This is a good debut. The author is also only 16 so I tried to keep that in mind. I picked it up because the title is literally my fav Taylor Swift song. I have a few major complaints about this book though. 

1. the writing felt super juvenile at some parts. The author being 16 makes me understand this but the characters are supposed to be like 25 and they were so poorly written and acted so immature. 
2. The main characters were both so hot and cold that I never got to see how their characters are actually supposed to act. Like one minute they’re having the pettiest argument over something small and then they’re talking about how they’ve loved each other since they were 17. I never understood the character development between them or if there really ever was any because they were just so hot and cold that it wasn’t like there was growth. 
3. Every trope you can ever imagine is in this book. Like death of a military parent, death of an ill parent, miscommunication, sexual assault, miscommunication, toxic friendships, toxic relationships, gaslighting, panic attacks, cheating, second chance, pop star/normal guy, return to a hometown, bullying, and there’s even more. 
4. The sexual assault came out of no where. it was hinted at multiple times but then it came outta left field. 
5. There were no deeper feelings shown. Everything was surface level. When the assault came out I finally thought we would get some deeper feelings. I thought we would see her coping or the lasting effects of it but it continued to be surface level. 
6. There was so much going on the whole time. in the present there was the church show, social media scandals, hometown drama. in the past, is the beginning of a relationship, bullying, parties, parental illness. Not to mention the little things going through both sides. it was confusing and frustrating. there was just so many things going on it just stressed me out. 

I came into this with high hopes and was disappointed

Between the telling-not-showing writing, the word-for-word Taylor Swift lyrics in every other paragraph, the one-dimensional characters who supposedly had this fantastic chemistry, I just couldn’t. The concept was good, but the execution needed HEAVY editing to be worth reading. 

While I didn’t get to it, I read other reviews that mention the out-of-left-field sexual assault brought up further into the book. 

 3,75/4 ⭐️ 

TW: SA

Tropes:
-Second chance romance
-Small town
-Celebrity romance (she's a famous singer)
-Holiday romance

First of all, thank you NetGalley for the ARC.
I was very excited to read this book since it was inspired by the song " ‘tis the damn season" by Taylor Swift.
For a debut novel, it was pretty good. It was a quick read and I liked the double timeline past/present.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book; Aspen and Roman were cute even though I would've liked to know more about the beginning of their story. The dialogues were kinda cheesy sometimes, but they didn't ruin the writing or the story for me. 

✨ ¡Gracias a NetGalley y a Kimi Freeman por mandarme una copia avanzada de este libro a cambio de una crítica honesta!

✨Primero de todo, felicitar a la autora, ya que escribir y publicar un libro a los 16 años no tiene que ser nada fácil.

✨Ahora, tengo que reconocer que se nota que la pluma de la autora todavía es muy juvenil -acorde a su edad-, y que teniendo en cuenta que está escribiendo sobre personas al rededor de los 23-25, no me termina de cuadrar.

✨Además, el asunto de los flashbacks -un capítulo es en el presente y otro en el pasado, de manera que se cuentan dos historias simultáneamente-, no me termina de convencer, aunque eso es únicamente un gusto personal.

✨Trigger Warning que no aparece por ningún lado en el libro: la protagonista ha sido abusada sexualmente. Me parece que es un tema al que le hubiese venido bien un poco más de trabajo.

Se menciona a lo largo del libro que algo ha pasado con Keith y que no lo quiere recordar, y cuando se destapa en la entrevista del final, salvo llorar por la noche un rato y publicar una declaración escrita en la app de notas de su móvil, no tiene mayores repercusiones. Entendiendo que es un hecho muy traumático, tanto el abuso como el hecho de que se cuente en la entrevista, creo que no tiene el espacio necesario en el libro.

DNF // some spoilers!!


Untimely, I had to DNF this book. Which is disappointing because I was looking forward to this. I love the prompt of this being focused around TS and how every chapter has a song associated to it that isn't just a Taylor song. However, the writing the very choppy and hard to even push through the little bit that I did. The pacing was weird because the FMC discusses

how she's not friends with the MMC but instantly goes to act like they're in a relationship a sentence later. The FMC is also a song writer in this which I was totally cool with until the author tried to write song lyrics.

The whole of what I read gave off very wattpad 2014 writing. That is to say, the author has potential but needs significant improvement. And it makes sense because apparently she was 15 when she wrote it... LAST YEAR. 


Also, but after looking through the reviews to see if it's maybe just me I discovered that there's a SA scene but the author gave no trigger warning at the beginning of the book. Personally, I can handle a scene like such but I can imagine a lot of people would be triggered with such a sensitive subject.

Thank you to Netgalley for an arc copy of this book. 

My one complaint is that there are no trigger warnings for SA or Rape mentioned at the start of the book and while they are not triggers of mine I do know that it triggers people. 

Finding out the author is 16 years old makes perfect sense why the story was underdeveloped and lackluster. Second chance romance novels are filled with angst, pinning, and witty banters, the main ingredients were missing from the story. And since this is a rom-com, which was suppose to make me giggle and blush over the characters unfortunately it never happened. I didn't like any of the characters, i don't hate them or find them annoying. It's just they were flat, there wasn't anything interesting enough for me to hate or like about them (main and side included).

The dialogues were confusing, it didn't sound like characters were having a real conversation between each other. I mean they were inconsistent and childish, which made sense after knowing about the author.
 
The Ella vs Millie thing was juvenile and in my opinion Aspen was biased towards Ella from the start. The author didn't even try to hide this fact. 

The sudden introduction of many side characters, 10% into the book, had me losing interest. If it wasn't for the arc, I would have stopped reading.

Also one thing that ick me was how Roman called Aspen 'easy' and she just slide it away. GIRL HAVE SOME SELF RESPECT. 
This was my first reaction but then giving it a thought, it does align with Aspen's inexperience with dating and stuffs but still a girl gotta have some sort of self respect.

Overall, the book was underwhelming. The romance was dull, there wasn't spark between the couple. Neither during high school nor after the break ups. I started to skim through pages after the revelation of Parkinson's disease. Too much happening but not properly executed. However, I would applaud the author for the novel premises, its quite interesting. With some more practice and better guidance the author can do better than this.

I received an arc from netgalley. 

I love that the chapters made a playlist. 
The relationship set up was like kindergarten when one kid asked another kid they don't know to be best friends. And then they do.