Book Review: The Gift Rarely Given by Ambar Cordova

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Again, I ended up with a fake relationship book, and it’s not that I’m complaining, but for a romance trope I am very critical about, I really should be reading the blurb of a book before I start reading. But, I generally like to surprise myself, so here I am.

Before I get into this review properly, I don’t know if authors are aware, but I (and a lot of readers) absolutely love it when a book comes with an accompanying playlist.

I take the time to search out every song, listen to them, and feel the vibe. I can’t read while listening to music, so it’s more about finding new romantic and sweet songs to listen to.

As I said, it’s usually me finding new romantic songs, but I especially loved this book because I knew every single song in the accompanying playlist. It was unreal, it was unbelievable—it’s never happened this way before. I literally had the lyrics moving through my head while I was listening, and I’m telling you, it’s a totally different experience.

So from now on, I think what I’m going to do is, whenever I read a book with an accompanying playlist, I’ll go through the playlist and listen to all the songs first, so while I’m reading, the lyrics and the vibe of the songs can be moving around me. I never really realized how much this increases the sweet feeling while reading.

It is the holiday season, so this is a Christmas holiday romance book, and I don’t know about others, but there’s something about a Christmas holiday romance book that always makes it feel very warm, very friendly, and very cozy. So even if the very first chapter is slammed in the middle of a steamy scene, it will still feel wholesome.

So, our leads in this book, Livie and Alex, meet when she steals his parking space, and then she goes on a horrible date, ends up sleeping on a bench, and he leaves the restaurant where he also met with his friends. He watches her, and they have a one-night stand. She thinks this is the end of it, but then they meet the next day.

He’s a retired football player, while she works in a hospital, taking care of sick children with terminal illnesses. They both have a love-hate relationship with their careers. For him, it’s the fact that football is the big thing that shot him to fame and then dropped him like a hot potato. For her, it’s the fact that she has to leave every day knowing that a child she works with today might not be there tomorrow.

Somehow, they end up getting into a fake relationship for two reasons. The first reason is that she’s being pressured by her mother to bring a boyfriend home for Christmas (this is a Christmas book, in case you have forgotten), but she doesn’t have anyone to bring. The second reason is that he needs someone to tidy up his public image, and since she’s such a beloved person, he knows she can help.

And of course, they end up having to spend an disproportionate amount of time together in the 11 or 12 days it takes them to fall in love. It’s sweet, it’s romantic, it’s everything you’d expect in a holiday romance novel, and I love the fact that it’s very spicy as well.

If you’ve read my review of any other fake relationship book, one of the very first points I look at is the root of the fake relationship—why did they even have to start a fake relationship? I am more forgiving with novellas because I know they don’t have a lot of time to develop the storyline. In this book, I feel that the two primary reasons for the fake relationship were solid.

It is absolutely understandable that Livie would want to take someone home to make her mother leave her alone. On his end, I could understand why he wanted to tidy up his online image. But for this, I felt it was a little too simplistic. But again, I’m not judging because this is a novella, and there’s not a lot of room to build this up as much as one would probably want to.

Livie is quite short, and I love that she’s plus-size. I absolutely adore the fact that she has a personality twice her size and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Remember I mentioned that in the beginning, she was on a date with a guy her mom arranged for her, and the guy turned out to be an absolute loser. I love the fact that she didn’t simply swallow his insults; rather, she made sure to let him know, at every point in time, that his actions were totally unacceptable, then she walked out on him.

Alex, on the other hand, is simply trying to figure out what to do with his life next. An injury ended his career, and before that, even when he got to the pinnacle of his career, he had started leading a rather dangerous life. By dangerous, I mean attending parties, sleeping around, fighting, being rude to the paparazzi, and simply disappointing everyone in his life.

So when he got to the point that he looked around and realized he didn’t have a single person on his side, he decided to hide out in his hometown. While he was there, he decided to turn over a new leaf, but no one was opening doors for him. He realized he really needed to refresh his online image, and that’s an idea that came to him suddenly when he met our female lead.

Another thing I feel the author did absolutely well was incorporating social media lingo and a lot of 2020s zeitgeist terms in a way that felt very natural. It didn’t feel like she was trying to overcompensate.

For example, we had words like “cutesy” and references to All I Want for Christmas, and our female lead talking about how she is not more than a man when something happens. I absolutely love this with all my heart.

For many books I’ve read, it’s usually hard to strike that balance between placing your book in modern times with modern lingo and not making it feel cringy. But I feel that this book absolutely achieved that, and I loved every bit of it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a drama-free romantic novella with a book boyfriend who reads smut, is an all-around good guy, and has the pottiest mouth.