3 ⭐️

This one needs to be on your holiday TBR! + it has super cute Taylor swift references & inspired scenes that I just LOVED!

Tropes
- second chance romance
- closed door
- one bed
- small town
- time jumps

A little more childish/immature than I anticipated but, who doesn’t love a good Swiftie feeling read?!

I have to DNF this book and I’m really sorry but I can’t handle another Christmas book. December was a busy month. I find the beginning of the book a clichè like a lot of Christmas book. Sorry about it…

This book was adorable! The small-town and friends to lovers aspect was well written. Another thing I enjoyed was the dual timelines. I thought the Taylor Swift references were also a fun touch. Overall I really enjoyed it and thought it was a fun, light-hearted holiday read.

Any book that has a Taylor Swift reference as the title plus a one-of-us is famous trope is easily set up to be one of my favorite reads of the year and let me tell you this book did not disappoint!!! I absolutely LOVED Aspen and Roman and seeing their relationship unfold. My only hesitation and why I gave this book a 4 star rather than a 5 star is because it felt and read more like a YA book rather than an adult book and I am not the right market for YA.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Roman and Aspen are each other’s favorite cardigan, truly.

This was a cute novel with chapters of the past and present, painting us the story of Rome and Pen. They have an ever-lasting love that began in high school. But distance wasn’t doable when Aspen goes off to make it in LA.

While the love story was a cute one, I felt like there were too many plot lines to follow. There is the love story, the loss of friendships, a new friendship, decline in health of the parents, songwriting, LA drama, and a Christmas play. It felt like a lot of loose ends to tie up and I felt some of the paths the story took were unnecessary.

It was a quick and cute read!

This book was really fun!! I really enjoyed it and I would definitely read more from this author again!

I didn’t know anything about this book, it was definitely a Taylor Swift title/inspo download for me, lol! I also do love a dual timeline romance. And while I did enjoy it, I just didn’t totally fall in love with it. It had an interesting premise but the execution just fell a little short for me. If I like the sound of this author’s next books though, I would definitely give them another try!

'Tis the Damn Season was a good read. I enjoy celebrity romances and this one was cute. I was a little slow to get into it and there were times the plot was a little boring which is why I gave it 3 stars.

I loved the chapters going from the present to the past and the chapters being assigned a song was a great touch. I wish I saw more of Aspen and Romes relationship blossom and less about the Christmas musical and other side plots.

It had a cute ending and I liked the aspect of friendship and family and of course all of the Taylor Swift references!

I want to start this review by saying I know Kimi Freeman is a 16-year-old author. That in itself is hugely impressive. However, I was unfortunately not a fan of this book.

'Tis the Dams Season has a great premise. A Hollywood star in the midst of an undeserved scandal returns to her hometown for the holidays and reconnects with her high school boyfriend. They have remained friends throughout the years and are still in love with each other, but neither is willing to give up the life they lead to be with the other.

First of all, I wish the characters had been younger and this was marketed as a YA book. The whole thing felt very juvenile. There are flashback chapters to high school, but they acted like teenagers even when they were supposed to be well into their 20s. Considering the author's age, I think she wrote what she knew, which is why I don't understand her choice to age the characters.

The characters and relationships were all flat and the plot felt so contrived. I'd guess Freeman doesn't have enough life experience to convincingly write the story she chose to tell.

Overall, I would not recommend this book, but I would give something else by the author a try in a few years. She came up with a good premise and delivered a coherent plot at 16, so I think with some work on character arcs and depth and refining her writing style, she has potential.

A massive thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!! I really enjoyed this book; definitely something I will tell my friends about!

I quite enjoyed this book. The only downside is that it took me a while to get into it. I really had to push through the book to finish it. It just wasn't for me but I know plenty of people who would love this book.

The premise of this book was super appealing to me, but I was only able to get about 60 pages in before I was frustrated with the writing. This novel is marketed as an adult novel with adult characters, but the dialogue, inner thoughts, and writing style feels juvenile. I think this would succeed as a young adult novel, but as an adult romance, it feels extremely forced.

I am usually not much of a romance reader, but the titel and all The Taylor Swift references were too intriguing to NOT give it a try, and I had so high hopes!

