Never Fall for Your Enemy (especially not at Christmas) – A Book Review

I love Christmas books. Maybe it has something to do with my Grandma Carol always giving us Richard Paul Evan’s new Christmas book or my mom collecting Christmas children’s books. No matter the reason, I love Christmas books. Never Fall for Your Enemy was a great Christmas chick-lit. It was clean and had a good, swoon-worthy leading man. This tale takes place in England where our American heroine, Kennedy, works at British lifestyle magazine. She met our man, Charlie Cavendish, on a blind date a few months earlier where he said a few privileged and smug words that reminded her of a ex who had broken her heart. She ends the blind date not-so-cordially and vows to hate him forever. Well, a few months later, guess who ends up being her neighbor? This book was sweet and had a great protagonist. I give this book a 3.8/5. Keep scrolling for a more in depth rating and other thoughts!

Never Fall for Your Enemy (especially not at Christmas) by Kate O’Keefe: (paid link)

Review Criteria:

• Quality of work: 3.5/5
  • I loved the voice in this, but I did see quite a few typos that took me out of the story she was telling, hence the 3.5.
• Swoon factor: 3.5/5
  • The build up to the first kiss was so great. I loved Charlie as a character and all of his sweet actions. He was a good leading man.
• Hooking-ability: 3.5/5
  • As I started the book, I really enjoyed the first chapter. In the meat of the book, once I started reading it, I did not want to stop, but it took a little bit to start reading if that makes sense…
• Likability of characters: 4.5/5
  • Kennedy is very like-able and realistic as a main character. I loved her inner conversation with herself. Charlie was great as well, although I did prefer him in the first half to the second half. Her friends were very fun, but I wish there would have been more about them and their personalities. I feel like all I got was a personality synopsis at the beginning and I would’ve liked more. I loved the Ducks and their quirky matchmaking. I also thought the relationship with Lady M was so funny and out of the box.
• Realism: 4/5
  • This category is not about the realism of the idea, but the realistic-ness of how the author made it seem. Some books are about Christmas princes and it seems like it. Others pull out the real life and put it into a made-up scenario. For this particular book, even though the premise was a little out there, O’Keefe did a great job of making this a very plausible concept. However, their relationship started so so quickly. There was good development to get them there, I just don’t think the actual relationship was ready to progress as fast as they did.
• Final rating: 3.8/5
  • This was a great book that had a good storyline, especially the first half. I would recommend this book as a nice vacation book!

More thoughts:

I love books that are only first person from one perspective. It allows me to feel more connected to the character and not want to pull out my hair and scream “JUST TELL EACH OTHER HOW YOU FEEL”. I really did like Kennedy and her voice in this story.

I also feel like the first half of the book was stronger than the last. I am a huge fan of build up and character development and all that jazz. The first half of this book did that so well, then I felt like that progress went south after they kissed once. The last half just felt so rushed. I would rather read a long and well developed story than one with lots of sparks but no characters.

SPOILERS AHEAD!
I would read the book and then come back for my final thoughts 🙂 I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

1. I felt like the conflict was a little blown out of proportion, especially since I could see it coming from a mile away. I understand where both of the main characters were coming from, but I feel as though Kennedy blew it out of proportion, especially when the solution was to break a business contract. I think the solution to this problem was to have Charlie stand up to his dad for her, not tell Kennedy and break a contract. That part of this conflict was not very realistic for me as a reader.
2. There were quite a few spotty places, for example, when she visited her family. I wanted to see more nosy sister and mom. I would have loved to see a Kennedy/Hugo scene where she stands up for herself and realizes she doesn’t need anyone to tell her what she is worthy of.
3. The BUILDUP to that first kiss was great! I loved it:)

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