The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Series: Standalone

Author: John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Holiday, Short Story Collection

Rating: 4 stars

Review:

On Christmas Eve a snowstorm brings together three separate love stories. One takes place after a train crashes into a snowbank. The other takes place on a misbegotten adventure to the Waffle House. And the final love story ends at a morning shift at Starbucks.

Admittedly, I don’t love short story collections. They’re typically too short and feel like more of a summary for me. This book may be an exception. These stories were long enough for me to feel like I know the characters, and since there was only three, enough time was dedicated to each story. I think it also helped that they were all interconnected.

I like Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle’s stories the most. While I enjoy The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down, I don’t really like any other John Green works. This was no exception; I didn’t love his part of the collection. I think the story had promise, but the execution was poor. I don’t love how he writes male characters, and this was very noticeable in his part of the story.

The romances were cute, and I enjoyed how they were all different. All the romances didn’t follow the same pattern, which I appreciated.

I did really like how connected the stories were. There were certain things that were part of each story, like the snowstorm and cheerleaders. I wish the Waffle House was featured in the final story because it was a big part of the first two.

I have the same complaint for this book as I did for Decked with Holly and Ex-Mas. It wasn’t very Christmas-y. This book is advertised as a Christmas book, but it was more wintery than Christmas. This didn’t make it bad, but it isn’t why I read it. I want the strong Christmas emotions and scenes.

Let it Snow was a cute wintery short-story collection. There was cute romances and an interconnectedness to all of the stories that I enjoyed. The lack of Christmas bothered me, as well as how John Green traditionally writes male main characters. A nice story to read while the snow swirls outside!

Quotes:

”It’s not what the universe gives us that matters. It’s what we give the universe.”