Book Review: "On Christmas Eve"

Before you say anything, yes. I know. Christmas was a month ago (almost to the day, in fact!), and yet I'm just now reviewing this one? ...Frankly, I expected it to be a super quick read, and normally, it would have been, but having to catch up on Etsy orders, it took me until just now to finish it. No judging.

Anyway, that aside, this past NaNoWriMo season I decided I might like to take a crack at writing some children's books sometime (no, it wasn't my NaNoWriMo project this year), but that it's been so long since I've read one, I've almost forgotten what children's literature looks like. So, I harkened back to one of my favorite old mainstays of children's lit: Ann M. Martin, author of the beloved Babysitters Club series (of which I used to read practically religiously, and may even give a re-read to in the not-so-distant future). Truth be told, I actually was unaware she'd written anything outside of the Babysitters Club series/franchise, so when I learned by chance that she's actually written quite a few other books, I was intrigued, and this particular book happened to be the first one I was able to track down.

It's hard to really give a proper synopsis of this book without giving the entire plot away, but in a nutshell, our main character, a little girl named Tess, has a best friend (Sarah) whose best friend's father is dying of cancer. As this story takes place back in the 1950s, children were not yet allowed to visit patients in the hospital, and as such, Sarah progressively begins spending more and more time with Tess's family, even as the holidays approach. She remains ever hopeful that her father will be home in time for Christmas, even though the odds of that happening become more and more bleak as time marches on. Tess does everything in her power to try and keep Sarah in good spirits, including making sure she's included in her own holiday festivities (which she normally is anyway -- these two have been joined at the hip practically since birth), and at one point, even plan out a Christmas 'concert' to put on in the parking lot of the hospital, right outside her father's window, singing all his favorite carols.

Sarah's father is allowed to come home for Christmas -- coming home from the hospital "for the last time." Tess remains optimistic that perhaps this means he's getting better, and that this is the end of his medical woes, but Sarah knows more than she's letting on. Still, ever the optimist, Tess this whole time has been devising her own secret plan to stay up on Christmas Eve so that she can meet Santa Claus, face to face. Initially she has her own motives for wanting to do so, but when the time comes, she has only one Christmas wish: for Sarah's dad to get well again.....but there's some things that even Santa can't fix.

This story brought back an old childhood myth I had long forgotten about: the story about how at midnight, on Christmas Eve, animals are able to speak. (I always did wonder if this was true, and if I had gotten around to reading this book a little bit sooner, I probably would've stayed up at midnight this past Christmas Eve to see if my dog could speak at midnight. No hurt in hoping, anyway. ;)) Even as an adult, just reading about that even in this story, I got ridiculously excited and swept up in the hope that maybe this myth just might be true. Forget about meeting Santa -- I'm way more all about the prospect of talking to pets!

Anyway, this story is definitely one of hope, on many levels, and is definitely one that any child who's ever lost a parent (or any other relative, for that matter) to cancer might be able to relate to in not only the loss itself, but in how it changes and affects your life afterwards, and forces you to grow up way too fast. This really hit home, and I commend Ann M. Martin for going there. But I ALSO commend her for including a point where Sarah begins to find joy and hope in her life once again, even in the face of loss. I rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars!

Book Review: "Lush"

While Natasha Friend's books may be aimed at a younger demographic, I couldn't resist the urge to pick this one up -- mostly to see how the disease of alcoholism, and in that of a parent, is portrayed. (Given it's an issue I've grown up around my whole life, and since I still live at home, it still applies.) I figured it would be approached in one of two ways: either in a charicaturistic fashion that would most likely leave me rolling my eyes, or making anyone who's an alcoholic out to be an absolute monster in a bid to scare people away from ever drinking. Instead, I found the story of a girl who's painfully real, and hits right at home. And this story doesn't just cover the father's drinking... It covers how the disease affects the entire family with his actions. The mother tries to drown herselfi n excuses and yoga; the baby brother is too young to know the difference one way or the other; and the main character, Sam, harbors much resentment for her father's drinking. (Understandably so... and in reading it, it made me feel a little better to know I'm not alone nor an awful person for having some anger towards my own father's behavior when he drinks. I imagine anyone who reads this who's living in a similar situation probably feels much the same way.) Then catastrophe hits -- I won't give away a spoiler here, because it's more or less one of the pinnacle points of the story -- and the father is sent off to rehab. And then we get the very realness of how the family is left to cope in his absence. In another twist, the main character unwittingly starts to walk in her dad's footsteps with drinking as well. (This is something not many stories of this calibre seem to touch on, and I'm kind of glad it did.) And the story's end is one that's up in the air.... it neither paints a rosy picture of 'Oh hey, rehab fixed everything and we have a perfect life now!' nor does it say 'Dad came home and started drinking again. The end.' It leaves you to come up with your own conclusions, which I think is a very real way of handling this, seeing as with alcoholism, it's very difficult to ever consider yourself fully cured, and relapses are often inevitable. But at least the ending gives way for hope, which is something that most people reading this book are in desperate need to cling to.

I'm rating this one a 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: "Knit The Season (A Friday Night Knitting Club Novel #3)"

Knit the Season is the final installment of the Friday Night Knitting Club trilogy by Kate Jacbons...and what a fine end to a series if ever I saw one. She gives our beloved characters a lovely send off.

As with many series finales, this book was writen to tie up loose ends. And that it does. Dakota is trying to find her footing in life as everything else around her seems to be changing in one way or another. As she's adjusting to all these shifts, she's still mourning the loss of her mother. As she prepares for this year's holiday season, it seems everybody has a story to share with her about her mother, all stories she'd never heard before, and all of which shed new light on what kind of person Georgia was. The little girl who thought she knew her mother better than anybody quickly finds out that there was quite about about the type of person her mother was that she didn't know about at all.

Given the twist endings of the first two books, I was on pins and needles (literally needles...I was knitting while reading the majority of this book) in tripidation of something bad happening at the end of this book. Especially with Gran slowing down, I kept fearing she might be the next Walker to go or something. I was relieved to not only find out she wasn't, but that there's no tragic twist ending on this book. Rather, the opposite.

Personally I love these books and wish this weren't the end of them, but who knows....maybe she'll write more of them someday! 5 out of 5 rating!