{"id":6053,"date":"2026-04-12T05:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2026-04-12T05:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:05:00","slug":"the-holiday-hate-off-by-angela-casella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6053","title":{"rendered":"The Holiday Hate-Off by Angela Casella"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Holiday Hate-Off<\/strong> by Angela Casella<\/a>
on November 4, 2025
Genres:<\/strong> Fiction \/ Romance \/ Holiday<\/a>
Pages:<\/strong> 412
Format:<\/strong> eBook<\/a>
Buy on Amazon<\/a>
Goodreads<\/a> <\/p>\n

Lucy<\/strong>. The only thing standing between me and an idyllic Christmas in Hideaway Harbor is Enzo Cafiero, the hot jerk whose family runs the Italian market next door to the coffee shop where I work. He hates me because I convinced his girlfriend to break up with him a few months ago. In my defense, his now-ex ran into the coffee shop sobbing. All I did was make her a latte and validate her feelings. He didn\u2019t even live here at the time\u2014they were just visiting\u2014but he\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0live here now. He ditched his cushy NYC consulting job so he could save his family business. I\u2019d admire his loyalty if he didn\u2019t seem determined to ruin my Christmas. Because within minutes of his return, we\u2019re trading barbs, destroying each other\u2019s holiday events (RIP Santa Speed Dating), and having price wars. I loathe him. And, unfortunately, I really want to push him under the mistletoe.<\/p>\n

Enzo<\/strong>. Hideaway Harbor is the last place I want to be. But family means everything to me, so I left the big city to help mine. Getting dragged into a full-on holiday feud with the girl next door wasn\u2019t part of the plan, but I\u2019m living for my hate-off with Lucy. The truth is, I\u2019d rather argue with her than get along with anyone else.<\/p>\n

The overall story was sweet, funny, and entertaining for the holidays. She covered all the best tropes, too. I love a good enemies to lovers. We needed more heated animosity.
I obviously have enough for them both, but their fighting didn\u2019t last nearly long enough. It ended up feeling like the longest book in the world.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t hate this book\u2026 but I also kind of wish I hadn\u2019t spent time reading it. I did finish it, so there\u2019s that. And to be fair, there were moments that made me smile and even giggle\u2014there are definitely some funny scenes sprinkled in. That said, the enemies-to-lovers trope just didn\u2019t feel earned. The reason for them being enemies felt so weak, yet they kept escalating and trying to one-up each other way past what made sense. After a while, it crossed from playful tension into just plain annoying. The last 25% really lost me. I fully skimmed it because everything had already been resolved emotionally\u2014they were happy, we knew how it would end, and it just dragged on without adding anything new. It felt like filler instead of payoff. Also, the spice was cringe and boring.<\/p>\n

I rated this book three stars. I didn\u2019t hate it, I finished it, and it had a few cute moments\u2014but I don\u2019t feel like it added anything to my reading life. Pretty forgettable once it was over.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The post The Holiday Hate-Off by Angela Casella<\/a> appeared first on Book Nook Buzz<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Holiday Hate-Off by Angela Casella on November 4, 2025 Genres: Fiction \/ Romance \/ Holiday Pages: 412 Format: eBook Buy on Amazon Goodreads Lucy. The only thing standing between me and an idyllic Christmas in Hideaway Harbor is Enzo Cafiero, the hot jerk whose family runs the Italian market next door to the coffee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}