A review by cass_lit
The Christmas Orphans Club by Becca Freeman

2.75

I think this was a me-problem. Everyone is liking this, and I love that for them. Unfortunately it didn’t really work for me and I think the #1 reason for why that is was because I don’t have the emotional bandwidth right now for these very emotionally complicated fictional characters. I’m all for real, complex characters but the issue here was that between these flashbacks of Christmases past, we were ONLY getting their bad sides. Until the end, we never once met Hannah when she wasn’t so insecure and too wound up in her to be the good friend everyone apparently thinks she is. Priya and Theo both never got POVs (kind of weird considering the emphasis on the 4 of them), but at least Theo got screen time in Finn’s chapters. Ironic, considering Priya’s monologue in the hospital.  And Finn’s chapters, despite having a very traumatic and real coming-out-to-his-family history, were mostly just pining over Theo and we had zero indication as to whether that was reciprocated (except that a Christmas story deserves a HEA). 

Also, one niche issue with the time jumps here: why didn’t they tell us what year the present was? We kept working towards it but I had no idea how many christmases we’d still be having in between to work through!
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