Just Like Magic

It’s that time of year again where the holiday season kicks off, which for many people includes the one thing they either look forward to or dread the most: family visits.

Families are a gift, but let’s face it - not everyone has a smiling, happy, Hallmark movie-ready family. Sometimes families are a little more … complicated. 

Meet Bettie Hughes, a once popular, self-involved twenty-four-year old social media influencer, who’s lost all her money and most of her fans after reckless spending and a breakup with a popular singer. Now she’s a bit of a pariah and secretly broke and squatting in a tiny Colorado home just down the mountain from her grandfather and namesake famous grandmother, Bettie Watson.

She’s been telling her family and her few remaining supporters that she’s living the successful, good life in a Hawaiian villa - a story she’s backed up with Photoshopped pictures, and one she’s used repeatedly to excuse herself from family gatherings with her legitimately uber-successful siblings, but this time she’s run out of excuses and has to join her deeply dysfunctional family for Christmas at her grandparents’ house up the mountain.

After a drunken night preceding her family visit that includes accidentally playing Mariah Carey’s hit song, All I Want for Christmas, backwards on a turntable … just go with it … a very unexpected thing happens, which introduces the ever-so-delightful: Hall E. Day

Hall - short for Holiday - is a boundlessly energetic, sweetly innocent, endlessly joyful holiday spirit who has a thing or two to teach Bettie and the entire Hughes-Watson clan about appreciating what’s right in front of them and the magic in every day, but first he’s got to melt that cold heart of Bettie’s and win over her family. Posing as Bettie’s fiance, his efforts to infuse the holiday spirit into this bickering, grumpy bunch are hilarious and heartwarming, and kept the giggles and smiles coming, and the dynamic between he and Bettie stole my heart!! His comical magic conjuring alone is worth the read.

Those of us who’ve seen the movie, Elf, will likely find comparisons to make between Buddy and Hall’s personalities and outlooks, which I didn’t mind because I love that movie! Unlike Buddy, he’s not nearly as hyper, and he’s not obsessed with Santa, though Hallmark actress Lacey Chabert is another story … 

If you can get past Bettie’s unlikable personality in the initial part of the book, you’ll find a quirky, fun, genuinely sweet story with a surprising amount of emotional substance. I would LOVE to see this movie on the big screen, with all of Hogle’s holiday imagination brought to life. It’s such an immersive book that even the Grinchiest heart will feel the icicles melting, and as an added bonus, you MAY even appreciate your family a little bit more!

★★★★ ½ 

Thanks to Penguin Group Putnam, NetGalley and author Sarah Hogle for the opportunity to honestly review this digital ARC.  This will be published on October 4, 2021.