⭐⭐⭐
25 Days 'til Christmas
Poppy Alexander
352 pages | Published by William Morrow
Kate, a widowed mother of a young boy, is struggling to make ends meet, is apparently at risk of losing her job, and has all but given up on finding any kind of happiness in her life. In an attempt to give her son a great Christmas, she creates a list of festive activities to help celebrate the season and to hopefully jumpstart a new outlook on life. Daniel, grieving the loss of his sister, is not excited at all about the holidays - only the prospect of getting to know Kate, even though he only knows her as the girl who sells Christmas trees. As their friendship grows, the two start to realize that maybe they are exactly what each other needs to find happiness again.
While definitely not a typical cheery holiday read, this was a great book to finish off the holiday season and to be my last book of the year. 25 Days 'til Christmas is a much darker look at the holidays, and how some have to try really hard to see something worth celebrating. This book covers some really heavy topics - poverty, suicide and depression, and sexual assault. Not really a lineup of classic Christmas topics.
I liked the slow burn of Kate and Daniel, moving from acquaintances to friends to something more, but the romance was the real B-plot in this story. I realized about 150 pages in that the two had barely interacted so far - this book is much more about Kate's mission to turn her life around, and getting involved with Daniel just happens to be a part of that process.
Overall, I really liked this book but I was a little surprised by the ending. While I know that the intent is probably that Kate realizes she can accept help from others, but it came across like she needed a man to come in and save her from her crumbling life. I also wasn't a huge fan of how - right when she needed financial help the most - she is sexually assaulted and as a result will likely see a big payout from the legal proceedings. All of this knocked my rating down a couple of stars; I think maybe Kate didn't need to be assaulted to find a way out of her problems.
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