The Stats
📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚
BOOK: Twelve Days of Christmas
AUTHOR: Debbie Macomber @debbiemacomber
Publisher: Ballantine Books #BallantineBooks
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐
Published: October 4, 2016
The Review
The Title/Cover Draw:
- I ended up getting this book because I needed it for a challenge in my book club. I have only read like one Debbie Macomber novel before, and she is no one I normally reach for.
What I liked:
- It had really strong seasonal vibes. It actually inspired me to do a gifting project (which you can enter right now on my IG).
What I didn’t like:
- Sometimes it jumps between characters rapidly. Also there are a lot of the same feelings being described between Julia and her blog posts that seemed redundant.
What kept me reading:
- It was just fast and cute. I think I just really wanted to keep with the cozy vibes.
The Characters:
- Julia and Cain, the main characters change drastically, sometimes almost too abruptly. Cain is a jerk, like plain and simple. And while they do explain why, it doesn’t TOTALLY explain why he has the right to be a mega meanie to everyone he meets. Alternatively, his grandfather Bernie was one of my fav characters.
The Ending:
- Happy and Bright.
Consider if you like:
- Romance novels for the season.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Small Summary:
Friendly and bubbly, Julia Padden likes nearly everyone, but her standoffish neighbor, Cain Maddox, presents a particular challenge. No matter how hard she’s tried to be nice, Cain rudely rebuffs her at every turn, preferring to keep to himself. But when Julia catches Cain stealing her newspaper from the lobby of their apartment building, that’s the last straw. She’s going to break through Cain’s Scrooge-like exterior the only way she knows how: by killing him with kindness.
To track her progress, Julia starts a blog called The Twelve Days of Christmas. Her first attempts to humanize Cain are far from successful. Julia brings him homemade Christmas treats and the disagreeable grinch won’t even accept them. Meanwhile, Julie’s blog becomes an online sensation, as an astonishing number of people start following her adventures. Julia continues to find ways to express kindness and, little by little, chips away at Cain’s gruff façade to reveal the caring man underneath. Unbelievably, Julia feels herself falling for Cain—and she suspects that he may be falling for her as well. But as the popularity of her blog continues to grow, Julia must decide if telling Cain the truth about having chronicled their relationship to the rest of the world is worth risking their chance at love.