Snow in Love by Kasie West, Nic Stone, Melissa de la Cruz, Aimee Friedman

Book provided by Scholastic

Title: Snow in Love

Authors: Kasie West, Aimee Friedman, Melissa de la Cruz, Nic Stone

Pages: 256

Genre: YA Contemporary

My rating: ★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

What’s better than one deliciously cozy, swoon-worthy holiday story? Four of them, from some of today’s bestselling authors.

From KASIE WEST, a snowy road trip takes an unexpected detour when secrets and crushes are revealed.

From AIMEE FRIEDMAN, a Hanukkah miracle may just happen when a Jewish girl working as a department store elf finds love.

From MELISSA DE LA CRUZ, Christmas Eve gets a plot twist when a high school couple exchange surprising presents.

From NIC STONE, a scavenger hunt amid the holiday crowds at an airport turns totally romantic.

So grab a mug of hot cocoa, snuggle up, and get ready to fall in love…

I had the privilege of co-hosting a readathon with some amazing ladies this December, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with how it turned out! Thank you, everyone, from the bottom of my heart, who read along with us, shared their progress on twitter and instagram, and posted the daily photo challenges. We can’t wait to host TistheSeasonAThon again next year!

The first book I read during TistheSeasoAThon was Snow in Love. Snow in Love is a collection of four short holiday stories. We chose this as our group buddy read and overall we had similar thoughts regarding each story. I’m going to briefly give you my thoughts and ratings about each one!

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→ Snow and Mistletoe by Kasie West ★★★★★

This story is a road trip-lover’s dream. Snow and Mistletoe follows Amalie, an opera student who is stranded at the Denver airport. There she runs into a classmate, Sawyer. Sawyer, his sister Heather, and two friends (Wes and Logan) decide to rent a car back to Fresno and they invite Amalie along. From there it’s the cutest story ever told; from driving through snowy towns, stopping in motels, buying souvenirs at random pit stops, all while watching a romance bloom.

But this story also addresses anxiety and absent parents. There’s so much character development packed into just 70 pages. And while the outcome was predictable, I couldn’t help but feel so soft after reading it!

→ Working in a Winter Wonderland ★★

Okay, yikes. I really, REALLY did not like this story, and that makes me so sad because it’s set in NYC DURING CHRISTMAS TIME. This story follows Maxine, a Jewish college student home from college. She gets a job working as an elf in a department store just so she can save up enough money to buy a pretty dress. She also falls in love with a very cocky guy who is the son of the owner of said department store.

Y’all, I really hated that guy. He was arrogant, self-absorbed, and led Maxine on. And she was so blinded by wanting to buy a pretty dress just so she could go to a NYE party with him? I just can’t. And the rest of the characters were just… there. The other love interest randomly appeared at the end of the story. It was such a mess.

Also, this story is heavily themed around consumerism, which I feel is relevant, but it really did not seem to teach Maxine a lesson at all!

→ The Magi’s Gift ★

I originally gave this story 2 stars but… I had to down grade it. The more I think about this story, the more I hated it. I’m not going to delve into this deeply because if you’re familiar with the original story this is based on (The Gift of the Magi) then you’ll know how this ends. And while this is supposed to be a story about sacrificing things you love for others… I just couldn’t deal with how these teens handled their gift-giving dilemmas. Look, there is NOTHING COOL about selling off your family heirlooms to buy your SO a present. Consult an adult. Please.

→ Grounded ★★★★

This story was just SO FUN. Grounded is a story about being stuck at an airport with your crush. Leigh finds out she’s delayed in ATL but her crush, Harper, is there as well. Leigh hasn’t come out as gay yet to her family, and she’s nervous about Harper finding out, too. But they soon start texting each other and Leigh finds it easy to open up to Harper. They then invent a scavenger hunt throughout the airport — and it is so damn fun. But not only is this book about love and games, but it brings up so many issues about systematic racism (both Leigh and Harper are black). The story is also mostly told in text message format, which made it very quick to fly through!

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Overall this puts my average rating around 3 stars, which I feel is right. I just did not love the two middle stories at all, so that makes me quite sad! But I do hope you enjoyed this book, and it’s definitely worth picking up for the first story alone!

xx,

Amy