Monday 15 May 2017

Merry Christmas Eve

Author: Suzie Jay
Genre: ChickLit/Comedy/Romance
Book Rating: 8
Personal Rating: 9

This book was amazing, no stupendously amazing.  It started off well.  The setting was clearly given: women obsessed with Christmas trapped in an airport lusting after the hot guy who set of the detectors.  All the makings of greatness.  I was hooked right from the beginning.
The pace was good.  The sadness fell when it should and the sudden bursts of humour came at just the right moments.  I could clearly visualise what the characters looked like in my mind.  I laughed so hard reading this book I had to stop reading at some points.  Eve is hilarious and Grayson is pure hotness.  

For the most part, this book could do no wrong but it def loses a star based on conclusion jumping, popular in this genre for some ridiculous reason, that no sane person would make.

If a man is overtly flirting with you, says he's single and even lets his children become comfortable with you, assuming he's lying because he is wearing a ring is just nuts.  I knew immediately that she had to be dead (not a plot spoiler you know this before 30percent of the kindle read)  No player worth their weight in gold male or female would leave the ring on while trying to pick someone up.  That's a rooky move a man with two kids wouldn't make.  You don't cockblock yourself or contradict your lie with hard evidence.  Secondly, the children are both under five.  That age when kids routinely blurt out information they shouldn't.  They would most certainly give away the fact he is indeed married another good reason not to lie.  Children have no filter.

As if this wasn't enough when a man so adamantly against Christmas, is wearing a ring, says he's single, even before you know why there's clearly a connection.  The children blurt out Daddy all the time but never once mention mommy at such a young age.  Who wouldn't find this odd.  Especially when it was them who sold out rather innocently their father's distaste for Christmas.  All this to say when he mentions how he doesn't read to them cause that's their mother's job and it almost pains him to say it, it doesn't take a genius to see Christmas his ring and their mother are connected.  Throwing a tantrum at a man who already looks sad and depressed about something is in poor taste.  Any normal human could see there was more there.

And then at dinner, you get all bent out of shape when he accidentally says his wife.  Sigh...And again he's a liar.  With all the evidence especially in Grayson's obvious physical cues, it was impossible to buy that a woman of such intellegence couldn't connect the dots.  No one is that clueless and even if she was right what's wrong with enjoying the attention and flirtation deciding he is not the one and letting him be on his merry way when the flights arrive.  You're stranded might as well enjoy it.  There's no harm in enjoying one's self.  It was just too much for me to get on bord with.  thankfully it all happened fast compare to other books in this genre.  Thus diminishing it's effect and keeping the four-star rating intact.

Basically I just can't continue to go along with dumbing down the intellegence of women for the sake of this ever popular conclusion jumping plot device.  Women in the real world are far more intelligible and they deserve to be represented as such in the novels they all enjoy reading.

All that aside this author is hilarious.  And she managed to successfully do all the above and I still loved the book.  It's also not often in this genre that the man is single and the one with baggage and the woman is saving him.  That was a very nice touch.  And the turkey incident was pure gold.

I'd recommend this book a thousand times over.  It was perfectly executed, albeit predictable, outside of the overused plot device.  The setting probably saved this book.  Being stuck in an airport for the better half of the novel didn't allow the author to dwell on certain things and just get on with it thus sidestepping turning conclusion jumping into two-star disaster rating.  Definitely looking forward to more hilarious antics in the sequal, and of course Grayson's bulging triceps and abs designed by the gods.  I mean who wouldn't want more of that?  

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the awesome review, and thanks for saying I'm hilarious (can I get that in writing?)

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    Replies
    1. Hahah you're welcome and i only speak the truth ;-)

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