Book: Christmas, Present

Okay, but not great

I think this is my least favorite Mitchard book so far, though it isn’t bad. It’s just not that good. It’s a sort of novelette, about 150 pages long. It is basically the story of a woman dying, told over the course of a few days and with a little sight into the future and past. It might have made a good novel, but as a novelette I just don’t think it has enough going on. She normally tackles difficult subjects so well, but I think there isn’t enough meat or context for this sad story to make it feel like real life, the way she does in her other books. I was also struck by the fact that one of the characters in this book has the same unusual name as a character in her book The Breakdown Lane. I wonder if this didn’t precede that and fail to turn into a full novel, then she started over with Breakdown and ended up releasing them both.