… I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I have to agree with the other reviews saying that the writing is very juvenile and shallow, as is the characters. It gives off very YA vibes, which I don’t think is intentional.

Sadly, I was not able to finish this book. I have now tried several times, and I really wanted to like this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

I really wanted to like this book more than I actually did.

As a major Swiftie, the title was what drew me to it, on top of its friends-to-lovers, exes-to-lovers trope, which I love. However, I felt like the book was often just connecting some Taylor Swift songs in the form of a novel. Which is not a bad thing, if the characters were actually likable.

I didn't find Aspen to be likable or relatable at all. She constantly spoke about her passion for her career, but she actively tried to get away from it and didn't find anything good to say about it about 90% of the book.

The dialogue was impossibly cringy at times, especially when she was talking to her best friend, Leila, and sometimes to Roman, as well.

I also think better names would've worked with nicknames than Aspen and Roman.

The story between them was also unnecessarily dramatic, there was absolutely no reason for them not to work. They got together every time she came to town, there was no other female character involved, and Roman immediately jumped at the opportunity to go with her to the MET, sorry, Blitz Ball.

I later found out the author's age, and, kudos for that, it was really good for her age. However, it would've been better if she stuck with characters in high school instead of twenty-something-year-olds. Congrats on publishing a book so young, and maybe stick with YA for a while. It would truly offer a fresh, relatable voice.

Thank you to Netgalley and Parson Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3*

As a big Taylor Swift fan, I was immediately humming 'Tis the Damn Season upon seeing the title of this book. Finding out it was actually inspired by Taylor Swift lyrics and having these songs intertwine with the story, I was hooked. However, upon reading I got a bit disappointed. The book is marketed as New Adult, but for that I found the characters very immature and young in the way they handled things and mega dramatic. The same concept and small character developments would've worked better as YA and with characters a good 5-10 years younger than they were written. I do appreciate the concept though! Having a dedicated playlist with a song for each chapter, the jumping back & forth in time was also cleverly executed. I wanted to give this book 2 stars, but then I found out the author is only 16 (!!!) years old and most likely wrote this book when she was 15. For that, I can only have respect and appreciation. If for a next book you stay within your own age group, I can already see this getting much, much better.

Thanks to NetGalley and Parson Press for providing me with an ARC to read in return for an honest review.

This book stole my heart!!! I loved this cute holiday read and the couple really had me believing in their love story. It’s a cozy holiday romance and I just want to wrap myself up in this story forever. I also enjoyed all the little Taylor Swift Easter eggs! I tore through this book in one sitting!

If you have ever read a song fic before you understand the vibes of this book.
The book tells the full timeline of Apen and Roman's relationship. With the current Aspen visiting her hometown to escape the drama of her LA life and the duo in high school starting with their budding relationship. Every chapter starts by telling you the song that channels that chapter's energy and the fun of following along with the playlist kept me energized in the parts that felt slow to me. It is a beautiful debut novel and a fun cozy holiday romance.
As much as I did enjoy the format and story...the characters were not some of my favorites and a few of the plot points felt a little rushed/flat. The flashbacks felt like they had so much more life in them and for me were some of the more enjoyable parts. It is very much inspired by Taylor Swift's songs, but that was never a turn-off for me.
Thank you to both NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review

"we could call it even, you could call me babe for the weekend, tis the damn season"

I tried really hard to like this book I really did. But, for some reason, I just could not get hooked onto the storyline, the characters or anything about it. There were Taylor Swift references, which whilst I did appreciate, did feel a little forced. The book seems to drag after about 30% and that was the point from which I had to force myself to finish it and skim read the story.

However, the songs at the beginning of each chapter were cool to have and despite me not listening to the books playlist, they set the tone really well for the chapter. The book's title, Tis the Damn Season, does a very good job of encapsulating the story of the book in so few words; it stays true to the song, drawing inspiration from particular lyrics.

I did find it pretty cool that I could almost attribute Taylor's life events to the major and minor events in Penny's background story!!

I read this book purely due to the taylor swift reference in the title, and it was a cute holiday romance that did for very well with the song so I was not disappointed! Loved the characters and the premise