Three Holiday Books and a Campus Novel

Round-up of the holiday books I've been reading this season

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized reading holiday romcoms was the equivalent of bingeing Hallmark Christmas movies — but better. I had never thought of reading holiday books until I saw Christmas Camp on the shelf at the library the winter of 2021. Nostalgia grips me now as I recall sitting on my big leather chair next to the fireplace reading my first holiday novel, my nursing son in my arms.

This year, I was gifted four holiday novels.¹ I’ve read three so far and plan to read the fourth over Christmas. Even though I begin decorating in early November, the holiday season moves too fast. I find that in reading these holiday books, I have been able to slow down and relish in the festiveness that makes me love this time of year so much.

Here are my thoughts on three holiday releases from 2023, plus the campus novel I can’t stop thinking about.

Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley

This book takes place in the year 2000, when Christmas, Ramadan, and Hanukkah all overlapped. It’s a dual POV, narrated by Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson, two totally different women who find themselves stranded in a snowed-in town outside of Toronto, where they were flying until the plane made an emergency detour due to a snowstorm. This little town also happens to be the filming location of a holiday movie. There are a couple different romances, some familial dramas, and lots of holiday celebrations. I’ve never read a novel celebrating Hanukkah or Ramadan, so I really appreciated the holiday experience through that lens. A fun and sweet holiday book!

The Christmas Café by Eliza Evans

This one was a little cutesie for me. I enjoyed it because it’s festive and snowy so Christmasy, but it felt a little indulgent even for me, who has no limits when it comes to Christmas. I think my main issue is that the protagonist, Sylvie — a baker who’s trying to save her place of employment (the eponymous Christmas Café) before its owner sells it — is portrayed as a scatterbrain who can’t trust herself to say or do the right thing. She’s perfectly charming and funny when we’re in her head, but when she is around others, she fumbles over her every word, and is physically clumsy, too. Always tripping or falling. I tend to enjoy books about strong, smart female characters rather than stumbling caricatures of women, and this felt more like the latter, though not quite so extreme (and she does reveal some strengths at the end of the book). The story is cute though — if expected — and I did like the dog, Crumpet, who Sylvie endearingly calls Crumpie.

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss

I LOVED THIS BOOK. It is so fun and the writing is lovely. It leans literary, which I think is rare in holiday books. (Holiday-adjacent books I’ve loved that are straight literary fiction are Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan and Flight by Lynn Steger Strong.) A December to Remember is about three sisters connected by their father, Augustus, but disconnected everywhere else. They each grew up with their own mothers, but every summer of their youth, they came together for a month at their dad’s home in Rowan Thorp, England. When their father dies, they are brought together to solve an inexplicable puzzle he strategically laid out for them to work on together after his passing. The sisters have a hilarious dynamic, and the prose is rich and entertaining. I will definitely be rereading this one next year!

Onto a decidedly un-holiday genre: the campus novel:

Babel by

R.F. Kuang

It’s taken me a few weeks to collect my thoughts on this book. (A tome, really, at 560 pages plus lots and lots of footnotes.) The story is about a boy named Robin who was plucked from his home in China after his family was taken out by cholera in 1828. Brought overseas to London and raised by Professor Lovell, Robin was groomed to become a translator so he could eventually attend Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation. An incredible opportunity for a poor orphaned boy. But, of course, all is not as it appears.

As Robin and his three translation friends — all of whom have a magical skill that involves translation and silver working — make their way through the prestigious institute, they learn that their skills are being sharpened for a use they are not all behind.

Babel is about colonization, academia, race, and gender. It’s less about magic, which felt like an aside to me. What I enjoyed most was the discourse on translation and the meaning of words, and the relationships between these four friends. It’s a heavy book and it takes no small amount of concentration to read, but, like Kuang’s newest book, Yellowface, it is brilliant.

Have you read any of those books? What are your thoughts on them? What are you reading now?

What I’m reading: Still working on The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. I had to pause this so I could finish the holiday books — which I enjoyed thoroughly. Now, it’s back to Maggie’s gorgeous writing I go. (Also still making my way through In Altre Parole by Jhumpa Lahiri.)

What I’m listening to:

The Shit About Writing Team

podcast.

Love,

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1. Thank you, Putnam!