seriously romantic: maybe this christmas by jennifer snow

the funny thing about asher and emma's story in maybe this christmas is that when the book starts they're in the middle of a relationship. maybe they aren't calling it that. but when you are exclusively seeing the most important person in your life other than your family, that's what it is.

emma spends a lot of time doubting asher's love for her. and maybe at first he doesn't label it. and maybe he pushes their relationship into a more "real" place due to jealousy. but i always felt like asher was being honest about his feelings, and it was hard to understand why emma had such serious doubts. just like i had a hard time understanding why she refused to hear him out after their confrontation on the mountain. i hate when characters shut each other out like that. you can't have a relationship without communication. emma is hurt and upset, but ignoring asher doesn't actually make it better. it's not until he forces her to listen that she can actually heal.

i really liked asher. i think that maybe the pain pill subplot wasn't properly fleshed out, because one second he's trying to score pills and the next he's flushed them down the toilet and he suffers no repercussions from it. i think there was something there that needed more time and space to really pay off. it also felt like everyone around him was just another voice criticizing his every move: his brothers, his sister, his future sisters-in-law, emma's sister, even emma herself. and i just never felt like he was entirely in the wrong. we were in his head and he was honest and knew what his failings were, and it felt like these were amplified by the other characters in ways that weren't entirely fair.

i don't think he was wrong about emma entirely. i think that her feelings about leaving snowboarding weren't entirely settled. i think he was right in saying that it didn't have to be all or nothing. i think emma's sister jess is possibly the most toxic character i've ever met. the dinner party scene nearly rendered her irredeemable. the subplot with the university of florida kind of ends up nowhere. is emma actually going to go? creepy sean was making it seem super unlikely.

here's the thing, at the end of the book, emma and asher are finally together the way they both have wanted to be since the opening pages of the book. the only difference is the fact that asher declared on national television that he loves her. i liked emma and asher. i was rooting for them. i really, really enjoyed reading their story. but for some reason, the more i think about it, their story felt a bit jam-packed with a whole lot of nothing. i think this is partly because things didn't go deep enough. my favorite book in this series was the novella, maybe this summer, and that's because it was the one that went the deepest emotionally. which is fascinating considering that it was a short format read.

**maybe this christmas will publish on september 26, 2017. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/grand central publishing (forever) in exchange for my honest review.