Let It Snow by Maureen Johnson, John Green and Lauren Myracle

Sparkling white snowdrifts, beautiful presents wrapped in ribbons, and multicolored lights glittering in the night through the falling snow. A Christmas Eve snowstorm transforms one small town into a romantic haven, the kind you see only in movies. Well, kinda. After all, a cold and wet hike from a stranded train through the middle of nowhere would not normally end with a delicious kiss from a charming stranger. And no one would think that a trip to the Waffle House through four feet of snow would lead to love with an old friend. Or that the way back to true love begins with a painfully early morning shift at Starbucks. Thanks to three of today’s bestselling teen authors—John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle—the magic of the holidays shines on these hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and breathtaking kisses.

My Thoughts:

A YA Christmas book! Yay! This book is actually three different stories, told by three different authors, about a bunch of inter-connecting people who get stuck in a huge snow storm. Since they're three different stories I feel like I have to review them separately.

Maureen Johnson's story, The Jubilee Express, was pretty hilarious. It took me a couple of pages to get into the voice of Jubilee but once I found her voice I loved it! She was quirkily adorable. And sweet and fun. Jubilee's story begins with her parents getting tossed in jail on Christmas Eve. Her suburban, nice, normal, law-abiding parents. For fighting over ceramics. Right off the bat this story is funny. And it just keeps getting crazier. Until Jubilee meets a boy at a Waffle House and decides to accept his offer when he asks her to go home with him. I mean, everything turned out fine, but just the fact that she was willing to go home with some random guy she'd known for two minutes rubbed me the wrong way. Not a good message to send young girls. Anyway, Jubilee has every reason to be depressed and weird on Christmas because nothing is working out the way she wanted it to. And, yeah, she has her pity-party moments but mostly she's entertaining. She moves a little too quickly for me from one guy to the next, but it is a short story. And it's cute. And clean. And I grinned a lot while reading it.

John Green's A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle was my favorite of the three. I just love the way he writes! I'm gonna have to read some more John Green books. This story follows three best friends who are hanging out together on Christmas Eve who get a call from another friend asking them to drive through a snowstorm to come hang out with him and a bunch of cheerleaders. Everything was just so funny! All the dialog was hilarious and witty. I liked the characters. I mean, I really liked the characters. I wanted to hang out with them. I want to be friends with fictional characters. Or maybe just with John Green, who is a real person. We could be buddies. Anyway, I loved this storyline. Everything progressed perfectly, characters were believable. The plot was silly, of course, but fun. And I want these characters as friends.

Lauren Myracle's The Patron Saint of Pigs was my least favorite. If not for this third story, the book probably would have gotten four stars. I've read one book by Lauren Myracle and hated it. Hated! Loathed, even. It was really bad. This wasn't that bad but I'm still not a Myracle fan. Her writing is just so whiney. The main character was a horribly selfish, foolish, immature person. I really didn't like her at all. Things are over-explained. There's lots of info-dumping. This story has all the characters from the other stories meeting up somehow at the end, which is kind of nice, only I wish a different author would have done it because Myracle just doesn't do them justice. I didn't like this storyline. Nothing happens here except for Addie re-hashing her failed relationship and being annoyingly stupid and whiney. I thought all of Myracle's characters were dumb. I skimmed through most of this story because it was just so bad.

So definitely read this book if you're into clean, sweet, contemporary YA romance novels set at Christmas time. The first two stories are just so cute. I loved them! The third, you have my permission to skip. There's no real reason to read it. Merry Christmas!

Sexual Content: Mild
Language: Moderate
Violence: Mild
Drugs/Alcohol: Mild