In a Holidaze

In a Holidaze

By Christina Lauren

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one, mostly because I wasn't entirely sure if the authors intended us to think that Mae and Andrew were endgame, or if it was supposed to be Mae and Theo.  Look, she made out with Theo in the first chapter, and like, every two or three chapters, someone would say that Theo's been pining after her.  Which, I know, is not an obligation for Mae to end up with him.  But Mae was pining after Andrew, and they ended up together, so what's different? So I spent a lot of time basically waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Without that suspense, I suspect I wouldn't have been so rapt in the book.  It was fine, but had none of the bite that I liked so much from The Unhoneymooners and now I guess I'm just going to chalk that one up as an anomaly, since I haven't really gotten the same enjoyable feel from their others.  

So basically Mae realizes she's in a time loop, decides that it's a sign she's meant to be with Andrew, confesses her feelings to him, they have sex a few times, she tells him she made out with his brother in another time, they fight and make up and everyone forgets (or politely ignores) what a nutcase she was that week when she was insisting she was in a time loop and then six months later she and Andrew get engaged.  I'm like that blinking guy gif.  Whoa, nelly! I mean, maybe you have known each other for the last twenty five years, but I think you could afford to wait more than two months before deciding to get hitched (the proposal took six months, but apparently Andrew asked for permission on their two month anniversary, which isn't eyebrow-raising AT ALL - we don't need to end romances on marriage or babies, it's fine if we take more than a few months to determine if this relationship is going to go the distance).  

I found myself tired of all the traditions - snowman making, tree buying, scavenger hunting, and it wasn't even my twenty-fifth time of doing them.  Maybe it's because I'm not reading this in December, but I was way over the Christmas feeling.