Review: My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

Review: My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories My True Love Gave to Me by Stephanie Perkins
Published by Macmillan on October 1st 2014
Pages: 355
Format:Hardcover
Source:Purchased

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you're going to fall in love with My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers (Holly Black, Ally Carter, Matt de La Peña, Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Myra McEntire, Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins, Laini Taylor and Kiersten White), edited by the international bestselling Stephanie Perkins.  Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or Kwanzaa, there's something here for everyone.  So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy.  You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.

Confession: I have never read an anthology before. I have also never read a holiday themed book before. I have read books that have happened to include some kind of holidays of course, but not one specifically designed for December holidays. I figured this would be a good place to start on both counts, but only if I had the pretty blue and gold book with the hot pink pages. Obviously. I figure a nice little blurb about each story should suffice, no?

1. Midnights by Rainbow Rowell This was my first foray into Rainbow Rowell’s writing. The verdict? Success! I shall be needing all her otherbooks immediately. I liked this one so much for a few reasons: I loved delving into the past New Years, I connected with Mags (and related to her so much), and I was impressed at how developed the story was in such a short number of pages! 

2. The Lady and the Fox by Kelly Link Well, I liked this one too! I didn’t completely “get” what happened and what the deal with some of the characters was, but it was overall good. I hadn’t even heard of Kelly Link prior to reading this, but I am going to have to check out some of her other works!4strs

3. Angels in the Snow by Matt de la Peña I really enjoyed this one, thought that the romance was adorable, but Shy’s pride was driving me nuts! Overall, another win! 4strs

4. Polaris Is Where You’ll Find Me by Jenny Han This story and I did not click. At all. At first, I found it silly, and then I found it was bumming me out, and then it just kind of ended. My least favorite of the bunch.2strs

5. It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown by Stephanie Perkins Adorable! I loved it, and I loved the kindness that was shown in a world that can be so very unkind. Definitely a good one! 4strs

6. Your Temporary Santa by David Levithan It was cute and hopeful, but I didn’t feel particularly connected to the characters. It kind of fell flat for me, even though it was adorable in theory.

 7. Krampuslauf by Holly Black Well. This was a mixed bag for me. I did enjoy it, and there were some funny moments, but the whole thing was really pretty weird. And since it was a short story, there wasn’t really time for explanation, so it just ended up being… weird. 2hstrs8. What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? by Gayle Forman Another win. I really related to Sophie and how lonely college can really be. Sophie and Russell were fantastic, and their banter was so fun. I definitely laughed during this one, and I liked it a lot. 4hstrs

9. Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus by Myra McEntire Okay, fine, I really kept thinking about Reba McEntire. Especially with the southern theme. Sorry. But anyway, I liked this one too. The message was really cute, and even though it wasn’t completely enthralling, it was solid. 4strs

10. Welcome to Christmas, CA  by Kiersten White Another solid story. I may have cried a bit during this one (don’t fret, it was happy tears). I really liked the message in this one too, but there was a weird food-magic element, and I still don’t completely get it. Whatever, it is a nice story either way.4strs

11. Star of Bethlehem by Ally Carter Well, aside from the fact that the story was unbelievable, I really enjoyed it. The writing was good, and I really cared about all the characters, even the more minor ones. Another enjoyable one for me! 4strs

12. The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer by Laini Taylor I… don’t know what this is exactly. I mean, fantasy for sure. Anyway, I was extremely impressed with the amount of world building that Laini was able to put into such a short amount of pages! It was kind of incredible. Neve was a likable character too, and I enjoyed the story, although I am still a little confused about “the Dreamer”. But that’s probably on me. This just makes me excited to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone, because if she can create such an elaborate world in 30 pages… well a whole series should be epic! 4strs

Bottom Line: My first anthology and first holiday book was a success! My favorite was Midnights by Rainbow Rowell, for sure! There is truly something for everyone in this book. I loved the amount of diversity too, there were characters from quite a few different backgrounds, which was refreshing. The book brought a smile to my face, and served as a nice reminder about the real reason for celebration and togetherness. 

snl-christmas

So, do you enjoy holiday-themed stuff? I am very picky about the holiday stuff I enjoy, so I am happy to report this as a win! What is your favorite holiday-related “thing”- be it a book, a movie, a song, etc.? 

Posted December 22, 2014 by Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight in Review / 23 Comments

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23 responses to “Review: My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

  1. I’m reading My True Love Gave to Me now – I’m right in the middle of ‘It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown’ and really enjoying the anthology so far. Reading your thoughts is so interesting because so far Polaris Is Where You’ll Find Me has been my favourite! It just goes to show how great anthologies can be, because there really is something in them for everyone. 🙂

  2. I love how you broke it down and rated each story, I’ve heard that some of them aren’t the best so it’s nice to know which ones to watch out for! I’m excited for the ones by Rainbow Rowell and Stephanie Perkins 🙂

  3. This will be my first holiday themed book! And first COMPLETELY READ anthology, IF I manage to finish it. 😉 I remember once trying a vampire anthology and ended up getting confused since back then, I had no idea what an anthology was.

    I’m excited to read Midnights since it sounds cute and relatable. And happy tears from Kiersten White? Yes please! Sold. 😉

  4. WOW SO MANY AUTHORS IN THERE THAT I LOVE AND ADORE. And of course Laini Taylor would stuff a new world in a short story, I am not surprised. AND WOW I don’t even think I can read this until later because I won’t be buying books anytime soon and by the time I get this it will NOT be Christmas 😛

    But awesome review(s) Shannon! I think this is a good way to go about anthologies 🙂

    • Thanks! Hopefully you will be able to read it for Christmas next year or something, there are a lot of good stories, and even the ones I didn’t love weren’t a big deal because they are short! Agreed, the authors in this were amazing!

  5. I literally LOVE half the authors who co-wrote this book, and I’m surprised you didn’t like Jenny Han’s that much because I actually enjoyed some of her books! I’m so glad you enjoyed this, though. I MUST READ IT. Especially Laini Taylor’s because she’s awesome 😀

    Thanks for the review!!!! I never really read books like this, but I’ll give it a show 😉

  6. I am a sucker for all things holiday themed…anything and everything. I’m planning on reading this next as I’ve been waiting till closer to Christmas to read it but then I got really behind on reading and now it’s almost Christmas!!!

    My favorite Chrismas themed something is a book, Dash & Lily’s Book Of Dares, I love it so much!

    Glad you enjoyed this one, Shannon! =)

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