Format: Paperback
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Genre: Contemporary, Christmas
Release Date: 20th October 2016
Buy The Book: Book Depository
Sierra's family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon - it's an idyllic place for a girl to grow up, except that every year they have to pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other. Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life begins to eclipse the other...
My Thoughts:
What Light follows Sierra's potential
last Christmas at her family's Christmas tree farm. Though she has to
spend the festive period away from her friends at home each year,
going to the farm means that she gets to spend time with her other
best friend, Heather. This year, Heather wants to split up with her
boyfriend in the New Year, so whilst she's having to spend time him
in the run up to Christmas, she encourages Sierra to date a boy
whilst at the farm so that they can go on double dates. That's when
Caleb enters the story.
He becomes a frequent buyer of trees at
the farm, and Sierra ends up developing feelings for him, especially
when she finds out what he's doing with all of the trees he's buying.
There are lots of rumours about something dark that happened in
Caleb's past, but despite warnings to stay away from him, Sierra
continues befriending him.
The romance between Sierra and Caleb is
the main event of this story, but it just didn't fall into place for
me. It's a short, Christmas love story, but I was hoping for
something a little more interesting than a typical instalove plot
with a boy who has made a mistake. I also didn't feel any ounce of
the chemistry that was supposed to make Sierra have this instant
connection to him in the first place. Caleb didn't stand out for me,
not even with his troubled backstory. There was nothing about his
personality that made me think 'ah, this is why she's so smitten'.
The great thing about this story was
Sierra's family and friends. The relationship she had with her
parents was believable and sweet, and I wish we could see more
daughter/parent relationships like this one in YA. Her parents were
cautious, but not too overprotective. Whilst they were wary about
Sierra, they eventually came to allow her to do things her way.
Sierra had a wonderful set of friends, both at the tree farm and at
home. What I wasn't pleased to see was Sierra hurting her friends for
the sake of Caleb, a boy she'd known for just days. All of the
friends in this story had more potential than what we were shown of
them. I would've like to have seen their characters expanded on more,
but since the story was only a short one, there wasn't much
opportunity.
This was a cutesy Christmas romance,
but since romance was the focus of it, I'd be lying if I said I
wasn't expecting a better love story than the one I was given. For
me, the spark between Sierra and Caleb just wasn't enough light a
fire, and I found myself way more interested in the characters and
things going on around them.
Royal Rating:
No comments:
Post a Comment