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wordsofclover 's review for:
The Christmas Lights
by Karen Swan
I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Bo Huxley and her boyfriend Zac are living what many would deem the dream life - travelling the world whilst in love, and getting paid by big brands to do it due to their massive social media following. When the couple, and their photographer/manager Lenny decide to stay in a remote farm in Norway for Christmas, Bo suddenly begins to doubt the life she’s leading, and the people and traumas she’s been trying to leave behind. Suddenly the feeling of ‘home’ begins to mean brand new things to Bo.
This was a really interesting read, and I really enjoyed seeing how Karen Swan played around with the relatively new phenomenon of social media influencers on a massive scale. There’s been many books in the past focusing on bloggers but I feel like the topic of influencers is still something that’s only starting to creep into novels (another example would be Holly Bourne’s How Do You Like Me Now?), and Karen Swan did it in a great way.
Bo is a rather complex character - she seems to have her head screwed on straight, and isn’t conceited or self-important in any way despite clearly being slightly famous, and extremely good-looking. She’s actually on the shy side, and it’s this that makes her more relatable to the reading my opinion. She knows how to pose for the camera but that doesn’t mean she’s happy posing for a million selfies when cornered at a Christmas market.
The Christmas Lights threw up some interesting questions around social media - the intensity and addiction of it, as well as the safety issues becoming famous on it can bring up. I think it serves some lessons in terms of geolocation and tagging oneself in places easily found, though I’m not sure if the readership of this book might learn some lessons from it, the way younger readers, who often need the stark reality of social media dangers displayed to them, would.
I will say that I guessed a lot of what was going to happen in this book, and I did feel like it was a bit long for a contemporary novel. The flashbacks to 1936 with Signe were interesting for a background to the Norwegian farm area Bo was staying in, and Signe’s older character though I’m not sure how much it brought to the story, as sometimes switching timelines like that jarred me out of the tale.
This was mostly a fun, entertaining read though and I do enjoy Karen Swan’s writing and characters.
Bo Huxley and her boyfriend Zac are living what many would deem the dream life - travelling the world whilst in love, and getting paid by big brands to do it due to their massive social media following. When the couple, and their photographer/manager Lenny decide to stay in a remote farm in Norway for Christmas, Bo suddenly begins to doubt the life she’s leading, and the people and traumas she’s been trying to leave behind. Suddenly the feeling of ‘home’ begins to mean brand new things to Bo.
This was a really interesting read, and I really enjoyed seeing how Karen Swan played around with the relatively new phenomenon of social media influencers on a massive scale. There’s been many books in the past focusing on bloggers but I feel like the topic of influencers is still something that’s only starting to creep into novels (another example would be Holly Bourne’s How Do You Like Me Now?), and Karen Swan did it in a great way.
Bo is a rather complex character - she seems to have her head screwed on straight, and isn’t conceited or self-important in any way despite clearly being slightly famous, and extremely good-looking. She’s actually on the shy side, and it’s this that makes her more relatable to the reading my opinion. She knows how to pose for the camera but that doesn’t mean she’s happy posing for a million selfies when cornered at a Christmas market.
The Christmas Lights threw up some interesting questions around social media - the intensity and addiction of it, as well as the safety issues becoming famous on it can bring up. I think it serves some lessons in terms of geolocation and tagging oneself in places easily found, though I’m not sure if the readership of this book might learn some lessons from it, the way younger readers, who often need the stark reality of social media dangers displayed to them, would.
I will say that I guessed a lot of what was going to happen in this book, and I did feel like it was a bit long for a contemporary novel. The flashbacks to 1936 with Signe were interesting for a background to the Norwegian farm area Bo was staying in, and Signe’s older character though I’m not sure how much it brought to the story, as sometimes switching timelines like that jarred me out of the tale.
This was mostly a fun, entertaining read though and I do enjoy Karen Swan’s writing and characters.