*I received a free ARC in exchange for an honest review*
*1.5 Stars*
Summary: This would’ve worked better as a cute, don’t-think-too-hard-about-it movie with great holiday vibes, but I didn’t enjoy it as a novel.
Overall, I can’t find much that I truly enjoyed about this book. It’s told in dual perspective — which I don’t think was really needed — and really got me in the Christmas mood, which is saying a lot because Halloween is around the corner. It’s hard to pinpoint the things that didn’t work for me without using examples, so I wish my Kindle notes and highlights were visible but the ARC isn't marked as a book in my Kindle Library, so they won't show up unfortunately.
Things I Liked:
- The Vibes: Like I keep saying, this book really threw me headfirst, ten feet deep into Christmas and the holiday spirit. There was a small town, northern-esque woods, the North Pole, and even a cozy inn/cafe/restaurant.
Things I Didn’t Like:
- Telling Not Showing: There was a lot of this… and I mean a lot. It was extremely apparent when it came to the side characters (more about that in the next point), but for example, Holly (the MC) would do something for Ash or the town or the festival etc, and it would be summarized in two sentences, without any description of what or how she did it. Like “I started working on the decorations. When I finished I closed up” — this isn’t a real quote but it pretty much summarizes how the story went. This was also the case with the characters and their emotions. We’re told they’re becoming friends or falling in love but we don’t actually see any of it, which not only made it hard to connect with the characters and the world, but it also made it hard to even care.
- Underdeveloped Side Characters: I swear, every single side character is either a blink and you miss it character who’s barely in the story, OR they’re a character you learn nothing about until they drop two sentences of backstory to “build them up” and yet… that’s it. This was most apparent with Sofia, as we don’t learn anything about her until late in the novel and even then her military background is never mentioned again nor is it even relevant to her character other than to add facts to her sheet. This is also apparent with everybody in Emerald Hollow (the town) that apparently forms a bond with Holly or some sort of connection. We never see any of it, we just hear about it! Especially with Enzo, who bonds with Holly because she can speak Italian magically (ugh, more about that below), but then we don’t even get to hear their conversation! It literally goes something like “we had a short conversation in Italian then he went to get our food” or something like that, and then we’re supposed to believe they formed a bond? Sure. The underdeveloped side characters don’t stop with the humans though — every single elf in the North Pole is literally just a decoration for the story. We know some of their names, their job title… and that’s it. That’s literally it. And apparently the epilogue seems to be setting up a random sequel with one of these elves who we know practically nothing about, other than the fact that he has a sister?? Also the fact that one of the groups of elves were called Keyblers… yeah. Also also, I still don’t know what differentiates the two types of elves, like not really. Maybe it went over my head, but it wasn’t explored at all past a single description at the beginning.
- Worldbuilding/Magic System: This part comes in three: 1: The fact that almost every Christmas story where Christmas magic is real and there’s a North Pole workshop and everything — still takes place in the real, human world for a majority of the story — I’m a bit tired of it. We got barely anything of the North Pole and the elves like I said before, they were just there for decoration, and we focused on a real human town. I just wanted to dive more into Holly’s world and we didn’t… at all. Which is weird because this version of the North Pole is unique and different from most others (they deliver dreams instead of gifts), yet we never get any explanation or in-depth description of said process or how their world works. That leads me to part 2: I still don’t feel like I understand the world that was created here or the magic system. There are no “rules” to anything, it all just happens because “magic” (more about that in point 3), and there’s even questions raised at the end at how the Christmas magic works when it comes to soulmates and choosing the next Claus and questions of free will VS destiny, but all of that is brought up at the end!! And doesn’t get answered!! Just some lazy excuse that “we don’t know and may never know” like… what? It was the basis for the whole plot, but we’re not going to explore it? Also, we were introduced to different abilities out of nowhere and they’re mastered out of nowhere and it just felt very… shallow (more about that later). This all brings me to point 3: Magic dependency. It honestly started to annoy me when Holly would depend on her magic to do everything. Everything. Like lighting a fire or decorating a fair. And here’s the thing — the magic is NEVER explained. What does it look like? How does it work? What does Holly look like when she’s doing the magic? None of these questions were answered and so it would be super confusing whenever she would just make something happen and we didn’t read about it happening at all. It also annoyed me that everyone is praising Holly and (apparently) falling in love with Holly’s “magical-ness” and her many skills when all of these things aren’t things she can actually do!! It’s just her magic!! She gets credit for being so cool and good at everything, when she has nothing to do with it!! I never use the term Mary-Sue, but OMG I think I met one in Holly. Also, the magic was just a lazy excuse imo to get Holly out of difficult situations or to get the author out of having to explain or write out something. For example, she needs to book a room, so apparently her magic “thinks” she should get one and somehow makes it that her room is free and no one asks any questions about it. All her meals are free because her “magic thinks she needs it” and all her hot cocoa is free because her “magic wants her to have it.” Random holes in her ear appear when a friend gives her earrings at the very end because… magic thought she needed them. Like… what? We couldn’t have an interesting segment of Holly learning how to do or experience human things (which is apparently what the whole book is about!!!) and struggle through them? Also, the ending with (SPOILER in italics bc if I add spoiler tags it removes the spoilers without giving the option to click on it, weird) Ash becoming a Claus through magic because the magic chose him and blah blah blah… is never explained, nor do they ever talk about how their living situation is going to work if he’s going to become Mr. Claus.
- Lack of Depth: Yeah, like I mentioned before, there wasn’t much depth to the side characters, but I felt the same about the MCs. They were all pretty surface level, and we didn’t get to explore who they really were. There’s also insta-attraction/idolization (which I hate when stories do this, making the love interest(s) seem holier than thou and almost magical and like they can do no wrong when you barely know them), plus insta-love at the end where the drop the L-Bomb and the classic “I’ve been wanting to do this since we met/the day I first saw you.” Like, sure, Jan. Plus, big character moments or reveals or heart to hearts are brought up and resolved so quickly. Also, small details throughout the story get changed or forgotten about or mixed up with others, which was a bit annoying. I kept asking myself — wait, did I read that wrong? No.
That being said, I wish I had enjoyed this book but left feeling disappointed. It was overall predictable and didn’t explore what it set up.