“Wrapped Up in You” by Talia Hibbert, narr. by Selina Scott-Bennin & Philip Batley

This novella was very popular this past Christmas. Since I was in the mood for romance novels at the time, I added it to my TBR. But I didn’t get to it until this January. I picked it up shortly after completing Hibbert’s Get a Life, Chloe Brown. That story was entertaining and made me want to try more of Hibbert’s work.

I borrowed the audiobook of Wrapped Up in You from the library. Unfortunately, despite the many claims of how good this story is, it didn’t work for me and effectively threw me out of my romance mood.

Genre

Contemporary; Romance

Series

n/a

Pubbed

2020

Goodreads summary

William Reid is nothing special, except for his billion-dollar acting career and his, you know, face. (Apparently, it’s a good one.) Winning ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ was nice, but this Christmas, he has more important goals in mind… like finally winning over his best friend’s little sister, the super-smart and kinda-scary Abbie Farrell.

When a blizzard leaves Will and Abbie alone at Grandma Farrell’s house (if bunking with 27 pets counts as ‘alone’), it’s the perfect opportunity to pull off a Christmas miracle. Convincing clever, frosty Abbie to give Will a chance will take more than mistletoe, but hiding his lifelong crush on her is no longer an option. (Goodreads)

My thoughts

Wrapped Up in You is a contemporary romance novella set around Christmas. Will is a movie star returning home to the U.K. to spend the Christmas holiday with close family friends. He plans to make a grand gesture to his childhood friend, Abbie, to finally let her know how he has felt about her over the years. Of course, nothing goes according to his plans. Meanwhile, Abbie has always had feelings for Will, but she’s still healing from an abusive marriage and is afraid to act on them.

I went into this with an open mind thinking that I’d like it even more than I did Get a Life, Chloe Brown. I liked the setup, and I thought it was sweet how Will overthought expressing to Abbie his feelings. But the more the story went on, the more uninterested I became.

I thought the characters were too stuck in their heads, or that the story focused too much on their thoughts. Basically, we the readers were so stuck in the characters’ heads that the plot seemed to progress very slowly. I was bored the entire time I listened to it and even fell asleep on it once. I just didn’t care for any of the characters.

Also, since this is a Christmas romance novel, I was expecting it to be light and uplifting, but it wasn’t. Both Will and Abbie are dealing with major issues. I don’t see this as a problem at all, but because of how short the novella is, the majority of story is about the characters focusing on their issues so it’s like 90% heavy moments and anxiety and then some quick lighter moments toward the end, which wasn’t enough to balance it out. Instead, I felt drained. I think the story needed to be longer, like novel length, to really balance it out.

I listened to the audiobook, unfortunately, and wished I’d read the e-book instead. I’m sure the narrators did their best, but umm… they didn’t work for me and sometimes I ended up focusing more on their voices than the story because I wasn’t feeling how they were narrating it.

Overall: ★★☆☆☆

I didn’t like it.

Buy | Borrow | Bypass

It didn’t work for me but because SO many people loved it, I don’t want to say Bypass because it could just be a “me” thing. I say Borrow it but go with the e-book instead and don’t expect it to be a light Christmas rom-com.

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