Abandoned by Booklikes

Apparently I am 0 for 2 for Christmas romance reads this year. Geez. 

Well this was disappointing. I found book #1 a solid romance so I bought book #2. The second book in the series focuses on Laura's younger sister Becca. We have heard from Laura that Becca drinks, does drugs, and has all kinds of sex with totally wrong men, but loves her life. Becca goes and visits her sister and her family for the Christmas break to see how they are settling in and to meet her sister's new boyfriend. The big problem is that Becca hates Christmas. She also hates too much togetherness as well. We find out why Becca is this way, but honestly I wanted to tell her to grow the hell up so many times while reading I am not even getting into her backstory (which I totally called by the way).

Becca is not that interesting to follow in this book. We find out that she has been on a diet that does not include men, drinking, drugs, etc. since her sister fell apart two years ago after her husband died. That apparently means that Becca is not much fun at all these days. Though her sister still tries to set her up with someone, Becca is resistant, until she's not. Honestly, there was no real tension in this book. Reading about Becca constantly turning down the character of Sam was boring. Heck it gets even worse when they finally get together. I wish that we had Becca talking to her sister and even her mother in this one. She shares all of her secrets with Sam and another resident and it didn't feel real at all after what Johnson shows us of this character. 

The writing was eh. Due to Becca not being a central part to the story, she feels removed from other characters we heard about in book #1. I would have expected more of Becca playing and hanging out with her niece and nephew, or staying up all night talking to her sister. They all barely interact in this one. 

The flow wasn't great. The story felt rushed (it was only 209 pages) so the get together of the hero/heroine came way too early and didn't feel earned. 

The setting could have been perfect if the Christmas aspect had been played up more I think. Instead I found myself rushing to finish this thing.

The ending made me roll my eyes. No spoiler, but come on. It was totally obvious where this was going to go. Going to skip reading any more books in this series. I think I would just end up irritated.