The Christmas Cupid

by Jennifer Joyce

[The Romantic Comedy Book Club]

This is the first time I have read anything by Jennifer Joyce and it was such a delight! When I I initially read the premise, I scrunched up my nose at the idea but figured “Hey, it’s a holiday romance - why not”.

The story was nothing like I expected!

The way Joyce approached Zoey’s mission to find six true love matches allowed her to deep dive into the true essence of every type of relationships - flings, lost loves, new loves (old and young, queer and straight), unrequited love, second chances, unhealthy relationships, marriages, etc.

What I love about the book: Two things come to mind when I think about this book. The first is the parallel perspective Joyce gives you as you read the story. We get a glimpse into Eloise’s relationship with Annie. How Annie treats her, how unhealthy it is, and no matter what, how Eloise is stuck in a cycle of lost hope, being strung along, and eventually heartbroken. Zoey sees this and worries about Eloise and can’t understand why she would subject herself to Annie, while at the same time, we see Zoey doing exactly that with Scott. Each time she utters sage advice, you find yourself screaming “Do you hear yourself right now?!” The other thing I really liked was that you don’t realize you are slowly falling in Friend-love with Zoey. She’s kind, she’s sweet, she’s is selfless and she truly cares about the people in her life. I didn’t know how much I cared about her character until she repeats what Scott said to her in the “Terrible Row” and I found myself saying (out loud) “Oh f*@& that guy!”

What I didn’t like about the book: The transition between Chapter 40 and Chapter 41 caught me off guard as it felt a little rough and incomplete. One minute she wants to say goodbye to her friend (Milo) who means the world to her. The next chapter she wants to wants to intertwine her fingers and kiss him. While I understand she was slowly starting to see him for the wonderful person he was, I felt like there was a “skip in the record", one transition sentence/paragraph that would have helped us as the reader understand what made it finally click for her. We get more as we read further into Chapter 41 but with that initially jump for Chapter 40 and 41, I went back and read the last page because I just couldn’t figure out how she went from one train of thought to the other.

What I’m indifferent about (but feel I should mention): While the story is engaging and enjoyable, it is predictable. I knew within the first dozen chapters that Scott was messing around with Kelsey, Milo liked Zoey, and Milo and Zoey were going to be couple number six after he saved her life. Even though those easy assumptions came into fruition, it didn’t take away from the story at all as you saw Zoey’s story the same way she saw everyone else’s. It was supposed to be obvious to us, the readers - that (I assume) was Joyce’s intent. Like watching a horror flick and telling them “Don’t go in there”, we could only be spectators to the disaster that was her relationship, holding onto hope that she would finally see what we saw and do what we knew we wanted her to do, dump Scott and be happy with Milo.

The best thing about the Christmas Cupid is that it isn’t some cheesy holiday romance that resembles a Hallmark Movie. It isn't filled with overly exciting, edge of your seat moments. The most concise way I can describe it is using the frog in the frying pain analogy. The story warms you up slowly and you don’t realize how captivated you are by it until you find that you can’t put it down and the moments you do, you are still thinking about it! The friendships, the relationships, the possibilities are what makes this book a must read!