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urbansapphire's review against another edition
5.0
Welcome to my little window on this wonderful early advent calendar. It’s almost Halloween too, which is quite fitting as this isn’t your usual squeaky clean fairy tale. Though it is full of magic…
The Unwrapping of Theodora Quirke is best described as a festive, funny, magical, weird, NSFW tale, stuffed as full as a turkey with the kind of dark whimsy that we have come to expect from Ms. Smailes. Thanks must go to the author and the Red Door team for sending me an advance copy and inviting me to be a part of the blog tour for this wonderful book.
So let us begin: Our heroine, Theodora Quirke has had a difficult life so far and the poor kid is only 19. In and out of care as a child, she is recently bereaved and has lost so much more than her partner. She’s going through the motions of recovery, but doesn’t see how she’s ever going to move on – nor is she sure that she actually wants to. Grown-Ups tell her that because she’s young, she’ll just ‘get over it’, or that she has no idea what real loss is, seemingly ignoring the fact that young love is so passionate, and all-consuming, not to mention that the entire life she had planned out for herself has just gone, rather unceremoniously, down the toilet.
So it’s no surprise that when we first encounter Theo, she’s delivering a fairly standard potty mouthed tirade to a 2000 year old man dressed in a Santa Suit that she finds on the steps of her accomodation brandishing a “parasol” (she’s fairly sure it’s an umbrella? What actually is the difference?) Well, ok perhaps there are elements of that situation that would present a teeny little bit of a surprise, but you get my point.
So turns out it’s not Santa, it’s St Nick (yes there is a difference and please don’t let him hear you ask that question or there’ll be ructions). St Nick is smarting very badly from the over commercialisation of his image into the capitalist icon of Santa Claus and boy, does he show it. He’s really let himself go. Theo’s torn between feeling some magic around her when he tells his story and thinking he’s just a weirdo guy from the YMCA that’s found himself at a loose end on a wet evening and is tormenting a random, sad-eyed girl for a bit of malevolent fun.
St Nick informs Theo that he has been sent to ‘rescue’ her. He has instructions – although they’re a little disturbing and he thinks they’ve got some how scrambled along the way. St Nick turns out to be in the business of delivering magic and showing people things that they need to see – like what really happened on those occasions in the past that you *think* you know about. Turns out he even took a certain author named Mr Dickens on one of these tours back in the day, and is still peeved that he didn’t even get so much as a credit in the book (Yes, you know which one I’m talking about).
First off, Theo doesn’t need rescuing and she’s pretty fed up of people suggesting it. Secondly, this is just too weird. Once he’s shown her what she needs to see, the ever erratic Nick then announces that he’s had some cryptic messages that come from the people who run Christmas – the Higher Powers – and they want her to be recruited as the first ever female Christmas Angel. It’s all a bit much, to be honest, and that’s before she finds out that she would have to agree to become immortal, thus never reuniting in the heavenly realm with the aptly named Gabriel – her lost love.
Enter stage left a literal evil twin. I won’t use his real name because I don’t want to give too much away, but through the power of Social Media he gets a hold of some of the people who have received a Christmas Miracle from St Nick in the past and does the very best he can to turn this situation on its head. His master plan is to discredit our guy so that he can take over Christmas World himself – and with Thanos-like overtones, he believes he can quieten the unruly amongst our broken society with fear, including kidnapping the naughtiest children and keeping them in his lair for a year (yes, he has a lair, he’s a proper baddie).
So as you can see, there’s a lot going on. It’s a real sleigh ride. If you’re someone who believes in the magic of Christmas like me (I’m a Christmas Eve baby, or ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ as I’m known to my family) then you’ll devour this book without another word from me. If you’re a little less interested in magic and whimsy, what you need to know about this book is that it’s not a fairy tale, there are sprinkles of glitter throughout, but they come from dirty puddles, from food caked beards and orange speedos straining against an obese man’s belly (I’ve not gone mad, these things are all part of the tale).
Caroline’s writing reminds me of Quentin Tarantino’s directing style in some ways (bear with me). He puts opposites together that emphasise each of those things individually – he has the good, the bad, the violence, the passion and the wickedly, inappropriately funny, and it shouldn’t really work – but it just does. Well Caroline manages to do something similar with magic and whimsy – she keeps the charm and the magic and the fun but avoids the twee by a mile. She makes it darker, makes it dirty, makes it sweary, and makes the magic feel so bloody real because she doesn’t sugar coat it. There were some phrases that were so real to me that they made me stop in my tracks – thoughts about fear, about expectation and what we miss out on if we don’t have faith in ourselves. The terror of realising you’ve had a life half lived.
