Author: Jeanette Winterson
Series: -
Genres: Short Stories, Christmas
Publisher: Grove Press
Release: 2016
Source: Hardback
Pages: 293
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BLURB:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? comes an enchanting collection of stories for the holiday season.
For years Jeanette Winterson has loved writing a new story at Christmas time and here she brings together twelve of her brilliantly imaginative, funny and bold tales. For the Twelve Days of Christmas—a time of celebration, sharing, and giving—she offers these twelve plus one: a personal story of her own Christmas memories. These tales give the reader a portal into the spirit of the season, where time slows down and magic starts to happen. From jovial spirits to a donkey with a golden nose, a haunted house to a SnowMama, Winterson’s innovative stories encompass the childlike and spooky wonder of Christmas. Perfect for reading by the fire with loved ones, or while traveling home for the holidays. Enjoy the season of peace and goodwill, mystery, and a little bit of magic courtesy of one of our most fearless and accomplished writers.
EXPECTATIONS: I received this book as part of my Christmas present from our blogger Martyna so naturally I started reading it straight away.
THE WORLD: Christmas. This is a book of short stories and short memoirs. So in memoirs we have our normal world, memories of an author herself. And in short stories we have fantastic magical worlds sometimes full of Christmas spirits and Santa Claus with Rudy by his side and sometimes full of ghosts and wondering souls. I will not go into each story on its own because that would take ages to write about and nobody wants to spend half their day reading one blog post so let me just tell you that I was both intrigues and surprised by the world this author created.
CHARACTERS: Again it is a collection of short story under one uniting topic - Christmas. But I will mention some of the characters that stuck in my head the most. First and probably the most fun one was Snow Mama. It was a story about a girl who was sad and alone because her mother had to work a lot. She did not have a warm home or presents on Christmas but then one day she and her friend built a snowman and at night this snow man came alive. Her name was SnowMama. She took the girl to meat other Christmas snowmen who were also alive at night, she cleaned the girls home and decorated the tree. And when the mother came home she decided it is time to find a new job and take care of her daughter. I know it is a cheesy story but I liked it nevertheless, it was very unique and just don't know makes you smile. Now there were of course more characters but I am bad with names but let me just briefly mention a few stories that were my favorite too. So the first one that really made me surprised was the ghost house. It was about a man who rented an old house in middle of nowhere and was waiting for his friends to arrive the next day. But they never did. Instead the house was full of ghosts. I won't tell you more because well that would be spoiling really but it was not the only story that had a vibe of scary stories. There was also a story about a family that bought an old mansion and had all their friends coming and one of them had these weird dreams and saw things and yeah the ending was pretty wow. So yeah, not saying more. No spoilers!
ROMANCE: Actually none. Okay maybe one story. But it was more about what Christmas really means than romance.
GOOD: It was Christmas time when I was reading it so it really made me smile. Plus it is a collection of short stories and even tho I normally don't read short stories I think this was a perfect book before bed when you are tired from a long day.
BAD: Cannot really think of anything.
BAD: Cannot really think of anything.
OVERALL: I really enjoyed it. Must say first time I enjoyed short story collection this much in general. Plus I expected it to be cute Christmas stories and instead I was very nicely surprised by these ghost stories.
What do you think about CHRISTMAS DAYS?
