together, Chloe and Peter discover that the Kwon and Li feud goes far deeper than either of them realize...

Despite the title having the word Christmas in it, I found this book to be lacking in Christmas content - the only really Christmassy aspect was Chloe's job as a photographer at the mall's Santa Land. I also found that the characters read a lot younger than they actually were. I enjoyed Chloe's POV and seeing her development throughout the story, but some of the events did feel quite repetitive and the pacing was a little off at times. I think this would be a great read for younger teens and brings some more diversity to the holiday rom-com genre.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC, which I received in exchange for an honest review.

A festive enemies to lovers YA holiday book! Featuring Romeo & Juliette vibes, this book is focused on the children of rival food court restaurants who just can't stand each other... until they start to swap dinners... and feelings...

Focused on saving their family businesses, Chloe and Peter can't stay away from each other once they realize their lives were a lot more similar than they thought.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fun YA holiday read!

Very traditional holiday romance novel about two people falling in love while their families have a bitter rivalry between restaurants. Can they overcome the family rivalry to be together.

This book was supposed to be a Christmas themed book but I really don't feel it portrayed Christmas enough. The plot also felt too over the top in some areas and I just didn't enjoy reading it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced reader copy.

Thank you to the publisher for my advanced copy! This was a cute holiday read - dueling mall quick service restaurants and the two main characters also had other mall jobs that were in forced close proximity to each other. I liked the developing friendship, sub plot, seeing how the two are linked and the mystery between the families. I do think the ending was a big of poof -magic, everything solved! A bit YA angsty for me but still enjoyable.

I love anything Suzanne Park and this was another hit for her. I really enjoyed the characters, the christmas/holiday theming and the plot.

The Christmas Clash is my second book by Suzanne Park. I love the idea of the two warring families with mall restaurants (all the food sounded delicious!), but I struggled to stay invested in the story. Unfortunately this one just wasn't for me.

I grew up during the Golden Age of malls - the 80s & 90s - and watched my own childhood mall slowly fade away into obscurity, now standing solely as an abandoned building, a relic of an era gone by. There has been a renewed interest in malls in media lately, and I am always excited to pick up a book or watch a show that features a shopping mall. There was something about meeting up with your friends, strolling through the mall for cute clothes, and hitting up the food court for a snack that you just can't get from online shopping.

Suzanne Park's The Christmas Clash combines malls with Christmas in a fun, yet punchy YA novel about two teens whose families run rival Asian restaurants in a mall that has seen better days. This book follows them in the months leading up to Christmas as they set aside their differences to save their local mall and their families' restaurants.

Just like the teens, Chloe and Peter, in this book, I have a love-hate relationship with this novel. Let's start with the good. The Christmas Clash features teenagers who respect their parents and do what they can to support and be a part of their families. Both Chloe and Peter are aspirational characters with hopes, dreams, and talents. However, I really picked up this book to read a Christmas novel, so I was disappointed to discover just how little of the holiday this book contained. Aside from Chloe's job as a Mall Santa photographer and Peter's job where he runs a holiday-themed virtual reality stand, there is very little mention of Christmas at all.

I read this novel at Christmas because I wanted to indulge in a book full of holiday cheer, but that is not the case with The Christmas Clash. Instead, this is a good, not great, contemporary YA romance with just a sprinkle of Christmas.

I loved this one. it was super cute for teens and young adults. I couldn't get enough. I loved our Macs and the plot. I love parks writing and I highly recommend.

The Christmas Clash is a great YA romance that came out in October. I finally got around to finishing it this weekend via audiobook - don’t be like me and put this one off! It’s charming and sweet. And the two narrators of the audiobook (Jay Lai and Jennifer Sun Bell) were particularly excellent!
Korean-American Chloe and Chinese-American Peter are classmates who don’t get along, from families that don’t get along. Chloe’s parents run a Korean restaurant at the local mall, while across the food court there is a Chinese restaurant run by Peter’s parents. Right before Christmas, the restaurants are notified the mall is being demolished in order to put up some condos. Chloe and Peter work together to understand the legal jargon and help try to save the mall. The dual POV chapters alternate between Chloe and Peter - such a fun way to experience an enemies to friends to lovers book! I loved witnessing Chloe’s growth, as she began to believe in herself as the book progressed. Thank you, Suzanne Park, for keeping Asian Americans front and center in your novels - we need more of those!
And, because of the mall setting, I’ve had the Robin Sparkles song “Let’s Go to the Mall” from How I Met Your Mother running through my head while reading!!
Thanks to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. This one is available now, and it’s not as holiday-y as I anticipated from the title, meaning you could read this at any time of the year.