If the shit things can happen, why can’t the magic happen too?
As a final point, there are a few things I’ve come to know about the lovely Caroline Smailes, the first is that she absolutely adores Christmas, the second is that she absolutely adores Liverpool. She shows both of those things off in this book (you’ll spot a few references to locally loved spots and also the dragging of a certain ‘news’paper if you keep an eye out). When she first submitted this novel she was told that no-one wanted to read about a working class girl from Liverpool, but she kept going, and here we are. From someone born and bred in a working class scouse family- I feel represented by Theo Quirke. Now in true Christmas pantomime style, Caroline can now stick two firm, very sweary fingers up in the direction of these nay-sayers and shout ‘OH YES THEY DO’.
5/5 (if I could give it more, I would).
PS. We share a love of dinosaurs. This is important as you will find out.
The Unwrapping of Theodora Quirke is best described as a festive, funny, magical, weird, NSFW tale, stuffed as full as a turkey with the kind of dark whimsy that we have come to expect from Ms. Smailes. Thanks must go to the author and the Red Door team for sending me an advance copy and inviting me to be a part of the blog tour for this wonderful book.
So let us begin: Our heroine, Theodora Quirke has had a difficult life so far and the poor kid is only 19. In and out of care as a child, she is recently bereaved and has lost so much more than her partner. She’s going through the motions of recovery, but doesn’t see how she’s ever going to move on – nor is she sure that she actually wants to. Grown-Ups tell her that because she’s young, she’ll just ‘get over it’, or that she has no idea what real loss is, seemingly ignoring the fact that young love is so passionate, and all-consuming, not to mention that the entire life she had planned out for herself has just gone, rather unceremoniously, down the toilet.
So it’s no surprise that when we first encounter Theo, she’s delivering a fairly standard potty mouthed tirade to a 2000 year old man dressed in a Santa Suit that she finds on the steps of her accomodation brandishing a “parasol” (she’s fairly sure it’s an umbrella? What actually is the difference?) Well, ok perhaps there are elements of that situation that would present a teeny little bit of a surprise, but you get my point.
So turns out it’s not Santa, it’s St Nick (yes there is a difference and please don’t let him hear you ask that question or there’ll be ructions). St Nick is smarting very badly from the over commercialisation of his image into the capitalist icon of Santa Claus and boy, does he show it. He’s really let himself go. Theo’s torn between feeling some magic around her when he tells his story and thinking he’s just a weirdo guy from the YMCA that’s found himself at a loose end on a wet evening and is tormenting a random, sad-eyed girl for a bit of malevolent fun.
St Nick informs Theo that he has been sent to ‘rescue’ her. He has instructions – although they’re a little disturbing and he thinks they’ve got some how scrambled along the way. St Nick turns out to be in the business of delivering magic and showing people things that they need to see – like what really happened on those occasions in the past that you *think* you know about. Turns out he even took a certain author named Mr Dickens on one of these tours back in the day, and is still peeved that he didn’t even get so much as a credit in the book (Yes, you know which one I’m talking about).
First off, Theo doesn’t need rescuing and she’s pretty fed up of people suggesting it. Secondly, this is just too weird. Once he’s shown her what she needs to see, the ever erratic Nick then announces that he’s had some cryptic messages that come from the people who run Christmas – the Higher Powers – and they want her to be recruited as the first ever female Christmas Angel. It’s all a bit much, to be honest, and that’s before she finds out that she would have to agree to become immortal, thus never reuniting in the heavenly realm with the aptly named Gabriel – her lost love.
Enter stage left a literal evil twin. I won’t use his real name because I don’t want to give too much away, but through the power of Social Media he gets a hold of some of the people who have received a Christmas Miracle from St Nick in the past and does the very best he can to turn this situation on its head. His master plan is to discredit our guy so that he can take over Christmas World himself – and with Thanos-like overtones, he believes he can quieten the unruly amongst our broken society with fear, including kidnapping the naughtiest children and keeping them in his lair for a year (yes, he has a lair, he’s a proper baddie).
