Rating: 96% | A | ★★★★★
Synopsis (from NetGalley): Bettie Hughes once knew the comfort of luxury, flaunting a ridiculous collection of designer shoes and a stealthy addiction to CBD oils. That is, until her parents snipped her purse strings. Long obsessed with her public image, Bettie boasts an extravagant lifestyle on social media. But the reality is: Bettie is broke and squatting in Colorado, and her family has no idea. Christmas, with its pressure to meet familial expectations, is looming when a drunk Bettie plays a vinyl record of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” backwards and accidentally conjures Hall, an unexpectedly charming Holiday Spirit in the form of a man. Once the shock wears off, Bettie knows she’s stumbled upon the greatest gift: a chance to make all her holiday wishes come true, plus a ready-made fiancé. But as the wiles of magic lose their charm, Bettie finds herself set off-kilter by Hall’s sweet gestures. Suddenly, Bettie is finding her heart merry and light. But the happier she gets, the shorter Hall’s time on earth grows. Can Bettie channel the Christmas spirit and learn to live with goodwill toward all men? Or will her selfish ways come back as soon as the holidays are over? Spoiler-Free Review: Bonkers. That is quite literally the only way to describe this novel. It's bonkers. And in a fantastic, whimsical way unlike anything I've ever read. This is a story that should not work: it deifies Mariah Carey, celebrates a terrible heroine, and relies on Bewitched levels of secondary cast ignorance. (Not to mention the fact that the story resembles this also absolutely bonkers project from Netflix.) But the story does work. And it works so well it has the reader looking suspiciously at the stack of CDs piled in the dusty corner of their home wondering if they, too, could conjure a Hall. Bettie is a fantastically flawed protagonist with a sharp sense of humor, and her unapologetically zany family matches her energy. It is a true testament to Hogle's writing skills that her multitudes of name drops—everything from Scott Disick's theoretical Patreon to Jamie Lee Curtis eating Activia (which triggered a long-buried memory within me)—make the story feel historically transcendent rather than cringe-inducingly localized to the present year. I have 135 highlights in my copy (I counted), moments in which I snorted out loud. (And one moment in which I noticed a reference to The Junkyard and gasped, a good old fashioned soap opera gasp.) This novel is lovely, unapologetic fun. I would be remiss to mention the romance—and that, too, brims with Hogle's distinctive earnestness. Like the romance between Nicholas and Naomi in her debut novel You Deserve Each Other, the romance between Bettie and Hall sneaks up on the reader—moments of sincerity and earnestness and sometimes tragedy slipping in between jokes. It is an ironically realistic relationship between a human and the personification of the holiday spirit. And now I'm wishing for Christmas in April. Thank you to Penguin Group, Putnam and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Just Like Magic is out October 4, 2022.
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