Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle

The #1 New York Times bestseller is now a major Netflix film starring Kiernan Shipka, Shameik Moore, Odeya Rush and Isabela Moner.

It's Christmas Eve and the worst blizzard for fifty years has blanketed Gracetown. But as well as snowflakes, love is in the air - and appearing in the most unexpected ways . . .

Who'd have thought a freezing hike from a stranded train would end with a delicious kiss from a charming stranger? Or that a trip to the Waffle House through four feet of snow could lead to romance with an old friend? Or that the path to true love begins with a painfully early morning shift at Starbucks?

Touching, hilarious and filled with festive cheer, the magic of the holiday season shines on these three interconnected tales of love, romance and breathtaking kisses. The perfect book for a cold winter's night for any fan of The Fault in Their Stars, The Sun is Also a Star and Eleanor and Park.
_____

John Green is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down, The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns and, with David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Maureen Johnson is the bestselling author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Devilish, Girl at Sea, The Name of the Star and Suite Scarlett.

Lauren Myracle is the author of many books for teens, including Shine, Kissing Kate, Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks and The Winnie Years series.

• ISBN10: 0147515017
• ISBN13: 9780147515018
• Publish Date: 30 September 2014 (first published 1 October 2008)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: IN
• Imprint: Penguin Random House India
• Format: Paperback (US Tall Rack)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[readingwithbecs]

I'm sorry, but this was just too cringy for me. I listened to it on audio, otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished it. But with that said, I can see myself really enjoying this if I read it as a teenager. And I will be watching the movie adaptation, because I think the story will work better for me that way.

[thepunktheory]

Full book vs. movie review on my blog!

My expectations for the film were rather low. I was fully prepared for a super cheesy Christmas flick but it actually turned out to be rather decent!
Don't get me wrong, you get your share of typical Christmas stuff but it's not over the top. The casting was pretty good, we get for example Kiernan Shipka (aka Sabrina Spellman from Chilling Adventures). For some reason, Joan Cusack is also in this flick, playing a lady cover in aluminum foil. (What's up with that?!)
The thing I liked most, however, was the soundtrack. Although there are some inevitable Christmas songs thrown in the mix, we also get The Clash and The Rolling Stones. Maybe I am the last person on the planet who didn't know this song, but The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys is now on all of my playlists since hearing it on Let It Snow.

So, let's move on to the novel. *Sigh*
Where do I begin? Although I was curious about the book, I immediately had second thoughts when I saw that John Green was one of the authors.
You see, just like the film, the book consists of three different stories that are only very marginally related. Each story is written by a different author.
John Green's story was the second one but I need to get my thoughts on that out of the way. I read several of his works in the past and the more books of him I read the less I liked him (and the more I began to feel like has a problem with women). Maybe I am simply past the age where I would find his stuff cute or funny.
You see, this story confirmed my previous thoughts. He writes about the Duke who is a girl but acts like a boy in almost every regard which according to the teen boy who is the main character in the story is what makes her desirable. Girls are weird and irritating, stupid and not real persons so basically, the only women who are ok are the ones who are like men just in nicer packaging. Maybe I'm exaggerating here a little bit but that's simply what it felt like while reading. Couldn't stop rolling my eyes.
Back to the first story. This one is about a girl named Jubilee who spends a good portion of the time complaining that her name sounds like one for a stripper. Complaining generally seems like her main hobby. She's annoying and most likely her boyfriend is about to ditch her. I know we are supposed to feel sorry for her but, honestly, I'd dump her too.
Finally, we get a story about a self-absorbed bitch who is constantly whining and never thinks about anything other than herself.
The only thing I liked about this story is that it features a teacup piglet.

[moraa]

Short and captivating.

[readingwithwrin]

3 stars jubilee express
1.5 stars a cheertastic Christmas
3 stars the patron saint of pigs

Full review coming in December.

