A Christmas to Remember

by Jenny Hale

• ISBN10: 1538753685
• ISBN13: 9781538753682
• Publish Date: 13 October 2020 (first published 10 October 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Forever
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[Emma (SCR)]

This review was originally posted on Star Crossed Reviews I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Thank you to Bookouture for accepting my request via Netgalley. I’ve read a few of Jenny’s books in the past and I just love her writing style.

This book follows Carrie as she takes her last nanny job, looking after the Fletcher children before growing up. Carrie has spent her younger years looking after other peoples children. All her school friends are married and have children of their own but Carrie doesn’t have any spare time.

As soon as Carrie arrives at the Fletcher house it’s clear that a lot of changes are needed. The children barely even interact with their father and what’s worse is that they have accepted it. Carrie faces much opposition from Adam who is busy running his company and doesn’t have the time to spare to get involved with the children.

Adam is not a mean or horrible man he just struggles to juggle his life. His company is in the middle of an expansion and he doesn’t trust anyone else to do it right so he is overseeing everything.

What I loved about this story is the way both Adam and Carrie change throughout the time that she is working for him.

This book is a heartfelt christmas read that will leave you with a case of the warm fuzzies. This is perfect for those long winter nights by the fire.

[Leah]

It pains me, but I am DNFing this at chapter 8. When Kim sent me over the book, I was so excited to dive in! I loved Jenny's first novel, and I had such high hopes for A Christmas To Remember, but I just couldn't click with Carrie.

Carrie is so judgemental - at the end of the day, when you've only been in a job for three days, you can't really be acting the way she acts. She's a nanny, she's supposed to be there for the kids, and instead she's hung up on Adam. If Adam didn't have a job that requires him 24/7 he wouldn't need a nanny, and it bugged me that she was willing to judge how much time he did or did not spend with his kids, after three days.

I also couldn't put up with the fact that Carrie is so down on herself. She has all these self-help books (a big no no, for me) and she spends the first 8 chapters continually comparing herself to others, and feeling worthless, and useless, and all that stuff. If we had been told it once, fine, but she keeps repeating the same stuff, again and again, and I just wanted to shake her and tell her to cop on to herself. If you want a life, you go make yourself a life, you don't complain about it constantly.

I wanted to like the novel, and there were times I could lose myself in the book early on, but then Carrie would complain that Adam had "upset" her by answering a phone call, or she would wonder if the person on the phone named Andy was a beautiful woman and I just didn't understand why she was so bothered by what Adam did. You've only known him a couple days, so how can you be so concerned over him? It just rubbed me up the wrong way, and I just sadly couldn't continue with the novel.

If Carrie had been a lot less judgemental, and a bit more confident, this novel would have kept me hooked. Instead, it just came across as a bit preachy and holier-than-thou.

I'm sure a lot of people will love the book, but it just didn't click with me for some reason. :(