Publication Date: 05th July 2022

2.5 Stars

One Liner: This is what happens when you fall for the cover and the words summer & Christmas!

Ivy Green’s autobiographical script is ready to be filmed. After five years of struggling to make a mark as a screenwriter, Ivy finally gets her chance. Imagine her shock when the producer announces that the movie will be filmed in her hometown.

The last thing Ivy wants is to come across Nick, her childhood bestie and long-term lover, the man who broke up with her just before Christmas five years ago. With no other choice, Ivy goes back home, determined to prove that she moved on. After all, she’s in a relationship with Drew, the producer of the film.

However, just about everything goes wrong as the heroine playing Ivy gets too close to Nick, and Ivy is still very much confused about her feelings for him. Ivy needs to get her life back on track and decide what she wants if she hopes for a happy ever after.

What I Like:

• Oh, this is easy. The cover is cute, and I’ve always liked to read about Christmas when it’s super hot outside. Summer in Christmas felt like it was my kind of book (except it wasn’t).

• The best part of the book was Ivy rewriting her love story into a script where she kills off Nick’s character in an accident. Way to go!

• The book reads fast (or maybe I'm very good at speed reading), thus saving me a day I marked for this one.

• The side characters are endearing despite the limited character development. Griffin, Ivy’s parents and sister, and Nick’s mom had great potential but shined within the limitations.

• The Christmas theme was good to read. That’s what kept me going.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

*cracks knuckles*

• The narration was choppy and seemed a bit disjointed. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of contemporary writing, but some of the sentences were too weird to read. The Nick, Rick, and dick thingy was cringe-level.

• The POV seemed too scattered. It is a limited third-person one minute, omnipresent the next, and judgmental third person in another. Quite confusing at times.

• Some attempts at humor felt OTT. The drama was a bit too much and continued to go in circles. Why couldn’t they just talk like adults? Ivy and Nick have known each other forever and are now in their 30s. You’d expect more maturity from them.

• Ivy and Nick spend a lot of time in their past instead of deciding what they want for the future. We see that they are meant to be together. But if they can’t decide it, why bother!

• Despite the flaws, Ivy was a good person and deserved better. Nick was an idiot, and Drew was worse. I was half-hoping she’d find someone who would really love her.

• Griffin’s arc was going well until there’s a sudden realization

Spoiler

that he likes guys. Make it believable, at least! Representation, for the sake of it, doesn’t work.

• I was still hopeful about the ending, but two scenes ruined it for me. I cannot make myself rate the book higher.

Spoiler

First, Nick thinks he dreams about his dead father and wakes up realizing that he needs to get Ivy back in his life. Then, Ivy has a dream with a Young Ivy showing her their past and the future. Boom! Ivy now knows she needs to sort it with Nick because he’s the love of her life.
Then we get to know that Nick actually met a guy (from the film crew) who looked like his dad.

What even! Why do two grown-up people need dreams and ghosts to help them decide about their lives? Just about everyone in the town and the shooting crew knows Ivy and Nick are a couple, but they need some guidance from the other world. Sigh!

• The ending is a high drama that would look good on the screen but fell OTT in the book.
I enjoy romcoms, but this just got too much after a while.

After reading the author’s note and bio, I kind of understood why the book felt so patchy.
Bear with me as I get into the gyaan-sharing mode.

*clears voice*

The authors are screenplay writers, and this is their first novel. Their expertise clearly shows in the scenes related to the film and film industry. However, screenplay writing is different from novel writing.

A film is an audiovisual medium. The audience doesn’t have to imagine or guess the characters, their emotions, and their expressions. It’s all there for us to see. A book requires the reader to imagine and visualize the content. They have the freedom to choose the actors but also have the disadvantage of not knowing whether or not their visualization is aligned with the authors'.

What feels aligned in a film doesn’t necessarily feel the same in a book. After all, we cannot ‘see’ certain things but can only imagine them. This mismatch made the book feel choppy and patchy.
The weird sentences and dialogues would sound natural and funny on the screen. The same doesn’t have to happen in the book format (it didn’t for some of us). And thus, we have a great premise with a mixed-up execution. This should have been a movie.