[Sam@WLABB]

This was super cute and very fun. I loved how we had three different stories all set at the same time, in the same storm. Maureen Johnson's story was my favorite -- she is very witty. The ending was really adorable. I loved how all three stories came together.

[girlinthepages]

I read a lot of reviews about this book prior to reading, as it was my first YA anthology purchase and YA holiday read and I was curious to see what others thought of it. I can assuredly say that my experience with this collection and all three stories in it was consistent with most of the reviews I'd read- it starts off strong and then ends on a less-than-impressive note.

Story #1- The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson

This was my favorite story by far. I cannot believe I hadn't read anything by Maureen Johnson prior to this. Her narrative voice was just so funny and distinct and on more than one occasion I literally burst into laughter (much to the alarm of my four cats), notably so on just the first page of her story:

“I realize Jubilee is a bit of a stripper name. You probably think I have heard the call of the pole.”

That sentence alone is what convinced me to purchase the book.

Johnson's tale had so many creative moments that set it apart from a typical holiday romance. It poked fun at the insane, consumer-based side of the holidays (The Flobie Five) and Jubilee was a delightful character to provide first person narration- did I mention how funny she is? (And in a sort of dry, unintentional way, which is the best). Her romance was my favorite of the bunch, set between two strangers, it's more of the very beginnings of a budding romance but it was believable and quirky, with Stuart's holiday obsessed mom adding just the right touch of adult presence in a YA story. I wanted a whole book with Jubilee narrating. Had this been a book by itself it would've easily merited a four star rating. But alas, then we had the next two.

Story #2- A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle by John Green

Right off the bat I will admit I was irritated by the title of this story. ("Cheertastic"...the made-up word just grates on me). I've only read TFIOS by John Green so I was on the fence with his writing to begin with. While his writing style is definitely unique, I actually found this story to be rather offensive. I haven't heard of anyone else who thinks this, and it's just my own opinion, but I felt that a lot of the humor and jokes made by the teenage boy characters in this story (which are all but one character) were in poor taste and quite sexist. It starts out with three friends trapped in a snowstorm, two of which are teenage boys lured out into the blizzard by the promise of a restaurant full of stranded cheerleaders. Their male fantasies are in overdrive throughout the duration of the story, and the term "Cheerleader Sex" is used more often than not. I appreciate that there was one female character who was The Voice of Reason and called her guy friends out on how sexist and rude they were being, pointing out that being a cheerleader doesn't make one a sexual object and they are under no obligation to hook up with or even pay attention to these boys just because they are stranded. But the whole thing was just really distasteful to read, in my personal opinion. The dialogue even goes so far as to compare a celebrity with the Waffle House restaurent chain, as her legs are "always open." Now, no matter your personal opinion about that young celebrity, I just about DNF'd the book right there because I'm not one to be OK with slut-shaming, especially young women whose lives are nobody's business but their own.

Aside from my rant I also felt that the story dragged on for waaaay too long (there's only so much trudging through a snow storm one can take) and despite John Green's talent as a writer and writing snappy dialogue, I was really disappointed by this story.

Story #3- The Patron Saint of Pigs by Lauren Myracle

What's a miracle is that I made it all the way through this story, because the main character was literally painful to read. She is perhaps the most self-absorbed girl ever to be written in literature, and while I get that the whole point of the story was for her to learn to be giving and humble and selfless that realization was so poorly achieved it lacked any real conviction. The main character also spends most of the time lamenting about her breakup *Spoiler Alert* which she caused (by cheating), only come to find out her boyfriend wasn't even going to break up with her (he's a forgiving soul), she's the one who melodramatically broke up with him...because she insisted they couldn't be together after how she wronged him...even though he wasn't even upset...ugh. It did not work for me at all.

Overall: This collection started out really strong but went downhill. I'm glad I read it because it exposed me to Maureen Johnson, but the other two stories I could've easily done without. It's a nice addition to my bookshelf, being holiday themed, but the only story I would reread again would be Johnson's.

