Holiday Reading
Remember my plan to read all holiday books in November and December? Let’s just see how that went! I started November by finishing The Joy Luck Club (clearly not a holiday book!) Then I dove into: Murder on the Christmas Express was pretty good! It won points for being a fun read and a mystery set on a train. lost points for not really being Christmas-y. I mean, there was a lot of talk about getting where they were going by Christmas, but you could have taken that plot point out and had the same basic story. A Holiday by Gaslight won points by being nice and Christmas-y! It lost points by being a romance, which I don’t usually read. But that’s not the fault of the book- it wasn’t like anyone tried to trick me. It was clearly billed as a romance, and I just decided to go out of my usual genre. I also read a book called Mystery in White by Jefferson Farjeon. It lost points by NOT being Christmas-y, other than the characters occasionally exclaiming “I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas!” It also lost points by being kind of lame overall. What I’ve learned is, if a book is a classic mystery written in the time of Agatha Christie but you’ve never heard of it- there’s a reason for that. In December I started strong with Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson. This book was the clear winner! Major points for being extremely Christmas-y, and more points for being a really fun mystery. I’ve read his other books, and this was my favorite of them all. Then my holiday reading fell apart. I had this book from the library: It was up next in my queue, but then Nicole warned me it was “sad.” Nope! This was not a good Christmas for me to read a sad book, so it went back to the library. I’ll put it back on my TBR for next year. I also returned The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict. This one had a lot of promise, but my mind was all over the place and I couldn’t do it justice. It also went back to the library and back on my TBR for next year. Instead, I dove into a comfort read: All Agatha Christies are rereads for me. Luckily I didn’t remember this one, so was able to enjoy the mystery. That also means it wasn’t one of her best books (or I would have remembered it). It fulfilled my need for an easy, nostalgic reading experience. November and December are usually not great reading months for me, but I did pretty well this year. On Christmas Day I started this: It’s gotten my reading back on track, and I’m hoping to finish it before New Year’s, to end the month strong. Do you like to read seasonally? What was the best book you read in December?