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A review by lololovesthings
Love, Holly by Emily Stone
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
4 stars!
Emily Stone is the kind of author who will punch you in the stomach with sadness only to lift you back up again with the holiday spirit, strong connections, and her incredible writing. I loved her book "One Last Gift," and "Love, Holly" is also wonderful. Stone takes big, tough issues like death, grief, estrangement, and terminal illness, and combines them with holiday cheer, second chances, fate, and grace to make one heck of an emotional book. I laughed and cried while reading this one. This is not your typical formulaic love story. It takes its time unfolding to the point where some readers may even call it "slowly paced." I, for one, was along for the ride as main character, Holly and Jack, find their way back to one another through a series of serendipitous circumstances. Stone weaves such a delicate tale of sorrow and reconnection that I found myself fully immersed in this book from start to finish. I think it might be Stone's best book yet. Don't go into this story expecting a light holiday affair; it gets pretty grim and troublesome, but rest assured, she steers the ship back around to happiness eventually. I also love how each of Stone's novels involves letter writing in some capacity. There are some miscommunications in this book that may rub readers the wrong way, but they weren't so annoying that they turned me off from the story as a whole. All in all, read this if you need a good cry this holiday season. I loved it!
Thank you to NetGalley, Emily Stone, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Dell for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for this review.
Emily Stone is the kind of author who will punch you in the stomach with sadness only to lift you back up again with the holiday spirit, strong connections, and her incredible writing. I loved her book "One Last Gift," and "Love, Holly" is also wonderful. Stone takes big, tough issues like death, grief, estrangement, and terminal illness, and combines them with holiday cheer, second chances, fate, and grace to make one heck of an emotional book. I laughed and cried while reading this one. This is not your typical formulaic love story. It takes its time unfolding to the point where some readers may even call it "slowly paced." I, for one, was along for the ride as main character, Holly and Jack, find their way back to one another through a series of serendipitous circumstances. Stone weaves such a delicate tale of sorrow and reconnection that I found myself fully immersed in this book from start to finish. I think it might be Stone's best book yet. Don't go into this story expecting a light holiday affair; it gets pretty grim and troublesome, but rest assured, she steers the ship back around to happiness eventually. I also love how each of Stone's novels involves letter writing in some capacity. There are some miscommunications in this book that may rub readers the wrong way, but they weren't so annoying that they turned me off from the story as a whole. All in all, read this if you need a good cry this holiday season. I loved it!
Thank you to NetGalley, Emily Stone, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Dell for the complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions are my own. I was not compensated for this review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Grief, Car accident, Cancer, Infertility, Death of parent, and Death