[boghunden]

I absolutely adored the first story, it was so good! Just what I needed. The characters were really great, the writing was good and the storyline was just so sweet. Predictable, yes, but it is a christmassy book after all, so that's kind of the point (to me anyway). I haven't read anything by [a:Maureen Johnson|10317|Maureen Johnson|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1197703391p2/10317.jpg] before, but I'll be sure to check out her other works now. 4 stars.

The second story I found really dull. What was the point again? The writing was good, but that's about it. I just wasn't into this one. The characters were boring and I didn't care about the storyline. John Green sure has a thing for roadtrips. The 'roadtrip' was fine, but that's about it. 2 stars.

The third story, written by [a:Lauren Myracle|157676|Lauren Myracle|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1224298383p2/157676.jpg], was quite okay. I didn't really like the main character of this story, and the whole angel-thing was a bit weird, but overall, this story was just cute. The character development was pretty fast, but since the story just had a little over 100 pages, I think that's okay. I hadn't even heard about this author before, but I think I'll go check out what else she's written. Could be an interesting author to follow! 3 stars.

I really liked how all three stories were tied in each other. That was a very unique way to do this.

[Jo]

Disclaimer: Since writing my review, I have discovered that John Green is a problematic author - you can find more info here, here, and here. Because of this, I can no longer promote her books in good conscience. I'm leaving my review here as it is for the sake of transparency.

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

A friend of mine bought this for me last Christmas as she knew it was on my wishlist. I decided to save it to read until this festive period to help get me in the mood. Let It Snow is a really sweet book with three pretty cute stories, but I felt a little let down.

Let It Snow is a book of three interconnecting novellas. The first story, The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson, is the story of Jubilee, who, after her parents are taken to prison for being involved in a riot over buying rare Christmas village pieces, gets stuck on a train on her way to her Grandparents'. Jubilee is supposed to be spending Christmas Eve with her boyfriend, and is not happy at the change of plans, and is even more at a loss when a huge snow storm stops her train. Rather than spend all night on a freezing train, she decides to go to the nearby Waffle House, where she is followed from the by 14 cheerleaders and a boy called Jeb. At the Waffle House, she meets Stuart, who might just change her mood.

Next comes A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle from John Green. Tobin is spending Christmas Eve with his friends JP and the Duke watching Bond movies while his parents are stuck in another state, their flight delayed by a storm. Keun, their other friend, calls them up from work at the Waffle House, announcing that here are 14 hot cheerleaders in the restaurant, and he needs them to get to the restaurant with Twister ASAP, because his other two colleagues' friends do, because they're only allowing one more group of people in. It's then a race to get to the Waffle House through the snow and various other obstacles before anyone else does. Through their journey, Tobin realises there might be more to his friendship with the Duke than he thought.

Finally, there's The Patron Saint of Pigs. Addie has having a crap Christmas as she cheated on her boyfriend, Jeb, a week ago, and she's regretting her mistake hugely. Her friends think her problem is down to her being too self-absorbed, so she tries to prove that she's not by promising to pick up her friend Tegan's new Teacup Pig during a break at work the next day from the pet shop. Only things don't go according to plan, and while she's panicking about letting her friend down, she has a revelation.

I don't want to say too much more about the stories, because they are short and I don't want to spoil them. You can see they all interconnect from my summaries of the stories, but they interconnect a lot more. All the characters that live in the town know/know of each other, so there's some reference to almost everyone in each story. Each story, as I said, is really sweet! It's one big story, really, with everything coming together at the end, but with very different writing styles that somehow just work together. They don't see disjointed, despite feeling different. I've never read anything by Maureen Johnson or Lauren Myracle before, so it was great to get to try them and enjoy their stories.

