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A review by writtenontheflyleaves
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss π ad/gifted proof
ππ
π The plot: Elinor Noel - Nory for short - is leaving behind her secondhand bookshop in London to go home for her friends' wedding at the castle next to the posh private school she attended on a scholarship. Ever torn between her posh friends and her working class roots, Nory also finds herself drawn to Isaac, the castle groundskeeper and her childhood enemy...
I'm willing to forgive a lot in a romance novel, especially one as fun-sounding as this. Cringe baby talk (a grown woman calling her brother a "poo-head"? Behave), exposition that's forced into stilted dialogue, the characterisation of the leading man devolving until he's basically a compliment machine - all this I can overlook if the story carries me along well enough.
Unfortunately, this book just did not do it for me, mostly because it tries to do waaay too much. I love a subplot, but there are WAY too many here, and so many of them do nothing to advance the central story. Why am I reading pages about the guy who's looking after Nory's shop while she's away? Why do I know who's cooking each component of his Christmas dinner?? I literally couldn't care less!!! It also meant the epilogue was stuffed with hasty happy-ever afters which felt like overkill.
Also, despite my love of romances tackling heavy themes, this book overstretched itself massively. Bayliss tries to take on grief over the death of a friend by suicide as well as the whole UK class system, and the book just didn't have the strength to support such complex themes, especially together.
The class discussion in particular was headache-inducing - Bayliss paints all her working class characters, bar Nory, as whiny and bitter with unjustified chips on their shoulders, even when the posh characters they hate give them legitimate reasons to hate them! Nory's constant apologism for her rich friends was really grating and the book at times felt like a long speech on the theme of "the landed gentry are people too πβ₯οΈπ»"
Tl;dr, I wanted to love this, but it was too long, too confused, and lacked the nuance to make its heavy themes really fly.
π Read it if you want the book equivalent of a Hallmark movie, and maybe if you read very fast - I doubt the tangents would have bothered me so much if I were a faster reader.
π« Avoid if you hate closed-door romances and want something steamier, or if anything I said above puts you off. Tread especially carefully if you've been recently bereaved by suicide - you might find Nory's journey with grief comforting, but give yourself permission to DNF if it gets too much β₯οΈ
ππ
π The plot: Elinor Noel - Nory for short - is leaving behind her secondhand bookshop in London to go home for her friends' wedding at the castle next to the posh private school she attended on a scholarship. Ever torn between her posh friends and her working class roots, Nory also finds herself drawn to Isaac, the castle groundskeeper and her childhood enemy...
I'm willing to forgive a lot in a romance novel, especially one as fun-sounding as this. Cringe baby talk (a grown woman calling her brother a "poo-head"? Behave), exposition that's forced into stilted dialogue, the characterisation of the leading man devolving until he's basically a compliment machine - all this I can overlook if the story carries me along well enough.
Unfortunately, this book just did not do it for me, mostly because it tries to do waaay too much. I love a subplot, but there are WAY too many here, and so many of them do nothing to advance the central story. Why am I reading pages about the guy who's looking after Nory's shop while she's away? Why do I know who's cooking each component of his Christmas dinner?? I literally couldn't care less!!! It also meant the epilogue was stuffed with hasty happy-ever afters which felt like overkill.
Also, despite my love of romances tackling heavy themes, this book overstretched itself massively. Bayliss tries to take on grief over the death of a friend by suicide as well as the whole UK class system, and the book just didn't have the strength to support such complex themes, especially together.
The class discussion in particular was headache-inducing - Bayliss paints all her working class characters, bar Nory, as whiny and bitter with unjustified chips on their shoulders, even when the posh characters they hate give them legitimate reasons to hate them! Nory's constant apologism for her rich friends was really grating and the book at times felt like a long speech on the theme of "the landed gentry are people too πβ₯οΈπ»"
Tl;dr, I wanted to love this, but it was too long, too confused, and lacked the nuance to make its heavy themes really fly.
π Read it if you want the book equivalent of a Hallmark movie, and maybe if you read very fast - I doubt the tangents would have bothered me so much if I were a faster reader.
π« Avoid if you hate closed-door romances and want something steamier, or if anything I said above puts you off. Tread especially carefully if you've been recently bereaved by suicide - you might find Nory's journey with grief comforting, but give yourself permission to DNF if it gets too much β₯οΈ
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide