Reviews

Driving Home for Christmas by Joanna Bolouri

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avrorabaes's review against another edition

reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Driving home for Christmas was a book that I enjoyed reading. Not that much to give it any more than 3.5 stars but still enjoyed it enough.

I liked the first half of the book more than the second. I believe it's because the first one had the main revelations about the characters' relationship happen, also it contained those scenes of spending the Christmas holidays with different members of the family while being on the verge of losing your relationship and that was very interesting to read. The other half of the book focused more on the individual experience of the characters after the break up and while it wasn't boring, it didn't keep me on my toes either.

What I found amusing is that I could understand both of the characters. They were both flawed - said some wrong things, did some wrong stuff. And despite that, I could understand just where they are coming from. Honestly I believe it's hard to create characters whose flaws are the main point of the book and still make it so the readers don't end up hating them. I've noticed a pattern with myself where if one of the leads says something that rubs me off the wrong way, it's very hard for me to move on later throughout the book. With that specific book though, where the characters spoke hurtful words to each other, I didn't find it in myself to judge or blame them for it. They were written in such a brilliant way that I even found myself being able to relate to Kat so much.

I saw myself in Kat - how I would be in few years from now if I let my ambitions consume me and allow for my need to always put work/study first blind me. Seeing so much of myself in her disturbed me and made me think a lot about whether this is the kind of person I want to be. Usually I think that in order to be able to enjoy a book, it doesn't necessarily have to be teaching you something or be very meaningful but to me, that book was exactly this. It taught me an important lesson about how when time passes and work is done, you'll have nothing but the people you've got to surround yourself with. I will certainly try to be much less consumed by my studies and work from now on.

Other than that, I can say that the author's writing is very likeable and easy to get into. As I said, I really appreciated how she made it impossible for me to hate the characters or even judge them despite their flaws being so prominent. I really liked the story and in the future I might pick up another book by this author.

The characters were all very complex and loveable too. It didn't matter if they were part of the main ones or not - I fell in love with nearly all of them.

My only complaint, maybe, is that the ending could've been better. I can't say it was rushed because it certainly took a lot for Kat and Ed to reconcile. What I mean though is that they could have had a lot deeper conversation about what was going on with them and what would they do with their relationship in order to be able to protect it from falling apart. The way their discussion scene was written made it seem like this entire conflict could have been solved 50 pages into the book, instead of 240+. Yes, the characters learnt a lot about themselves, the mistakes they've done while they were apart and they certainly got to understand better how the other felt which was something I loved. It was realistic and it made me feel like they've truly become wise and mature enough to be able to fix the cracks in their relationship. It's only that I expected the author to make their discussion about it all a lot more meaningful and deep than it turned out to be.

That, and the fact the second half of the book didn't entertain me as much as the first one did, is the reason I am giving this book only 3.5 stars. Despite that, I want to say I enjoyed reading this book and that I would still recommend it for others to read.