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A review by beate251
Last Christmas by Clare Swatman
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this ARC.
The story starts in 2002 with Bea leaving London and her boyfriend Dom and starting a new life in New York - while simultaneously staying in London in a Sliding Doors scenario. In both timelines she meets AJ, an Irishman in New York.
I really tried to get on with this book. I had high hopes because I love Sliding Doors stories but this one is just confusing. Instead of making it one story with Dom in London and another story in New York with AJ, Bea constantly changes her mind who and where she wants to be with until the two timelines meant nothing to me anymore as I had quite literally lost the plot. Both storylines aren't different enough to be memorable, and oftentimes plots are repeated in both timelines, just at different points.
Also, we never get much of a forward narrative - for eight years we are basically catching up once a year in both timelines around Christmas and are being told the past year in retrospective.
At least you can read this book in summer as it's not a festive holiday read at all. The catch-ups could have happened at any other time of the year. I really wish the author would have chosen one of the stories and stuck to it in a linear fashion. I'm beginning to appreciate how good the film Sliding Doors really is because it made it effortless to follow the two different timelines. This book doesn't. I started to dislike Bea and her indecisiveness, and I couldn't care less who she ended up with in any timeline. She has some nice friends but they never get fleshed out, nor do the two men really - Dom's most prominent feature is that he has depression and AJ's that he has a wife in a coma. Neither is a character flaw but it's treated as such. This didn't keep me invested. I do like the cover though.
The story starts in 2002 with Bea leaving London and her boyfriend Dom and starting a new life in New York - while simultaneously staying in London in a Sliding Doors scenario. In both timelines she meets AJ, an Irishman in New York.
I really tried to get on with this book. I had high hopes because I love Sliding Doors stories but this one is just confusing. Instead of making it one story with Dom in London and another story in New York with AJ, Bea constantly changes her mind who and where she wants to be with until the two timelines meant nothing to me anymore as I had quite literally lost the plot. Both storylines aren't different enough to be memorable, and oftentimes plots are repeated in both timelines, just at different points.
Also, we never get much of a forward narrative - for eight years we are basically catching up once a year in both timelines around Christmas and are being told the past year in retrospective.
At least you can read this book in summer as it's not a festive holiday read at all. The catch-ups could have happened at any other time of the year. I really wish the author would have chosen one of the stories and stuck to it in a linear fashion. I'm beginning to appreciate how good the film Sliding Doors really is because it made it effortless to follow the two different timelines. This book doesn't. I started to dislike Bea and her indecisiveness, and I couldn't care less who she ended up with in any timeline. She has some nice friends but they never get fleshed out, nor do the two men really - Dom's most prominent feature is that he has depression and AJ's that he has a wife in a coma. Neither is a character flaw but it's treated as such. This didn't keep me invested. I do like the cover though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Dementia, Death of parent, and Pregnancy