St. Martin’s Griffin – …on the B.L.

Worth A Read Meh
Length 288
Quick Review Two women spend Christmas in London to make a cooking show, and their lives find new purposes.

wp-1578169065977 — Christmas in London by Anita Hughes at Levy Park in Houston. | Green Dress | Red Heels | Sapphire Necklace | Sapphire Earrings | Fossil Watch | Pearl Bracelets |

Christmas in London by Anita Hughes has a lot of things you want in a Christmas story, but it falls short in just as many ways.

Louisa is a small time pastry chef working in New York City. Kate is a producer for a local cooking show. They spend Christmas in London to be a part of a holiday cooking show. Louisa grows close to an assistant from New York, and Kate revisits people from her past.

I’m fairly ambivalent about this book. It’s not bad. It’s definitely not great, but it’s what people want and expect during the holidays. Loads of ridiculous romantic stuff and drama for no reason. Hughes writes in the third person and switches between Louisa and Kates’s point of views throughout Christmas in London. It’s mostly told in the present, except for when Kate has flashbacks to the past for a muddy subplot. Honestly, the writing is really boring and cliché. There is an abundance of similes. Hughes is overly descriptive to the point of monotony. It became so repetitive when as the narrative said in one way or another “a man showed up and she realized it was Trevor/Noah.” Yuck. It doesn’t build suspense. It’s just boring and a waste of ink.

I could get past the writing if the characters were more believable or even likable. Louisa and her love interest felt like they were in high school more than adults starting out in a romantic relationship. Kate is more mature but not by a lot. I have a hard time identifying with adults in relationships who are completely lacking in mature communication skills. At the same time, their conflict resolution comes far too easily after they’ve bungled the whole situation from poor communication skills. They’re also not very likable. The parallels drawn between Louisa and Kate are not subtle; they’re basically living the same story arc.The male characters are the worst. Honestly, I don’t know why either woman put up with it? No man is better than any man.

Anita Hughes’ Christmas in London is a decent mindless read to keep you busy instead of spending time with the in-laws or family. It’s not great, but it could be a lot worse.

Memorable Quotes
““But there isn’t time to be passionate about more than one thing. If you want something in life, you have to sacrifice everything else to get it.””
“She had never been able to separate love and attraction.”
“That was the problem with sex; it made it impossible to think.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Christmas in London
Author: Anita Hughes
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9781250145796

Read Yes
Length 310
Quick Review This is a book where you think you know exactly what’s going to happen from the very beginning and you spend the entire book hoping it doesn’t happen. It’s a fabulous insight into a journey and thought process no one really wants to think about.

Nayomi Munaweera writes What Lies Between Us, a compelling story about a young girl pulled away from everything she knows in Sri Lanka into a new existence in San Francisco, United States after a personal and familial tragedy. She learns how to handle herself and her background in a country entirely different from everything she knew in her home country.

Trigger Warning: If you can’t handle abuse, you will have a difficult time reading past the first thirtyish pages.

Munaweera writes a story grounded in heartbreak. The main character is vibrantly torn between herself and her culture, herself and her desires, and herself and her past. She walks through life carrying the same weight many abuse survivors experience.

If you read this books, which I hope you will, this is one of the more depressing sentences I’ve written: The protagonist, is one of the most relatable, human characters I have ever read. This is incredibly personal and absolutely not universal. You will have to read it to understand what I mean by this. So go out and buy it. You can even do that here, that’s how much I want you to read it.

Munaweera delves into a psychology so rarely visited or explored by writers or philosophers or anyone because the most basic instinct is to write off catastrophes and those consequences as inhuman. We dehumanize all that is difficult to comprehend, but how do we know what we would do unless we’re in the same position. It is hard to look past some horrors to their cause because we think it is impossible any caring or decent or even good person could commit these atrocities. It is hard to declare horrific acts as human, but in all reality they are.

What Lies Between Us explores one of my life’s mantras… Never judge someone unless you’ve lived their story.

Memorable Quote
“They say that family is the place of safety. But sometimes this is the greatest lie; family is not sanctuary, it is not safety and succor. For some of us, it is the secret wound. Sooner or later we pay for the woundings of our ancestors.”

Title: What Lies Between Us
Author: Nayomi Munaweera
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9781250043948