The Kari AnnAlysis

Posts Tagged ‘ex-mas’

Released: October 6, 2009

I got this book for the Christmas Reading Challenge. It was my first book to read  for this challenge. I had it for a couple of months and had to force myself not to read it.

Meet Lila. She’s a high school senior – the most popular high school senior – at her school in California. She has the popularity, the friends, a boyfriend in college and plans for the perfect party to kick off Christmas break. Those plans don’t last long though. They all come crumbling down when her bratty brother intervenes. And to pay him back for ruining her perfect party, she “accidentally” drops the bomb about *gasp* Santa!

Well, 8 year old Collin is devastated. And to save Santa, he and his buddy Tyler head towards the North Pole. Lila and Tyler’s brother head on a coastal journey to get the boys home and save both of their butts. Along the way, they reunite their friendship, have a few fights, run into Lila’s boyfriend and try to find their bratty brothers. Oh yeah, did I mention that Lila’s partner in crime is her ex boyfriend Beau? Yeah, that complicates things.

I loved this book! It was fun and cute and as I’ve said before, I always give a book a good review when I think it’ll be a good movie and I can picture it.

From the get-go, I liked a number of things about this book. I liked the setting, Christmas in Cali. I’m used to snow and cold and they’re used to wearing mini skirts and putting out fake snow. I liked that while it’s still not a life I know, Lila’s family was down to Earth. Yes, she was the Queen Bee of the school, but she wasn’t necessarily spoiled. Her family wouldn’t buy her a car until they felt she earned it. I got my car a few months after I turned 16, but I can appreciate parents not giving children everything they want.

I like that in this book Brian did a great job of reaching out to her readers. She obviously knows who is picking up her books and wants to make sure they feel comfortable reading them and can relate. One of the first things in the book is a Gossip Girl reference. She doesn’t say Gossip Girl, but she doesn’t have to. Say Serena and Blair, and all the girls reading know exactly what you are talking about. Also, she mentions Twitter, but doesn’t explain what it is. I feel like a lot of times in movies and on TV when they talk about Twitter, they feel like they have to explain it. I feel like it dumbs down the reader, doesn’t give them anything to question if they don’t already know what it is. And if they do know what it is, they’re not wasting time saying “Duh, I already knew that.”

There really wasn’t anything about this book that I didn’t like. It kept me reading and it was well written. I give Ex-Mas 4 bookmarks.

So, after my post about the holiday books I wanted, I couldn’t make myself wait. I went to the mall twice this week and both times left with holiday books. I am so excited to start reading these, but I am making myself wait until after Thanksgiving. The countdown is on until I can start Christmasing

Bought with giftcards: