Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (review)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful—frightful enough to stop a southbound train on Christmas Eve outside a small town in North Carolina and set in motion a night that changes the romantic fates of three teenage couples. Johnson’s story focuses on Jubilee, a girl named after a limited edition building from a village of ceramic collectibles that her parents are obsessed with—so obsessed, in fact, that they are arrested on Christmas Eve in a riot over the release of the next piece in the series. As she heads south to Florida so that she won’t have to spend Christmas alone, she meets Jeb, a guy trying desperately to get in touch with his girlfriend. When the train stops, the two, along with a spirited group of high-school cheerleaders, get off the train to hole up in a Waffle House. Green’s story follows the fates of a trio of nerdy teens who are called to the Waffle House by one of their friends who work there. Finally, Myracle traces the romantic mishaps of Jeb’s overly dramatic and self-absorbed girlfriend, who’s in a tizzy because she thinks Jeb doesn’t love her anymore, when in reality he’s just stuck in a snowstorm with no cell phone signal. The premises for the stories are funny yet cringingly credible, the writing clever and sure-footed, and the outcomes are all light-hearted and cozily romantic. With nothing deep or challenging or even thought-provoking here, this makes for snuggly holiday reading; tuck in with the hot chocolate, and this trio of romances will provide the marshmallows on top.