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Ex-Mas Review


Title: Ex-Mas
Author: Kate Brian
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Trigger Warnings: 
My Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis


Two Exes. One holiday adventure. Merry Ex-Mas? Seventeen-year-old Lila Beckwith's parents just left for vacation, and Lila's all set to throw the holiday party of the season. But when her Christmas-obsessed little brother, Cooper, discovers that global warming is melting the North Pole, he and his best friend, Tyler, take off on a runaway mission to save Santa.

Lila has to get Cooper safely home before her parents get back on Christmas Eve. But the only person who can help her is Tyler's older brother, Beau — a.k.a. Lila's musician, anti-everything ex-boyfriend.
It'll take more than a Christmas miracle for Lila and Beau to overcome their differences and find their fugitive brothers. But could a journey destined for disaster help these polar opposites fall in love...all over again?

Review

Kate Brian's Ex-mas is a really cute Christmas story and I am really glad that I chose to read this right before Christmas because it really did start getting me into the Christmas spirit, though it definitely could be read at other times of the year. This story features the sibling relationships really well, both between Lila and Cooper and between Beau and Tyler. The interactions all in context seemed real, both with responsibility and the lack there on put on the older siblings. The relationships in both positive and negative situations are really amusing, especially the main negative interaction between Lila and Cooper that puts the rest of the story into motion.

While I usually find the lack of parents in YA annoying and realistic, the explanations given made a lot of sense. Many of the pieces within this story were more realistic then I would have expected based on the premise of the story. It still remained cute and a fun read. The characters are creative and their ideas are unique and fun, contributing to the plot point in ways that were not exactly what I was expecting. I expected this story to remain pretty close to my expectations, but there were some events that I was definitely not expecting

Many facets of this book were reasonable which made the focus on the relationship even cuter because there was nothing distracting relating to the other plot points. I feel like sometimes in YA romance and in cute holiday stories, sometimes the plot gets so extreme that the characters and their relationships are unable to be focused on, but this book really was calmer in regards to that. Instead, Lila's viewpoint of others, particularly Beau, is what is focused on.

My one problem with this book concerns Lila's character. The story is from her point of view, but the way she views herself is not good. She reflects on some decisions that she made in her freshman year, back when Beau became her ex, but in context to the present, she had a lot of self doubt and really cringes on the person that she had become. This story relied too much on high school stereotypes, where in order to be popular, you have to give up everything that makes you a three dimensional or nice person. I believe that there would have been better and more tasteful ways to handle this discovery of self identity rather than deciding that anyone who likes makeup or going to parties is flat and uninteresting with no real parts to themselves.

Overall, this really was a cute Christmas romance story and I would recommend reading it. The road trip is really cute and the way Beau is into music is really adorable as well and I absolutely loved it. I did struggle with some of the stereotypes, but even ignoring this, Lila is able to discover what exactly it is that she wants to be happy. The final relationship is really adorable and I loved it. It seemed realistic and the book had a lot of characterization considering the shorter length of the book without feeling too crammed in. I would definitely read this to get back into the enjoyment of the holiday season.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I'm going to start posting reviews on Tuesdays, but I figured that I should post this one a few days early and leave the holidays alone. Does anyone have a middle grade, young adult, or adult that they read around this season most years?
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