Review: So, This is Christmas by Tracy Andreen

Finley Brown returned to her hometown of Christmas, Oklahoma for the holidays. Too bad everything has changed since she left for boarding school in Connecticut. First, her best friend is dating her ex-boyfriend. Second, her parents separated, causing her mom to spend the holidays in Missouri. Finally, her former nemesis now works at her grandmother’s inn.

Just when Finely thinks things can’t get any worse, Arthur Chakrabarti Watercress shows up at the inn with his aunt and they expect a perfect Christmas. See, Finely wanted her classmates at her elite boarding school to think she came from some place interesting, so she changed the town website to make it picturesque. Arthur feel for the trap and now he’s fuming because Christmas, Oklahoma is not the quintessential small town from a Hallmark movie.

Arthur threatens to tell everyone at school about Finley’s lies if she doesn’t show him the perfect Christmas. He wants everything: to attend a holiday party, see snow, hangout with reindeer and basically have the best Christmas he’s ever had. It’s hard to do that in small town Oklahoma. Finley has just a week to make everything better in her life, while planning a holiday event every day. Can she pull it off?

So, This is Christmas was the perfect book to get us into the holiday spirit. We had a few disappointing holiday reads, that we shared with all of you last week. The holiday reading slump is over though and we had so much fun reading this hilarious Christmas romcom.

We felt so bad for Finely at the beginning. Talk about bad luck. And when Arthur shows up, she’s flabbergasted. We didn’t blame her for trying to sound cool in front of her classmate who come from elite backgrounds. But when Arthur shows up, Finely gets to work. She found some crazy ideas for holiday cheer, including going to a reindeer farm.

Arthur and Finley had great chemistry and we liked that it wasn’t insta-love. Their connection grew during their time together and we especially loved when they opened up to each other.

The best part of the story was all the Christmas cheer! From the the town parade, to the Christmas light show, Arthur and Finley had a lot of fun. Even Finely found some things to be thankful for this holiday season, especially when she realized Arthur’s visit became the perfect excuse to try new things.

As for the other characters, Finley’s grandmother and Arthur’s aunt were also stars of the book. They’re such great people and they had their own story that we loved. It also provided a much-needed commentary on how Oklahoma is still behind the times with social issues.

There were some terrible characters too, mainly Finley’s ex-best friend Mia and ex-boyfriend Brody. They treated Finley badly, especially Mia. She always needed to be the center of attention and caused drama. She also couldn’t get through a conversation without screaming.

Lastly, we think the story was a good lesson for Finley about how she mostly outgrew her hometown. She still had her family, but academically and socially there was nothing left for her there, thus Barrington Academy was the right fit for her.

Overall, we found So, This is Christmas to be what we needed to start the holiday season. We’re excited to say there is a sequel releasing in December called So, This is Love. We can’t wait to read it.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