Review: Mistletoe Mine...
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2012
I seem to be turning into an overly sentimental softie as I age. Emily March's Mistletoe Mine is the kind of unabashedly sweet-souled, achingly earnest story that I might have rolled my subtlety-loving eyes at as recently as a few years ago. Now, though, I'm at a stage where I seek out the pure, uplifting joy that this sort of story can provide---and "Mistletoe Mine" provided it in spades!The plot revolves around estranged couple Emma and Jared Stapleton, reluctantly reuniting in the redemption-oriented town of Eternity Springs to celebrate their daughter Molly's betrothal. You might initially struggle with the idea that this young woman is still so profoundly devastated over her parents' separation, which occurred a full three years before the story begins. My parents have been divorced for well over a decade, and I understand all too well that the pain never fully fades. But when Molly burst into tears upon getting engaged because she "couldn't tell her parents the news", I immediately assumed it was because the poor girl's parents were...well, dead. When we learn in the next sentence that they're merely separated, with Molly moping about having to (gasp!) make two separate phone calls to inform them of the engagement and sniffling her way through the next few scenes, I couldn't help but think "Wait, that's it? Get some perspective and count your blessings!"Once you can get past that premise, though, a genuinely heartwarming tale awaits. The cozy, charming town and the unfailingly generous people who inhabit it may be too idyllic to strike many readers as realistic, but that's part of the point---this is the kind of story you read in order to escape to a better, 'if only I lived there...' place, not because it accurately reflects our reality.I'd initially given Mistletoe Mine four stars, but reluctantly lowered it to three due to the writing style. The writing isn't poor, but it isn't exactly sharp or evocative, either. Many of the sentences have a clunky, oddly stilted feel. I also felt the author did a substandard job of defining and differentiating her characters. Granted, this isn't a full-length novel, so there are limits to how richly the characterizations and themes can be explored. That's no excuse for giving so many characters the exact same personality...or, more accurately, no semblance of personality at all! The majority of the characters speak, think and behave in nearly identical ways.Despite these complaints about the writing style and characterizations, (or, er, lack thereof), Mistletoe Mine is a spirit-lifting, hopeful read with just enough humor to mitigate the sentimentality. The real world is full of broken dreams and unhappy endings---it's comforting to see that some books still offer us readers an unshakable, life-affirming optimism and faith in the happily ever after!