Mr. Jingle Bells

by Leta Blake

[lessthelonely]

3/5 stars.

You wanna know something I had never done before reading this book? Reading a holiday romance. I mean, it seems like that kind of thing that you should always do, and I do remember specifically reading Let it Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and a third author I don't remember the name of, but teen books don't count. If anything, that book was just to maybe show me that I'm not that big on seasonal-type stories? I guess I can say this was an exception since I did enjoy it, but I'm usually all in for most stories, no matter if they feature Halloween, Christmas, or whatever. Hell, the original draft of my first book has a specific chapter that is written to be a sort of Halloween special - it's not filler though if you're interested.

Mr. Jingle Bells is one of those books that has a lot of things which people like me call... a choice. Yeah, that kind of choice that makes me go: There are choices, but that was a choice. I feel like I'm getting a little bit tired of this sort of romance, specifically that romance that is pandering to the reader - this means that if you like the main couple, then you're in for a pleasant read. I can't, however, hold this against this book. I was the one who chose to read a lot of romance books that seem to hit the same story beats, very romcom-y. Which I mean, that's what romance is all about for many people I'm sure, but I think I need to read something entirely different otherwise I'll be handing out negative reviews and stop having fun.

Let's talk, however, about the choices this book makes. I think that you can make a romance happen between any two characters - within moral reason, alright? No creepiness allowed. -, and this book goes for a well-known pair: the fun and easygoing, very popular one and then the strict, apparently boring and always serious one. This is OK - I can't complain about this, what I can complain about is that there's this big deal about the easygoing one also being quite "feminine". The book does seem to have a little bit of self-awareness that Ashton (that's the character's name) is just stereotypically feminine, you know... Like the gay best friend in every TV show that was airing when gay representation started being made. But then the book tries to hammer down just how feminine Ashton is by mentioning his makeup and the way he dresses only to drop it almost entirely when the romance is already underway. And it's quite jarring to see something that is quite literally brought up a million times, in the beginning, get completely forgotten. 

The problem here is really that when you go this hard on the sticks with "oh this is a very big character trait", I was expecting it to go a little bit further than just a couple mentions here and there. This book has this thing where it makes the characters worry about a very negative outcome but then it turns out there really isn't a negative outcome? The worst thing is about Ashton being brought to Walker's (the other protagonist) Christmas family gathering and meeting his father. And even that is completely fine.

Then there's the problem with the tone/mood problem I think this book has: this book deals with heavy subjects. I'm talking addiction, drug use, trauma reactions, and PTSD. Nothing like that for a great holiday time, huh? Anyways, all of these are injected into the characters' backstories (I'm not going to spoil it further), but these are almost a bit used as plot devices. Whenever something bad needs to happen, it does, and it's incredibly weird to see a lot of "worst-case scenario" things happen for the sake of giving the characters something to deal with when then, moments that could've been easily juiced for drama (like Ashton meeting Walker's father, for example) just go by smoothly and with almost no hiccups. It feels disproportionate: minor things that could've been made just a tad worse to maybe balance out very happy happenings related to the heaviest subject matters are instead played as down as possible to have the heaviest subject matters follow a Murphy's Law flowchart that's just a cycle.

Another thing I don't get is why authors love the 3rd Act break-up so much. Because it's very rarely good and even when it is, for me that means it's bearable, not that it's needed. This book has one, and I know that is kind of a spoiler but it also isn't. I hate that it has one but I did like how it went about it: most books do a 3rd Act break-up swiftly and without much setup - either a dumb argument or something of the sort -, but this book makes the 3rd Act break-up a result of a character's actions, which is something so simple yet this is probably the first book I see do this. Authors... Do this. However, even if it makes sense and there is a lot of foreshadowing for it - you literally can't miss it and I honestly think that's a good thing, hot take, I know -, this break-up looks as if the author was afraid the romance would read as insta-love.

The romance happens a bit fast in this book if you look at it too closely, but it's nothing unheard of or that couldn't happen. This book doesn't have a whimsical setup that makes a lot of what you could call "relationship checkpoints" happen. It really felt natural and I didn't feel like it was insta-lovey at all, but then on the 3rd Act break-up, the characters start talking that they were going too fast and I was like... What do you mean? You can only go as fast as both of you want to go, so I don't understand why that is supposedly the reason for y'all to drag this break-up out.

Outside of this, it was enjoyable. There was also a very jarring change in Walker when the romance started - he started dropping Baby like it was nothing? -, but that's the extent of my gripes with this book. I did enjoy the romance and the characters, for the most part, but I don't think there is anything that I'll be thinking about after posting this review, so...

Yeah, it's a coin-flip.