The Holly Dates

A quick read if you're looking for a light-hearted semi-holiday romcom.

I like the setup of the grumpy restaurant owner being the female lead's dating coach, but the characters fell a bit flat for me and I think the story tried to do a bit much for the short page count.

My main gripe is that the main characters don't really feel like real people. The female lead is very naïve, the male lead I heard someone describe as 'women-writing-men', which I thought was a pretty accurate description, I'm not sure how to describe it better, but he just didn't feel like his own person, just there to be the 'perfect' rough-but-loving romantic interest. The main secondary character is the guy's younger 16 yo brother, who is the main person driving the two main characters together, but he often says things to his brother that would have felt more natural coming from a close (same-age) friend rather than his teenage brother.

Very light spoiler about the guy's background: I didn't like the cancer storyline, I just don't want to think about that while expecting to read a light romcom. I think I at least would have preferred knowing she survived it from the start.

(It's not super Christmas-y btw, most time is spend on dates in the couple months/weeks leading up to Christmas)