*speech ends*

To sum up, The Summer of Christmas is a very light read if you aren’t particular about certain things. The Christmas elements are fun, so all is not lost.

Thank you, NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

#NetGalley

Well considering that it was set in a particular era, the stereotyping was in inevitable. But I did like Rafe since he was funny and kind of unpredictable in a harmless way.
Maggie was fire with insecurities of her own and she dealt with them in her own time.
The love between brothers felt really good to read.
I think I liked Kathleen the best. Never have I read about a housekeeper who is messy and a terrible cook yet the sweetest person.
Started on the second book immediately since the stories seem to be running parallelly.

I read this sometime in 2011/12. It did start great but got too contrived, and the ending wasn't as interesting. But I do remember the book vaguely, so that's 3 stars.

A pretty small book that still managed to include backstory and give some depth to the characters. Good one.

Well, the cover is super cute. The story is okayish. It had its moments and was funny at a couple of places. But nothing stood out. It's a light read I could finish in a couple of hours (in total). The parts describing Rosamond's magic and her communication with plants were well written. I enjoyed those the most in the book. The hero failed to make an impact, though.
If you are looking for a carefree read to pass time, this book will work.

2.7 Stars

2.5 stars

Let me start by declaring that I’ve read only one book of the author before this one. That’s Kafka on the Shore. I did enjoy it (and even gave it 4 stars), except for the Oedipus parts.
While I wasn’t keen on picking this one, I did know that the imagery would be great, and there would be something worth reading.
Yeah, I wasn’t entirely wrong, but then, I could have done without this book (at least I could strike off one reading challenge).

Spoiler

The book deals with death, depression, and teenage confusion in a different style.
It’s not surprising that I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. But I did expect them to make me feel something, anything. What I was left with instead was an eye roll for Toru, a shake of my head for Midori, and a sigh for Naoko and Reiko.
The only reason the book got an extra 0.5 stars (the original was 2.2) was that the author spared Hatsumi for Toru’s conquests (for the lack of a better word). I was dreading their sexual interlude, and thankfully it didn’t happen.
Toru and Reiko, I knew it would come (ref: the first paragraph). I wasn’t surprised, not even disappointed, to be honest.
The story just didn’t seem to be going anywhere until I was done with half the book. At least, the second half went faster (a bit). Midori was refreshing with her almost surreal character that seemed to be a perfect cover for her vulnerability. Though she has a few scenes I could do without. I mean, there’s a thin line between being delightfully different and stupid. Still, she had some spine, which not even our heroic hero seemed to have.
The death of a loved one is never easy to let go of, and Naoko should garner all of my sympathies. Somewhere, she ended up doing the opposite. Stringing a man, oops, a boy along, when knowing there is no hope seems cruel.
Reiko started out great, but then we know what happened. Of course, characters with flaws make a book real. This one has every character with glaring flaws.
That’s good. But it’s not good too. If there was character development, either progress or decline, I’d have enjoyed their flaws.
What do we get instead? The book ends the way it started. We only know that Toru was alive even 18 years after the incidents took place. Guess that should make us happy. With most characters deciding to end their lives, it feels a little good to see the narrator live.
I did wonder if he stayed with Midori or went on to find someone else. Either way, he didn’t deserve the girls. A person who cannot let go of the past shouldn’t ruin someone’s future. Sadly, this is very common.
While I have absolutely no issues with sex scenes, I did get irritated by their frequency in this book. I’m wary of men writing women and sex scenes, and this just proved my point again. Ugh! All those blowjobs and girls fantasizing about men’s (oops again), boys’ dicks get annoying after a while.
There’s only so much one can read about Toru sleeping with girls or dreaming about sleeping with Naoko.
I still gave the book 2+ stars because it does talk about depression, self-obsessed people like Nagasawa and the kind of bullying one has to endure if they are different from the rest (Storm Tropper). Storm Tropper, somehow, was the only character who held promise, and he was plucked out of the book, just like that.

To sum up (I need to do it before I go on ranting), Norwegian Wood should definitely not be the first Murakami book a person should read. Pick up Kafka on the Shore. It’s a lot better in plot, style, and narration.