So as you can see, there’s a lot going on. It’s a real sleigh ride. If you’re someone who believes in the magic of Christmas like me (I’m a Christmas Eve baby, or ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ as I’m known to my family) then you’ll devour this book without another word from me. If you’re a little less interested in magic and whimsy, what you need to know about this book is that it’s not a fairy tale, there are sprinkles of glitter throughout, but they come from dirty puddles, from food caked beards and orange speedos straining against an obese man’s belly (I’ve not gone mad, these things are all part of the tale).
Caroline’s writing reminds me of Quentin Tarantino’s directing style in some ways (bear with me). He puts opposites together that emphasise each of those things individually – he has the good, the bad, the violence, the passion and the wickedly, inappropriately funny, and it shouldn’t really work – but it just does. Well Caroline manages to do something similar with magic and whimsy – she keeps the charm and the magic and the fun but avoids the twee by a mile. She makes it darker, makes it dirty, makes it sweary, and makes the magic feel so bloody real because she doesn’t sugar coat it. There were some phrases that were so real to me that they made me stop in my tracks – thoughts about fear, about expectation and what we miss out on if we don’t have faith in ourselves. The terror of realising you’ve had a life half lived.
If the shit things can happen, why can’t the magic happen too?
As a final point, there are a few things I’ve come to know about the lovely Caroline Smailes, the first is that she absolutely adores Christmas, the second is that she absolutely adores Liverpool. She shows both of those things off in this book (you’ll spot a few references to locally loved spots and also the dragging of a certain ‘news’paper if you keep an eye out). When she first submitted this novel she was told that no-one wanted to read about a working class girl from Liverpool, but she kept going, and here we are. From someone born and bred in a working class scouse family- I feel represented by Theo Quirke. Now in true Christmas pantomime style, Caroline can now stick two firm, very sweary fingers up in the direction of these nay-sayers and shout ‘OH YES THEY DO’.
5/5 (if I could give it more, I would).
PS. We share a love of dinosaurs. This is important as you will find out.
tinamoo's review against another edition
3.0
At Christmas I am always looking for books that don’t have romance as the central theme. When I heard about this book I thought that it was going to be perfect. It sounded like a modern twist on A Christmas Carol. The first part of the book is a bit like A Christmas Carol. Rather than a ghost there is Saint Nicholas. This is where I had a problem. The depiction of Saint Nicholas was not at all how you would imagine a Saint to be. I was left quite confused as I have no idea whether he was written this way so he was more relatable to the main Character of Theodora. The second half of the book was a bit more fantasy than the first half and I didn’t enjoy it as much. This is definitely not a light and fluffy book. Theodora has had a very tough life and parts of this did make me cry.
bookishreadsandme's review against another edition
4.0
It is now getting to that time of year where we can start to look forward to enjoying the Christmas season. It will definitely be a bit different this year due to the ongoing pandemic. However, I can definitely advise that this book should be one you add to your Christmas reading list. It is full of Christmas cheer and is a glorious escape to the magical life of St Nick who I adored!
This is kind of like a modern take on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens when St Nick takes Theo on a journey back to watch some major events in her life. Theo is feeling lonely and feels like she is just existing and not living. It is a very touching and heart felt story but it also has a comedic twist to it.
The author’s writing is magical. She is able to write about characters who feel so real that you are emotionally attached to each one. To be able to make me laugh one minute and then sob the next shows you how talented she is to get a reaction out of a reader like that.
This is a warm, witty and festive feelgood read which tells you that there is always hope and people are always there for you, no matter how hard things get in life.
Whilst reading this I suggest you pour yourself a hot chocolate, wrap yourself up in a blanket, stick on some Christmas tunes and unwind to this feel good read.
This is kind of like a modern take on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens when St Nick takes Theo on a journey back to watch some major events in her life. Theo is feeling lonely and feels like she is just existing and not living. It is a very touching and heart felt story but it also has a comedic twist to it.
The author’s writing is magical. She is able to write about characters who feel so real that you are emotionally attached to each one. To be able to make me laugh one minute and then sob the next shows you how talented she is to get a reaction out of a reader like that.
This is a warm, witty and festive feelgood read which tells you that there is always hope and people are always there for you, no matter how hard things get in life.
Whilst reading this I suggest you pour yourself a hot chocolate, wrap yourself up in a blanket, stick on some Christmas tunes and unwind to this feel good read.
hanruby's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
5.0
hettyreads's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Death, and Grief
Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
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