There's Something About Merry ARC Review
Well rom-pals™ I’m back again with another advance review! This is the first of three holiday ARCs I’ve received, and of course you know I have some feelings about it! Without further ado, I’m here to share my early review of Codi Hall’s holiday romance There’s Something About Merry.
As always, huge thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the ARC, thoughts below are my own.
After I got over my initial, oh my god it’s August and I’m reading a holiday romance, I was able to come back down to earth and really focus on what I was reading. This was released last year as an Audible Exclusive, and much like Cara Bastone’s Seat Mate is now getting a book version, huzzah!
I’ll get this one over with quickly: I didn’t love it. I wanted to, it really had all the parts I was sure to love: single dad, co-workers, cast of potentially wacky characters, small town vibes. But as a whole there were a few things that just felt off.
But before I rain on our proverbial holiday parade, what did I like? Jace (Clark’s son) was adorable, and stole most of the scenes he was. Daisy and Butch (a Great Pyrenees and Bloodhound respectively) are very fun and adorable dogs (I’m really grasping at straws here). Oh and Victoria (Merry’s mom) she seemed like a perfect mix of both Grace and Frankie (from one of my favourite Netflix show and my ideal style icons).
Things I struggled with, were plentiful. When we meet Merry she’s in a HUFF about not being taken seriously at her family tree farm. She wants to take over one day, but her dad (apparently) is resistant and has brought in Clark Griffin (which HAS to be a reference to Clark Griswold?!) to be the farm foreman. Merry is displeased, and we’re told that this is her passion and dream. She’s kind of resentful of Clark, but they are trying to make their professional relationship work.
She’s also getting over a relationship that’s gone badly, and is maybe ready to put herself out there. Clark is also working through the trauma of having a child when he was 20, being essentially abandoned by his own parents and brother, oh and his baby momma just up and left their newborn and vanished.
So right away I’m sitting here like, ok so Merry and Clark are going to need to figure out how to work together for her to realize her dream of taking over the tree farm and Clark is going to have to grapple with his abandonment issues and it will snow at the end with a perfectly timed engagement yada yada.
BUT WAIT, no we end up on the snakes and ladders of plot(s) and storylines, and reader when I tell you by the end of this book I was ready to hang up my stockings and call it a freaking day. We also get a little side bar you’ve got mail moment between Clark and Merry, which was a real cringeworthy Merry moment. Then there’s the abusive town drunk who is kicking puppies (I wish this was a metaphor), and the crocheted penises (which were referred to as Voodoo penises, which felt yucky and kind of disrespectful of the whole Voodoo being a practiced religion and all…), oh and the woman who abandoned Jace and Clark shows up, with strangle marks on her neck, announces her uncle sexually abused her as a child (and that’s why she did not want to have a son), and then asks Clark for what I can only assume is tens of thousands of dollars for her and DAUGHTER to escape to start a new life. But not before Clark has to gently remind Merry (after she’s like I DON’T UNDERSTAND PEOPLE WHO DISLIKE CHRISTMAS) that not everyone in the world follows Christianity and celebrates Christmas, and capitalism is bad. Good grief.
Oh and remember when Merry wanted to run the farm, Clark basically wraps that storyline up by just pulling her dad aside and being like “Merry wants this, she’s serious”, babe she’s been mocking up dongs wearing bowties, and organizing a holiday fair, does she really? Anyways. UGH.
This did not work for me, but it might work for you! There were definitely some “vibes” but not a lot of coherent plot, but also I guess there was some holiday warm-fuzzies and some oral sex in a woodwork shop so not all is lost. If you’re interested, grab your copy of There’s Something About Merry wherever you get your books when it drops in print form September 6th 2022.