Breakaway Books

Authored by Juliana Smith; Published 2022; Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

The truth is, I don’t expect much from Christmas-themed rom-coms. They almost always follow a prescribed formula and contain exactly the expected tropes. Baggage Claim delivers what it should: cozy Christmas-y scenes and a grinch whose heart grows three sizes larger. It’s mostly heartwarming, and it will definitely put you in the holiday spirit.

Baggage Claim follows Olive Moore home to Aspen for Christmas from the notably un-Christmas-y Florida. She’s been avoiding precisely this trip home from years after a traumatic incident involving her sister and her ex-boyfriend… now brother-in-law. So of course, when she tells a little white lie about the boyfriend she is bringing, it makes sense. But where is Olive going to get a boyfriend?

I have one big gripe with this book. I don’t mind that it’s predictable, that I could see almost every event as it was coming. But it espouses the concept of love at first sight so strongly that I thought I might scream from frustration. More accurately, it seems to espouse the view that once you fall in love, there is no controlling your actions, and I simply cannot disagree more. This is the hill I will die on in romance.

As much as hormones may blur your thinking or change your decision making, they don’t take away your willpower or excuse you from human decency. Without revealing any more of the plot, I will say that the way this book dealt with these concepts made me a little nutty. But, if that’s what it takes to set up Olive as a Christmas-hating Colorado native who is trying to stay as far as spiritually possible from her home, okay. It sets her up for some fantastic banter with fake boyfriend Finn, who of course LOVES Christmas. There is skiing, hot chocolate, and Christmas lights. The fake boyfriend may become a real boyfriend. Olive grows through her insecurity to accept herself a little more (although I could have done with a little more of that aspect).

How eager are you to leave summer behind? If you are ready to leap straight to Christmas, Baggage Claim is the book for you.