Review: What?
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 03 7, 2014
I only got to 32 percent in this book.I so wanted to love it.  Loved the cover, loved the premise; but it just had some glaring issues that made me just stop.  I don't think anything I am about to say is a spoiler, because it happens very early in the book.Emma is a widow.  Her husband Larry was military.  He had a man named Jake in his company.  Jake moved in next door to Emma and is watching over Emma and the kids.Well, Jake and Emma both are visited by the spirit of Larry.  It wasn't clear at the very beginning, but come to find out Emma doesn't know that Jake has any connection with Larry at all, in life or in death.  But Jake is right there next door, he helps the family.  The kids love him and trust him as their neighbor.  But he doesn't tell them who knew and admired/loved Larry?  What is to be gained by this?  It just doesn't sit right with me.  It gives it a bit of a stalker vibe.  It made me uncomfortable.  And then there are the white feathers.  All of a sudden, everywhere you look are white feathers.  Heavy handed and really not necessary.  I mean, come on.  Larry is apparently very busy socially, visiting his wife, his comrade, and later we find out his kids.  He is more at home dead than he probably ever was alive.But I digress.Now, this is a Christmas story and Jake's mission is to bring the joy of Christmas back to Larry's widow.  This is the job assigned to him by Larry.  But then you come to find out Jake's last name is Nicklaus.  Too cheesy and too clichéd.There are a number of wrong word issues, bad punctuation.There is more than  bit of "what?" going on, too.The Yellow Pages plays a role in the beginning of the story.  Emma gets very upset over a lost page that she pulled out of the phone book.  Apparently it is 1989 in her world.  Emma needs a hall for a dinner she is putting on for a grief group and Jake promises to procure a room for her at the fire station.  Emma expresses doubt it can be done.  First off I was thinking, well, it is a grief group for military families.  Of course the fire department is going to okay it.  Then come to find out that the fire chief is an old family friend of Emma's parents.  Okay.  Why couldn't she approach him?  He even loves her pie.  She could have showed up with a smile and a pie, and voila, it is done.  But no, Jake had to come up with the idea and execute it.There are editing issues, wrong word choice issues (most noticeably using "smirk" as a positive, happy expression), wrong plural possessives or just plain misused apostrophes.Then there was this line at location 492 "Emma appeared at the top of the stairs with Ben on her hip and reminisces of green marker on his chin, a sight Jake could never get too tired of seeing."  First I spent time figuring out what did she mean instead of "reminisces," then I spent time trying to figure out if the sight he would never tire of was the kid with the marker all over his face, Emma, or Ben in Emma's arms.  This was not the first "what?" situation I hit, but I kept reading because I really, really wanted to like this book.And then I get to the visit to Santa Claus.  Now, Emma is losing the Christmas spirit, so it makes sense you use the kids to get her out and about this Christmas season.  A trip to Santa is definitely in order.  But wait, Jake is on call, as in on call from the fire department.  You know, on call as in if there is a fire, you get called in, you know, while you are with Santa and the family you have driven to see Santa. You know, on call as in you have to drop everything you are doing and go to the fire, that kind of on call.  So that was my last "what?" moment.  Oh, yeah, and when I hit the  word "franticly."Why two stars instead of one?  Well, because it had some good ideas.  It had a bit of depth.  But there were just too many good ideas crammed in it, and they weren't well executed.  A two I thought fit it fine.  I am sure a lot of people will enjoy this.  I am just not one of those people.