Happy holidays, everyone! My first Christmas read of the year was Courtney Walsh’s A Cross-Country Christmas. This was my first completed buddy-read, with my friend Layn (you can find her on instagram @laynslittlelibrary), and damn did we have fun.
I was taking notes throughout the whole book while simultaneously exchanging long, all caps, spam-like text messages with Layn, so be prepared for what might be the best review of the best holiday book of your life.
Lauren Richmond has her reasons for not going home for Christmas, but when her brother Will asks her to come home to be there when he and his wife have their baby, she reluctantly agrees, and even more reluctantly accepts a ride from California to Illinois with her brother’s best friend, Will Sinclair. What she believed to be a two or three day trip quickly becomes a week long road trip full of spontaneous stops. Lauren and Will have their history, and Lauren is anything but excited to be not only going home for Christmas, but spending time with Will.
Now that I’ve given you that quick synopsis, I’ll break down the parts I most enjoyed for you.
Right off the bat we get some relatable, accurate text exchanges between Lauren and her brother, Spencer. As someone with siblings, I’ve both received and sent some of the texts portrayed in the book, so I got the feeling of their being siblings right away.
Another thing we got right away was small bits of insight on Will and Lauren’s history, which was just enough to let us know there was more to come and made us want to keep reading to find out, without giving away too much.
There were aspects of each character that were relatable, from personality traits to things they did in their lives, such as Will always second-guessing himself and thinking he doesn’t deserve good things, to Lauren’s awkwardness and her twelve-year-old self practicing kissing on her pillow.
Their banter was cute throughout the whole book, making you want to keep turning the page, while immediately coming up with theories on what happened in their past, what their motives are, and how it will play out.
Santa Claus was portrayed in true Santa Claus fashion, with Mrs. Claus and the elves; each stop on their trip had a good scene and a special meaning for one or both of the characters, and another holiday one in particular was the light festival that Will and Lauren attended, followed by their walk through the village in the snow, shopping at the little booths for Christmas gifts.
Will’s sisters were funny and in-sync, his mother was super welcoming and had a whole library of books in her house, so that in itself is an automatic win, and it was nice that Lauren could finally be welcomed into a family the way she had wanted.
While some of the twists were a little predictable, with Lauren and Will’s history and the reason behind the road trip, it all worked well in the book and was executed in a way that made it believable and interesting to read.
The most unrealistic things of the book were the manner in which Lauren’s boss, Lisa, texts with her, the fact that Lauren packed an LBD “to be prepared” (for a family holiday in the middle of December?), and the fact that Will made Lauren sing a Christmas carol for coffee, followed by Lauren making Will sing to hold Spencer and his wife, Helen’s, baby. It was a little strange that Spencer planned the whole road trip to set up Will and Lauren, yet it was discussed and over with in the matter of a single page. Oh yeah, and sorry not sorry, but Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.
I’ll give you a rundown now of some of my favorite quotes from the book, and maybe you’ll see a bit of why you should read this book.
“You’re not the kind of girl you date, you’re the kind of girl you marry.” Will Sinclair, being the honest and romantic character we love to see.
“Why am I like this?” All I can say here is, well, relatable, Lauren.
“It was simply something about Lauren.”
“In that moment, Lauren Richmond looked more beautiful than anything.”
Do y’all see why I loved this book now!? I mean, come on! If you don’t already have this book on your shelf, you should definitely go out and buy it asap!
This book has everything you want from a romance novel, from witty banter between complex and intriguing characters, to easy-to-picture locations and scenes, to a plot and storyline that continues to make you want to read on. It has everything you love about a Hallmark holiday film crammed into one book in the best way, a satisfactory epilogue, and I read it quicker than I had expected–even quicker than I have with shorter books and novellas.
I’d give this book a full ten of ten stars, and would definitely recommend it to literally anyone who likes Hallmark, Christmas, and/or romance. This book gave me so many good opportunities to fangirl with a friend, and let me assure you, many all-caps texts were sent in a succession by the both of us. Definitely the best new read of the year–well done to author Courtney Walsh!
SheReadsWorlds 