Book Review: Kiss the Girl by Melanie Jacobson

Rating: ☆☆☆
Audience: Contemporary Holiday Romance
Length: 277 pages
Author: Melanie Jacobson
Publisher: Four Petal Press
Release Date: November 3rd, 2021
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Not even the hottest teacher in town can convince Grace to date a small-town guy.

At 26, Grace Winters must her promising career on pause to run her dad’s hardware store. She can’t wait to leave Creekville again, and she’ll keep everyone at arm’s length until she’s out of there. That especially means the new high school coach…no matter how cute and charming he is.

Noah Redmond knows Creekville is just a detour for Grace, the funniest—and sexiest—woman he’s ever met. He even joins forces with her to defeat the matchmaking schemes of . . . well, just about everyone trying to get them together. But when he and Grace must also tackle building a Christmas booth for the town’s biggest event of the year, he sees his chance for escape from the friend zone.

When Grace agrees to a fake relationship to convince Noah’s boss he’s ready for a promotion, the plan works perfectly until they share an unplanned kiss that changes everything. With the lines between friendship and romance blurred, is their undeniable chemistry worth risking their friendship when their future is anything but certain?

NOT MY FAVORITE.

I really wanted to love this, and I thought I might, but many things held me back.

What I did like was the fake dating trope. Always a good one that guarantees some forced proximity moments I’m not mad about. There’s a lot of holiday spirit to go around here and those vibes were alive and well too.

I almost hated the way the male love interest, Noah, was written. I cringed multiple times at how he described Grace and would have DNF based off of that alone if I wasn’t finishing this for a buddy read. Noah had a few good, sweet moments, but holy cow, he needed a major rewrite.

Grace was cool! I liked that she worked as an engineer and was well versed in wood working and other hardware based activities. She’s a pretty well rounded character and I enjoyed her much more than Noah.

There’s sweet moments between the two and some good swoony kisses. I liked how things worked out in the end for them. The plot made things way too easy at times and random scenes truly felt like filler rather than part of the flow of the story. Not to mention, Grace’s Mom and Sister drove me up a wall. Another holiday let down for me.

Overall audience notes: