The Wake-Up Call

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Manufacturer: Beth O’Leary
Brand: Contemporary Romance, RomCom
Brew: Paperback
Steeping Time: 354 pages
Tea Service: Authentic Books Subscription Box
Strength:

Synopsis: It’s the busiest season of the year, and Forest Manor Hotel is quite literally falling apart. So when Izzy and Lucas are given the same shift on the hotel’s front desk, they have no choice but to put their differences aside and see it through.

The hotel won’t stay afloat beyond Christmas without some sort of miracle. But when Izzy returns a guest’s lost wedding ring, the reward convinces management that this might be the way to fix everything. With four rings still sitting in the lost & found, the race is on for Izzy and Lucas to save their beloved hotel–and their jobs.

As their bitter rivalry turns into something much more complicated, Izzy and Lucas begin to wonder if there’s more at stake here than the hotel’s future. Can the two of them make it through the season with their hearts intact?

Sometimes a book worms its way into your life, whether you like it or not.

That’s how things went with The Wake-up Call. This summer, my husband and I traveled to South Korea to visit my brother, and then to Italy for my husband’s cousin’s wedding. During all of the fun, I forgot to skip my Authentic Books subscription for the month. With the cost of traveling for three weeks, we were trying to save money anywhere we could. But somewhere in the middle of it all, I got an email confirming my purchase. Oops.

If I decide to get the book for the month, it’s because it’s something that really sparks my interest. This subscription is fun in that you get to choose from three books every month, but if you don’t choose, you get any one of the three available. It’s a surprise. A toss up. There is always a romance novel. I never pick those. They just aren’t my genre of choice. After finding out I’d be getting a box, I took a look at the choices for the month, and truthfully, I was excited to get two out of three. The two that weren’t the romance novel. I crossed my fingers, and forgot about it.

When we got home, guess which book was in my box?

Now, maybe it’s because I’m petty. Maybe it’s because money was REALLY tight and I felt super guilty about forgetting to skip the subscription. But I decided to read The Wake-up Call anyway. I paid for it. I might as well read it. And, as is usually the case with rom-com novels, I rather enjoyed it.

I always do this. I always assume I’m going to be bored. But I love romantic comedy films, so I don’t know why I think I won’t like a book version. The Wake-up Call was fun and lighthearted with just enough sadness mixed in to really tug at the heartstrings. Izzy and Lucas are easy characters to root for (most of the time), and watching their relationship evolve was easy to enjoy. The POV switches between the two every chapter, so we get plenty of insight from both characters throughout the book.

As much as I love this type of setup, I had trouble keeping track of whose chapter it was.

I’d get through a half a page, sometimes two pages, and have to go back and check to see who the narrator was. Their voices were similar enough that it wasn’t always clear.

My biggest complaint, and the reason that I didn’t give The Wake-up Call five cuppas, is that things do get pretty repetitive. It was a bit annoying that the entire plot of the book could have been solved if the main characters had a simple, adult conversation. I spent a lot of time yelling at them to ‘just talk to each other already!’ Yes, I know this is part of the fun of these kinds of stories, but after a while, I was more irritated than entertained.

I related more to Lucas than I did to Izzy, so that might have been part of why I didn’t enjoy their fighting as much. Izzy has every right to be angry, and I understand why she is, but I feel so bad for Lucas, which makes it harder for me to like Izzy and see her side of things. There were times that I thought I might DNF The Wake-up Call because of this, but just like Izzy and Lucas are drawn to each other even though they drive each other nuts, I’d pick this book back up a few minutes after putting it down for the exact same reason. I just couldn’t get enough of them. And dammit, I wanted my happy ending!

The plot was highly predictable, which isn’t always a bad thing.

I’m notoriously horrible at guessing plots. I adore mystery novels, and 99% of the time, I have no idea how they’re going to end. That wasn’t the case with The Wake-up Call. From the start, it was easy to see where the story was going, and for once, I guessed almost everything. There was one moment in particular that did actually make me gasp out loud (I won’t spoil it for you), and that was really well enjoyed since everything else had been pretty obvious up until that point. The predictability does not affect my rating in any way. Instead, I think it works well for this sort of cozy rom-com genre. It’s easy and fun, which is the entire point.

And it did leave me crying all of the happy tears, which is exactly what I want out of a rom-com.

I won’t spoil anything (spoilers are one of my biggest pet peeves) but the ending was absolutely chef’s kiss. It delivered perfectly, and seeing as how I finished The Wake-up Call on Christmas day, it couldn’t have been better timing. I cried A LOT. My face hurt from smiling so much. It was absolutely wonderful.

If you are looking for a holiday-centered feel-good read, go pick up The Wake-up Call. It ticked all of my boxes for a rom-com, and I’m happy the universe decided to send me this book instead of the other options.

Have you read The Wake-up Call? Leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it! Want to read it for yourself? Click here to get a copy of your own.
Cheers,
Lydia