The Christmas Wish by Lindsey Kelk - Book Review

The Christmas Wish by Lindsey Kelk

Publication Date: 10th November 2022

Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction, Christmas Fiction

4 Stars 

One Liner: Funny and entertaining (but a bit slow) 

*****
Gwen has been in low spirits, no thanks to her newly single status and trouble at work. She is determined to enjoy Christmas with her family, but things get messy. It sure is not easy when her father wants to live his dreams through her lawyering career, and her sister Creys (and her sister’s husband Oliver) seem to make things worse. It doesn’t help that Gwen meets her childhood crush, Dev Jones. 

Then Gwen wakes up the next day to repeat Christmas Day all over again. Someone made a wish, and it’s up to Gwen to find out and fulfill it. This turns out to be an eye-opener as Gwen realizes that there were many things she didn’t know about her family. Also, she wonders if she is living the best life when it no longer makes her happy. Can Gwen find what she wants for Christmas while helping her family truly come together as a unit? 

The story comes from the first-person POV of Gwen Baker. 

My Thoughts: 

I’m glad I went into the prepared to read it more as Women’s Fiction than romance. Right expectations are important to enjoy the book. 

The writing is easy to read and flows with natural humor. It is silly, quirky, and even eye-roll-inducing. But it is entertaining and lighthearted. Even those several pop culture references didn’t diminish the effect. 

The characters are well-defined despite not being too layered. What we see is enough to understand their essence. Gwen has a few not-so-nice moments, but those make her human. After all, who hasn’t embarrassed themselves at one time or another? A bit of exaggeration is expected in fiction, so I don’t mind. 

The Groundhog Day loop doesn’t start until close to 100 pages. I feel this is necessary to establish the characters and set the stage for the actual time loop. The reader goes into the main plot armed with the required information. 

The book deals with varied themes like dysfunctional families, parental pressure, love, relationships, cheating, career struggles, workplace issues for women, etc. They blend with the plot, appear whenever necessary, and get resolved (sometimes easily, sometimes not). 

The pacing is a bummer. Despite the humor and everything, the story dragged in some places. A couple of themes are handled with a weeny bit extra emphasis, but that’s no big deal when the book delivers on the nice Christmasy feeling and a happy ever after. 

To summarize, The Christmas Wish is a lighthearted, humorous read with lots of family time and some romance (for icing). 

Thank you, NetGalley, HarperFiction, and HarperCollins UK, for the eARC. 

#NetGalley 

Note: 

So, Dev Jones is half-Indian. His mom is Sunita, and they also have a teeny dog called Pari. Diverse- check. Brown character- check. 

Unfortunately, Devendra could have easily been David or Dave, and it could have been the same. While I’m glad that there is no stereotyping, I don’t like Dev’s cultural roots being erased without a trace. I couldn’t even imagine him because everything about him is 100% British. Now, if a book had Irish, Scottish, Italian, or other characters, there would be something other than ‘his thick black hair’ to show cultural diversity. 

Here, there’s nothing. Food, language, and music are connectors that keep the cultural element alive in second and third-generation immigrants. The book had ample opportunities to include a line or two to weave the Indianness without emphasizing or stereotyping the character. All it needed was a bit of research and some effort to make use of the diversity instead of ticking it off with physical descriptions and names. I haven’t docked points for this, but I would have added them if this was taken care of.