However, what I felt let down by was the Christmas aspect. Johnson's story was set over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Green's over Christmas Eve into Christmas Morning, and Myracle's over Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Despite that, the stories had very little to do with Christmas. There was the snow, but you can have snow when it's not Christmas. Snow doesn't make things Christmassy. The stories could have been set any other time. Something other than snow could have stopped that train and caused traffic problems that led to these stories - like rain! So Jubilee's parents went to jail for something related to Christmas. But that's really the only Christmassy thing in these stories. There is no focus on a big meal, on opening presents, on spending time with family, on playing games, the things that are a major part of Christmas. There are aspects of this in The Jubilee Express, but for minor characters, and you don't get to see it happen, really. When I'm reading a Christmas book, I'm expecting Christmas stories, and these weren't really. There was nothing in these stories to get me in the mood for Christmas. So I felt quite let down by that.

Either way, still a really good book with three great stories! Just don't expect it to be too Christmassy.

Let It Snow is an anthology composed of three stories written by three different authors and revolves around three strangers whose lives are interwoven by a common thread during the Christmas period.

My favourite story in the anthology was The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson. As soon as the story started, Jubilee drew me in with her quirky character. Her funny outlook on life made me chuckle and she was so easy to connect with and relate to.

John Green also brought well-developed, unique characters into his story, A Cheertastic Christmas, and I loved the stunts and risks that were taken in a race to get to the Waffle House with a Twister board. The plot sounds funny and the story is hilarious.

My least favourite story was A Patron Saint of Pigs by Lauren Myracle. I wasn't able to connect with Addie as a character, nor was I able to connect with her and the relationships that she had created. I also felt that the last story was lacking the quirk and laughs that the previous two stories had.

But even although the plot of each story seems completely unrealistic, it doesn't matter, because Let It Snow succeeds in its purpose of creating a light-hearted, fluffy, fun Christmas holiday novel with a laughs, romance and characters who stand out.

[Joséphine]

Even though Let it Snow was published as a single book, it contains three stories told by each of the three authors. In that sense, it's more like three novellas but with a twist. They're not entirely stand-alone, even though they could be. One can in good conscience choose to read just one of these stories and forgo the other two but I wouldn't recommend it. I say, read all three, and be taken in by some Christmas magic! And why pick it up now that the 25th of December has passed? Take it from Mayzie (you'll meet her in The Patron Saint of Pigs):

"Oh, no, Christmas is never over, unless you want it to be… Christmas is a state of mind."

As a whole, I think the collaboration and arrangement worked well together. As much as these are separate stories, there are some overlaps between the characters, reminding readers that nothing happens in isolation. Whoever may be central to one story, might be peripheral to another. Yet every encounter can make a world of a difference, no matter how small.

Individually, each story had its charm. Though I must admit that I liked A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle by John Green the most. The Jubilee Express by Maureen Johnson closely followed suit. Then came The Patron Saint of Pigs by Lauren Myracle. The strength of Myracle's story really lay in the intertwining with the other two, where readers come to see how lives overlap, and how things inconsequential to one are of primary importance to another. On its own, I probably wouldn't have rated it as highly as the book itself.

Johnson's story had me going eh for a bit for its pace but her main character, Jubilee, injected a fair bit of a realist's response to some events which would've had an idealist swooning. See, I'm a realist, and as I discovered with my last romance novella, I'm not a fan of the genre and medium. So, Johnson made me like a plot I generally would've dismissed with Jubilee's self-awareness and also the humour that she injected.

Then there was Green's story. I liked the snark. It was measured and funny without detracting from the joy that surrounds Christmas. Plus, there was the Duke. Yes, the Duke is a girl after my own heart. And Tobin wastes no time explaining why his best friend is such a great person. This while outlining a highly amusing "cat and mouse tale" adapted specially for this holiday set in modern times.

Each story has its unique voice that brings humour and is sure to draw out the ooohs and awwws. No tear-jerkers, so they're safe to read in company. On the other hand, be prepared to suppress laughter if you don't want to draw unwanted attention to yourself.

This review is also available on dudettereads.com.