Tag: South America

Books, Fiction

A Chaste Christmas Novel: Debbie Macomber’s Jingle All the Way

RaeAnna
Jingle All the Way by Debbie Macomber | Sweatshirt | Shorts | Hat

Worth A Read No
Length 272
Quick Review A chaste (and confusing) Christmas romance for those who really don’t want to be surprised or titillated by love or the holiday spirit. 

I’m going to start off with: I have nothing good to say about Jingle All the Way by Debbie Macomber. I would suggest this book because it is the perfect Christmas romance for Christian women with a sex-sensitivity. Honesty, it doesn’t even have to be sex… intimacy is also applicable.

Everly is a high-powered CEO of a company in downtown Chicago. She gets sent on her idea of hell: a trip down the Amazon river with absolutely no way to connect with the outside world. While on the cruise, she connects with the ship’s naturalist and Chicago-native, Asher. They fall in love on the Amazon as they encounter illness, accidents, kidnapping, and mishaps. 

I still do not understand the title, Jingle All the Way, or the cover image. Poor choices. They do not match the plot at all in any way shape or form. It is very confusing, and I hate it. Poor choices on the publisher’s part.

For the completely inept at knowing how a Christmas romance novel is going to end: If you don’t want to know how it ends (the same as every other one in this genre), do not read this paragraph. I really loathe how the characters always end up married and usually with child in the epilogue. Let’s have a new ending. Like they had three great months before brain cancer suddenly took Asher from Everly and she dedicated herself to preserving the Amazon in his memory. That’s romantic and new!

Macomber’s writing is incredibly unbelievable. The dialogue is very cringe worthy. As someone who is of the same age as the main characters, we would not talk that way to one another, especially if it was a flirtation. The dialogue has as much emotional depth as encounters I have with a friend I don’t much care for rather than the person I’m falling head over heels in love with. 

Having more fun on the photo shoot than I did reading the terrible book.

I know that romances must have a reason the two love interests shouldn’t or couldn’t be together, but the reasons Macomber creates in Jingle All the Way are hardly believable. The only thing I remotely like about this one is that Asher is pressured to give up his wandering ways to settle down and begin a family. For once the man is also giving up something. Surprise, surprise, surprise, they both decide to settle in a small town and be happy and a family and give up their wandering and high powered lives. Yuck.

Macomber also starts off the novel with an attack on Gen Z by painting Everly’s assistant as inept, irresponsible, catty, and an all around shitty human and employee. I don’t like this because it’s a sweeping judgement rather than individualized to this particular person, who is a crap assistant. It also sets the scene that Everly is much older, but in reality, they’re maybe ten years apart in age. 

One of my favorite (read this sarcastically) moments in Jingle All the Way is when Macomber takes the opportunity to defend romance novels as a genre. I don’t understand why she feels the need because the vast majority of the people reading it are fans of hers and the genres. So it feels very self-aggrandizing when Everly says, “They’re positive and uplifting and give me hope of finding my own handsome hero one day.”

I do have one audience to whom I can and would suggest this novel. As much as I really did not enjoy reading Debbie Macomber’s Jingle All the Way, it is perfect for Christian women or women with a sex-sensitivity. I, for one, do not love reading sex scenes. They make me uncomfortable. Yet they are a natural part of any romantic relationship. Kissing is also normal… Everly and Asher do none of it. They two chaste kisses. To have a raging love affair last two weeks on vacation in South America without technology or connection to the outside world, I can’t imagine them not having sex. Not realistic. 

Like I said. Don’t waste your time on this book. It’s terrible unless you really hate intimacy and want to know what the ending is by paragraph one. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Jingle All the Way
Author: Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9781984818751

Books

Fruit of the Drunken Tree

RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 304
Quick Review In the midst of Colombia’s struggle, three girls, two from privilege and one from poverty, share experiences.

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Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Roja Contreras has already stirred up quite a lot of good buzz this summer before its release. GoodReads has already called it a must read of the summer. I do not disagree. It is one of my favorite books I have read this year. I know it will stay with me for quite awhile.

Cassandra is older than her younger sister, Chula. Petrona comes into their family’s home as a maid. Their father is away most of the time working, so the house is run by their mother. The rules change when their drunkard father is home, but the girls adore him anyways. Chula is the main protagonist throughout the majority of the novel. She is young and curious with little understanding of the political upheaval going on around her. Her older sister, Cassandra, is a little more aware, but feigns wisdom around her younger sister. They both have a fascination for their new maid Petrona, who is quiet and mysterious.

Contreras pulls the reader in from the very beginning. The novel starts giving clues to what happened before telling the story from the beginning when Chula was a child. Every other chapter tells Petrona’s story, which gives a fuller picture of Colombia’s landscape and culture at the time. There are a lot of Spanish words and phrases incorporated throughout. I speak Spanish, so I understood. I don’t think this would hinder anyone’s understanding, however. There is a lot of talk about politics, elections, guerilla warfare, death, sexual assault, and more.

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The Drunken Tree, from which the novel takes its title, is a real tree. Known scientifically as brumansia arborea alba. It is a tree whose flower is used to create date rape drugs. If the flowers are eaten, people can go into a hysteria. When the drug wears off, they remember nothing from the experience.

I found it to be an absolutely fabulous novel. Colombia has a reputation for drugs, specifically cocaine. About the only other thing the country is known for may be Shakira. The country has so much more culture and history than these two facts. I love the novel focuses on neither. I am hoping it helps bring more attention to this oft forgotten country.

*If you’re interested in reading another Colombian author, take a look at Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel.

Title: Fruit of the Drunken Tree
Author: Ingrid Roja Contreras
Publisher: DoubleDay (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780385542722