Review: Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliot

Thank you Berkley Romance for my copy. All thoughts are my own.

As someone who loves Christmas and holiday reads, I always find it important to make sure I’m reading about holidays besides Christmas and the traditional western holidays. I was excited to come across this Hanukkah centered Romance and really enjoyed reading it. I did the audio and thought it was a great performance.

Synopsis:

“Snow is falling, holiday lights are twinkling, and Abby Cohen is pissed. For one thing, her most annoying customer, Seth, has been coming into her café every morning with his sunshiny attitude, determined to break down her carefully constructed emotional walls. And, as the only Jew on the tourism board of her Vermont town, Abby's been charged with planning their fledgling Hanukkah festival. Unfortunately, the local vendors don’t understand that the story of Hanukkah cannot be told with light-up plastic figures from the Nativity scene, even if the Three Wise Men wear yarmulkes.

Desperate for support, Abby puts out a call for help online and discovers she was wrong about being the only Jew within a hundred miles. There's one other: Seth.

As it turns out, Seth’s parents have been badgering him to bring a Nice Jewish Girlfriend home to New York City for Hanukkah, and if Abby can survive his incessant, irritatingly handsome smiles, he’ll introduce her to all the vendors she needs to make the festival a success. But over latkes, doughnuts, and winter adventures in Manhattan, Abby begins to realize that her fake boyfriend and his family might just be igniting a flame in her own guarded heart.” —NetGalley

What I Liked:

1. The Festive Nature—I love the holidays in New England and NYC, so I was excited to be immersed in both in this book!

2. The Characters—I really liked the characters. Abby is the grumpy and Seth is the sunshine. From other reviews, I’ve seen some readers not like just quite how grumpy Abby appeared in the book. I did the audio and wasn’t bothered by it, I could tell that she really went through something and was working through it.

3. The Theme of Community—While I celebrate Christmas, I really appreciated how deeply this book emphasized the importance of community. I think in today’s world, we need to lean on people who share similar values and lifestyles to us more than ever in order to stay sane.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

1. Wanted More of Abby’s Backstory—I wanted to dive a bit more into this. It felt like a shocking reveal rather than part of her character. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it was such a heavy part of her story, I thought it deserved more time.

Character Authenticity: 4/5 Spice Rating: 1/5 Overall Rating: 3.75/5

Content Warnings:

emotional abuse, religious bigotry, gaslighting, anti semitism