Title: Lovelight Farms (2021)
**This is actually a book, but it read just SO much like a Hallmark movie, I had to review it this way.
Actor(s) You Know:
n/a
Plot:
Stella owns a Christmas tree farm and has entered an influencer's contest to be featured on her channels...and win $100,000. The only problem is that she said on the entry form that she owns the farm with her boyfriend. Who doesn't exist. Naturally she had to ask her best friend Luka, whom she's in love with, to be her fake boyfriend.
Trope(s):
Royalty
Alternate reality
Small town ✔
Fake relationship ✔
Family business getting sold/going bankrupt ✔
Enemies-to-lovers
Best friends-to-lovers ✔
Second chance
Stranded
Meet Cute:
Ten years ago, Stella had recently lost her (single) mother. Leaving the hardware store in her little town on Maryland's Eastern Shore, she literally runs into Luka, who promptly invites her for grilled cheese. They've been best friends ever since, even though he lives in New York City. (His Italian mother is a teacher in the small town, so he has an excuse to be around a lot.)
Rundown:
Dead parents ✔
Montage(s)
Christmas-related name(s)
Animals ✔ (A very cute litter of kittens is found and adopted by one of the other employees)
Returns to hometown
Is Santa a character?
Secretly or overtly?
Cookie baking
Tree decorating ✔
Somebody hates Christmas
Christmas festival in a small town
A literal competition ✔
Child plays matchmaker
All work, no romance/life
Kiss before the end of the movie ✔
Interrupted kiss
Flashback to childhood
The leads literally run into each other ✔
Gratuitous shirtless scene
Big Secret
Wacky misunderstanding
Just. Talk. To. Each. Other. ✔
Someone pushing the leads together ✔ (The entire town)
Real family = chaos / bad families = cold and not chaotic ✔
Learns the meaning of Christmas
Stranded by snowstorm
Hot chocolate ✔
Ice skating ✔
D-list celebrity
Enemy-to-friend storyline
The love interest is an ex
Career change
Lying to each other
Tries to apologize, but keeps getting cut off
Christmas pageant
End with a flash-forward ✔
Did I actually like/root for the heroine? How do the lead(s) annoy me?
I found Stella incredibly frustrating. Her (married-to-another-woman) father left her mother before she was born, and Stella's mother was a nomad who then died when Stella was in her early 20s, so she has an understandable fear of abandonment. And I totally get her being afraid to admit her feelings to Luka. But she's one of those Rory Gilmore-esque characters where the entire small town is overly invested in her life, and isn't aware of it.
Is it in any way not completely generic?
Umm. I mean, at least Stella realized she was in love with Luka the whole time, even if actually doing anything about that was terrifying.
Is the BFF actually the best? Do they need their own movie?
This is the first in a series; there are books about the two other Lovelight Farms co-owners (which I'm kind of tempted by? At least the one about Beckett, the tree expert).
How is the romantic alternative wrong for the heroine?
n/a
Thoughts/Other Notes:
I enjoyed the book less the more I read it. I think the ultimate problem is that the fake relationship was done for this social media contest, and the influencer didn't show up until about 75% into the book...and then was barely there. There was a LOT of time where it's like, "Let's just fake date...in private, too" and where it's just incredibly obvious how Luka feels. Solid premise that needed tightening up.
Rating:
🧀🧀🧀
No comments:
Post a Comment