Rating: 66% | ★★
Synopsis (from NetGalley): It started with a letter. It ended with a love story. Every December, Josie posts a letter from her home in London to the parents she lost on Christmas night many years ago. Each year, she writes the same three words: Missing you, always. But this year, her annual trip to the postbox is knocked off course by a bicycle collision with a handsome stranger--a stranger who will change the course of Josie's life. Josie always thought she was the only one who avoided the Christmas season, but this year, Max has his own reasons for doing the same—and coincidence leads them to spending the holiday together. Aglow with new love, Josie thinks this might be the start of something special. Only for Max to disappear without saying goodbye. Over the course of the next year, Max and Josie will find that fate continues to bring them together in places they'd never expect. New York City. Edinburgh. The quiet English countryside. And it turns out, Max had every reason to leave and every reason to stay. But what does fate hold for Josie and Max as Christmas approaches again? Non-Spoiler Review: Books like Always, in December is the reason why the "Closure/Set-Up" section on this website's rubric exists. I found this novel to be a fairly standard, sort of Love, Rosie-style story and was prepared to give it three or four stars until, quite literally, the last three chapters. First, the positives. I did enjoy the suspense woven throughout this book—the constant meeting, leaving, and re-meeting. The characters are also lovely and quite human, if a little two-dimensional at times when Stone describes their internal thoughts. The writing also shines through at key parts in the novel, especially when Josie discusses the process of grief and notes that it ought to be a process of loving and honoring rather than mourning. Again, though, I must qualify this praise by noting that there are moments where Stone excessively summarizes events, disrupting the flow of the story. The premise of the book—Josie's letter-writing—also mysteriously disappears until the very end, making the reader question its importance in the synopsis. The absolutely nonsensical nature of the ending cast a pall over the rest of the book. Not only was it completely unnecessary to the novel, it was also rushed and poorly constructed; Stone's vague recalls to previous moments in the novel in order to justify the ending fell flat. Ultimately, while I did enjoy Always, in December, it is not a novel for those who are particularly sensitive about the logic of their stories or sudden plot twists in the last act. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for giving me a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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