First of all, thank you to Netgalley and the wonderful Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with an e-ARC copy of The Christmas Clash, in exchange for my honest review.

This end of year has been very chaotic and I'm only now getting to review it, but it's been out for two months now.

The Christmas Clash is a YA contemporary set around the holidays that follows Chloe and Peter, two Asian Americans - Korean and Chinese respectively - that work at their town's mall and who come from warring restaurant-owning families. Something happened in the past, and these two families just hate each other. Of course, Chloe and Peter will end up NOT hating each other. The mall is about to get shut down, and with it their respective families' American Dream, so the two teens team up to try and save it.

Chloe is creative, introverted, and socially anxious. Peter is laid back and social. Opposites attract, naturally. And their different skills lend themselves to working together on a plan to save the mall.

I really enjoyed the representation in this book, the look into two immigrant families, how they differ, and how they're alike. The characters and plot were cute, not too Christmassy but it definitely felt cheerful. Chloe's photography plays a role both in her character development and in the plot, a pleasant surprise to see for a YA character's hobby. I knocked off a star because this was sold more as an enemies to lovers, and it was more a my-family-hates-you-but-I-think-you're-cute to lovers.

Overall, if you read YA and like books set around the holidays, this one is a solid recmmendation.

This book didn't have a lot of Christmasy vibes but it was a cute one that took me back to my teenage years and my 'Sweet Dreams' series obsession! Gosh I loved every book I read in that series (which weren't a lot tbh)!

Reading this book was a nice reminder to those days which as an adult I do miss at times 💕.

My thanks to NetGalley, the publisher Sourcebooks Fire and the author for the e-Arc of the book.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨💫

This one hit a little too close to home because I used to work in mall management / commercial real estate — it’s a wild world out there and reading this book gave me a little PTSD. The romance was a bit predictable and tropey and I couldn’t vibe for the characters. Wasn’t too excited about this one unfortunately!

Chloe Kwon and Peter Li are high schoolers whose parents run restaurants in the local mall - Korean for the Kwons, and Chinese for the Lis. A long-standing feud between the parents filters down to Chloe and Peter, who honestly have no idea why their parents hate each other and forbid them to be friends. When the mall is slated for demolition, Chloe and Peter must work together to try and save the mall. Definitely a YA novel, but it was a fun read for me. The witty dialogue reminded me of the Stephanie Plum character in Janet Evanovich's books. I would give this a 3.5 in stars; quick, light read. Thanks to Netgalley for ARC of this book; all opinions are my own.

The Christmas Clash (TCC) is a cute YA enemies to friends to lovers romance about two kids from rival restaurants in the local mall. But when they find out the mall is due to be demolished they decide to work together to save it.

TCC was really cute! It reminded me of the contemporary YA books I read when I was a teen, when YA protagonists were allowed to be teenagers instead of masquerading as adults to please adult readers. Bring back real teen protagonists 2K23 👏🏻

TCC is told from two perspectives, and I enjoyed them both! Chloe Kwon is Korean-American, and struggles to fit into the image of the perfect daughter she thinks her parents want. Chloe really doubts herself sometimes, and it was lovely for her to find out her parents support her and love her just as she is.

Peter Li is Chinese-American, and much like Chloe, tries to be the perfect son. Peter wasn’t as centre stage as Chloe and I would have liked to see more interactions between him and his parents becuse meeting their expectations is something he mentioned a lot, but I still enjoyed his character.

The romance between the two was so sweet and I loved how they bantered like an old married couple 👌🏻

I also liked the easy to read writing style; it flowed nicely and I just fell into the story whenever I turned on my kindle to read it.

My one disappointment was that for a book called The CHRISTMAS Clash the entire book was set in November 🥹 The only chapters set in December were the last two. So it didn’t really feel like a Christmas book, which is what I wanted from it 🥲 I still did enjoy it overall though!

I loved everything about this book! It was so sweet and charming. Suzanne does a great job with dual POV of both Chloe and Peter. It's one of the best YA friends to lovers books that I've read.

I also love that Suzanne touched on real issues such as racism. As someone who grew up going to the mall a lot, I loved that it was the backdrop of this story.

The book was so fun and heartfelt. I cried at the end!

I will promptly be reading Suzanne’s back log and she’s an automatic buy for future books ❤️.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the arc in exchange for my honest opinion.