In a Holidaze

Finished December 10

In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren

This Christmas romance novel has Maelynn (Mae) Jones reliving her Christmas vacation over and over as things go wrong. Every year her family gets together with 3 others at a cottage to celebrate Christmas. The families are the college friends of her parents and this tradition is so important to everyone that her family continues it even after her parents got divorced a few years ago. 

Mae has long had a crush on the oldest son in one of the other families, Andrew, but has never said anything to anyone about it. As the book opens early on the morning of December 26th, Mae realizes that she drank too much eggnog the previous evening and had a make-out session with the younger brother of her crush, one that she has long been friends with, but never felt any sexual interest in. She doesn't know how to fix this and when it appears that others know, and that more things are going wrong, she feels even worse. 

As her family drives back to the city to catch their flight home, she makes a plea to God to show her what makes her happy. Next thing she knows a vehicle is coming at theirs, and she blacks out. When she awakens, she is on a plane and it is December 20th. And she is reliving the past few days. 

As she makes different choices, the same outcome ensues, with her back on the plane heading for Christmas vacation.

This repetition has her looking at her life with more clarity, evaluating her options and choices and taking a chance on being her real self instead of the people pleaser that she has long been. 

This is a refreshing and uplifting read (in the opinion of another people pleaser) and one that is definitely a great fit for the season. I enjoyed Mae and seeing her develop into the woman that she is.