By Sara Steven
Caroline is a cynic career woman living the high life in Manhattan where love and relationships are but a distant memory of the past.
But after a freak accident on Christmas Eve, Caroline receives a visit from a cheeky spirit of Christmas Past, Present, Yet to Come, and—most importantly—Christmas That Could Have Been. When she wakes up on Christmas Day suddenly married with three kids and living two doors down from her parents in New Jersey, Caroline has a chance to experience the life she would’ve had if she’d made a different choice.
Will small-town life as a mother and a wife make her rediscover what’s really important in life?
A modern-day retelling of A Christmas Carol… (synopsis courtesy of Goodreads.)
A Christmas Caroline was the perfect mash-up of A Christmas Carol and the film, The Family Man! Caroline is a high-powered publishing executive who has fallen out of love with the things that have grounded her, preferring money and success over creativity and connection. Even the first few pages pin her personality down perfectly, when she deals with a few of her employees with the personality of the meanest Miranda Priestly you can ever imagine. The thought of the big “C” word--Christmas--is enough to make her want to break out in hives, and she can’t wait to finish meeting up with her family for the obligatory holidays and move on with her blessed life.
But it’s obvious that even with all of her success, there is a lot that is missing from Caroline’s life. So much so, that after her freak accident, she finds herself transported back seven or so years in time, before the money and proprietary fame. She ends up living in some alternative universe, which is passed off as amnesia to her husband and children, attempting to survive an endless stream of poopy diapers, carpool lanes, after-school activities, and lacking the ever-growing security she felt she had when she had economic security.
It’s a bumpy ride, but a good one. I loved seeing the vast differences between who Caroline had been when she was a publishing executive, to who she discovers she could be when she’s a wife and mother, branching out in other ways that had been so important to her at one point in time. What’s the appropriate measure of success? I think that varies from person to person, and that is pretty apparent here for Caroline. The image of what she had always seen as “success” changes with each passing day, as well as what she feels is most important in her life.
I really enjoyed A Christmas Caroline, bah humbug! It’s the perfect read for the upcoming holidays; a well-deserved five-star experience!
Thanks to Rachel's Random Resources for the book in exchange for an honest review.
She's a cat lover, coffee addict, and shoe hoarder. Besides writing, she loves reading--duh!--cooking, watching bad TV, and going to the movies--popcorn, please. She's a bit of a foodie, nothing too serious. A keen traveler, Camilla knows mosquitoes play a role in the ecosystem, and she doesn't want to starve all those frog princes out there, but she could really live without them.
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