Genre: Holiday

Holiday Review: Mistletoe

Posted December 15, 2014 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

This compilation has been on my TBR for a loooong time. The authors in this one are some that I read back in middle school/early high school and haven’t really heard from since. Regardless, I was excited to embark on these stories. I wish I could say that I was impressed, but I definitely wasn’t. Most of the stories were juvenile and superficial. They definitely were not “delectable tales of love and lust” or “juicy” or “steamy.” They were all really bland and I’m sad. I certainly rounded up in my rating because I tried not to let the one story’s DNF affect the other ratings. Working in a Winter Wonderland by Aimee Friedman I feel like I’m being generous with this rating, but I guess the story was pretty entertaining throughout. The main character, Maxine, is a Jewish girl who gets a Christmas-related job in a department store. Seems like a kind of weird way to start a Christmas anthology, no? A girl who doesn’t even celebrate Christmas? The main thing that bugged me about this story was how transparent it was. I predicted what was going to happen completely. That’s okay with me sometimes, but I didn’t get a lot from the characters or really even learn anything from the story. It felt rushed (even more so than short stories normally do). The love interest throughout the story, Heath, really rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of the story was wasted on him when he was a […]

Holiday Review: A Christmas to Remember

Posted December 12, 2014 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

I have a feeling my review for this book is going to be a jumbled mess of feels because that’s essentially what A Christmas to Remember gave me. There was one major thing that REALLY bugged me throughout the book, but the end result / everything else throughout the book was just so damn PERFECT that I have to give this a great rating and recommendation. Let me get out of the way quickly what bugged me about the book. The main character, Carrie, was an anxious mess. This was FINE. I’ve just never experienced a book where the MC is so incredibly self-conscious, anxious, nervous, and unsure of herself. People out there certainly have these thoughts, so it was definitely a different but realistic perspective for me. I also sensed that there would be some major character growth throughout the story as a result. She’s spent her whole life as a nanny, which she loves, but she’s put her social/romantic life on hold as a result. She spends the vast majority of the book weighing the pros and cons of EVERYTHING, changing her mind a million times, and contradicting herself a lot. She would say how she needed to stop nannying to move on with her life, then one chapter later she would say that she loved it too much to stop, and then she’d be back on planning to quit. There was constant back-and-forth in her head. It got annoying, but I think it just went along with […]

Holiday Review: Let It Snow

Posted December 8, 2014 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Let It Snow is a compilation of three interconnected stories. I’ll review them each separately, then include an overall rating and my thoughts! The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson I absolutely LOVED the main character of this story, Jubilee. She was funny and adorable. The writing style was very quirky and definitely made me LOL at times. I immediately looked for other books by Maureen Johnson as I was reading this one. The story was certainly very predictable, but I didn’t care. I also LOOOVED Stuart, our main boy. He was adorable, smart, and just seemed like an all-around great guy. I would totally read this as a full-length story just to get more of these characters! The ending was adorable but it definitely left me wanting more. I think it was a good ending , but I would seriously love to see more of these two and what happens next. I can’t think of really anything I disliked about this one. It’s almost hard to review because you would have to read it yourself to really get how fun and interesting Stuart and Jubilee were. A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle by John Green Oh John Green, you never cease to amaze me. A lot of reviewers seemed somewhat disappointed by this story, so I was a little nervous, but I ended up really enjoying it. It’s been a while since I’ve read John Green (I’ve read all of his books, but last read TFIOS the year it came out. Due for […]

Holiday Review: Ex-Mas

Posted December 5, 2014 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

I’ve had my eye on this book for a long time, considering how much I love Kate Brian. Up until this year, I never really considered reading holiday-themed books and just never picked this one up from the store. I’m glad I finally did! I sat down the day after Thanksgiving and read it in under two hours. Lila is a popular girl, dating her best friend’s older brother, and about to throw the party of the year while her parents are out of town. Her brother and his best friend decide that they need to venture to the North Pole to save Santa in light of global warming, and Lila is forced to travel with her ex-boyfriend (Beau, her brother’s friend’s brother) to get the boys back before her parents come home. I absolutely loved the road trip that they took. It was fun reading about their mini-adventures and mishaps along the way. The book was predictable, but still had some cute, unique parts. Kate Brian is one of my favorite authors, so I wasn’t surprised that she crafted a well-written holiday tale. There is somewhat of a love triangle, but it was well-done in the sense that you know who she’s going to end up with It was a great story of second chances, both romantically and family-wise. Lila was kind of annoying at first because you can tell that she really had to prove herself and change herself to become popular. I didn’t like that about her […]

Holiday Review: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares

Posted December 1, 2014 / Book Reviews / 12 Comments

Man guys. This book. I have a lot of feelings. I instantly loved it because of the setting – New York City! And more specifically, the Strand!!! This book is a book lover’s dream. It really helped that I finally made a journey to the Strand last month, so I was able to picture it really well. The book follows Dash and Lily as they communicate through a red notebook all around NYC. They inevitably have some interesting in-person meetups towards the end that were kind of funny too. The premise of the book was so, so great. We get to see the two of them travel around the city and come up with clever little scavenger hunts for each other. This book is perfect for people who haven’t been to NYC and want to go, or people who have been plenty of times and love it. I think this book is reminiscent of John Green’s work, in that it tries to ingest a lot of meaning and insightfulness into its pages. It felt like it was trying too hard. This could have been a cute, simple read, but it was a little too heavy in places it didn’t need to be. Some parts actually confused me, which should not happen during a contemporary YA romance. Dash: I think Dash is a really interesting, complex character. I’m honestly still kind of undecided on if I even like him. He was very bitter towards the holiday season, which is fine, […]