For anyone who has every been stressed in the weeks, days or hours leading up to jingle bell festivities, this is therapy in book form. You'll cringe and laugh, but what you won't be doing is obsessing about your own upcoming parties. Everything is relative, as they say. In An Almost Perfect Christmas, Nina Stibbe serves up a perfect pre-holiday read that you'll swear must be somewhat drawn from her own (or anyone else's) Christmas catastrophes.
Updated: Jul 30, 2022
Where should I start? Although I certainly sympathize with the author for her revelation that she, like the main character, lost her own brother at a young age, it felt as though this book was more a form of therapy to work through that loss than a well-thought out story. In this tale, set in 1938, Beatrice (the star of the show) and her philandering husband book a summer at a seaside resort, with the express purpose of hobnobbing with the rich and famous to whom they aspire to cozy up. I found the protagonist to be annoyingly inconsistent, unless we're talking about her self-centeredness. That was unchanging (and infuriating) throughout the book. Our "heroine" vacillated between utter vapidity and amazing self-awareness and brilliance. Highly unlikely. I never remotely developed any sense of concern for what happened to her, and frankly, wanted her to be killed off early on, but alas, no such luck. Furthermore, the writing felt forced, and why, oh why, was there an apparent ban on the word "pregnant" through the entire book? If I read "with child" once, I read it a million times. Eventually it became like nails on a chalkboard. Again, my sincere sympathies to the author, but perhaps this isn't the answer.
This little gem is a darling, informative read about the flora and fauna which surrounds, well, mainly those of us in Northern California. I was enchanted by Marni's explanations of things I didn't know and elaborations on that which I though I knew. Her delighted observations took me right back to childhood, when we had the time to deconstruct a seed pod or really inspect a bug. Really quick, enjoyable and packed with material you'll use, or not, but you'll be the richer for having read it.
